| I would rather be skateboarding | |||||||||||||||||
| Jamie Thomas mellon Grab |
JAMIE THOMAS: age:20 home town: Dothon, Alabama currently living: San Diego, CA email address: [email protected] sponcers: Pig Wheels shorty's hardware Zero Mercury Trucks Emerica Retardo Risers | ||||||||||||||||
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 | Method by Jamie Thomas | ||||||||||||||||
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Ron: So Jamie, who or what turned you onto skateboarding? Jamie: There was a lot of kids that lived in Florida. There was a lot of kids at my new school that skateboarded. I thought it was rad, it was different and I got skateboard 'cause I needed a way to get to school in the fifth grade. Ron: Where did you move from? Jamie: From Alabama. It's called Dothan Alabama. Actually, just put Alabama 'cause no one know where the fuck the towns at--it's a small town. Ron: So how long were you skating before you started getting interested in getting sponsored, or taking it to another level. Jamie: For a long time, but I had a lot problems--I broke my leg and stuff. I used to send Polaroid to companies to try and get sponsored, but I wasn't really serious, it was just something to do. (???) get sponsored by Polaroid. Anyways, I thought we could, so I send photos but that just like mucking around with kids or whatever.I don't know what year it was that I really wanted to get sponsored. Ron: How did your first sponsore happen? Jamie: I worked at a skateshop and companies don't mind hooking up kids who work at skateshops because they know it will bring a lot more business to that skateshop. It was actually Delux, Tony Guerrero. I talked to him a lot, since he was actually a sales guy at Delux at the time. He hooked me up with Thunder and Spitefire because that's what he could do. He hooked my up with Shrugy, and from there he started sending me trucks, so I was kinda on the team. At first it was just like a flow deal, and then he started hooking me up more and more. So Thunder and Spitefire, that was my first sponsor. Ron: Were you stoked to get free stuff? Jamie: Hell yeah! I thought it was too good to be true. All my friends didn't believe me, they thought I was lying 'cause I was just one kid working at a skateshop one day and all of a sudden I started getting free stuff. I started sending videos like every month. It was kind of a raw deal, my mom signed for me to get a camera at Sears, and I told her I would pay the monthly payments, but I ended up never paying the monthly payments. I was like fifteen bucks a month Ron: What is the major different now, compared to before you turned pro--like when you were just sponsored and your outlook on skateboarding then? Jamie: I think it was always the same. I was eager and hungry to do stuff that I hadn't done yet. Now it's wierd because I see a different motivation, because there are some people out there following what I am doing, so it makes more of an impact when I do something now. I know it makes more of a difference, and it makes me more eager to do things that I haven't done. It's pretty much a drive. Ron: What was your first official board sponsor when you were amateur. Jamie: Riding for Thunder and Spitefire, they used to send me Real boards, and that was for a few years. I went to a few amateur NSA contests and I made it to the finals. Real lead me to believe that I would be helped at the contest. I went to the contest in Texas, and they told me there would be a guy there who could maybe help me out with a hotel and what not. They were flowing me stuff and I talked to Jeff Klindt a little bit--it takes more than contest. They knew I was more serious than just kid in a small town.When I got to the contest, there was a lot of other people that came on the trip, that they said weren't coming on the trip. So they didn't have any room for me, which was really a big deal because I really didn't expect it, but it would've been nice. So me and my friend just ended up sleeping outside. I sat on the ramps at the contest. So the wheel's already kind of going sour before I got to California, and I was on my way to California then. So I kind of knew that Real wasn't going to be the company I was going to ride for. When I got to California, I wanted to ride for Black Label really bad, and that kind of fell through. I met a guy one day and he told me he wanted to do a company. He let me name it and I was like, wow, that sounds like a good deal--a better deal than I could get anywhere else. He said he'd turn me pro soon. I wasn't really going to turn pro, but it just sounded good like money without having to get a job. I was like whao, that's crazy. I ended up doing that and he let me name the company. I named the company Experience. So me and him just made the company, but all the first stuff that came out of it was so crappy, that Experience was a bad experience (laughs). It turned into poop right off the bat, because we did everything budget--got sketchy screeners with horrible screening. It was a Nor-Cal company without being in the urban triad, without being a part of the whole Southside (???), the South side thing (???). In doing that, you can't get screened anywhere they get their stuff screened--you have to do it in the garage. That's pretty sketchy because they pretty much ban it for you, they don't want you to make a dent in their sales. That actually make sense because that's like their own like... actually it doesn't make sense. Ron: It's competition. Mafia mentality. Jamie: So they tried to make it hard for us. The ownere of the company burned a lot of bridges right off the bat, so he's actually making it hard for himself. We almost had a deal where he could've gotten hooked up by Deluxe, because some of the riders were super rad: Sean Young, and Drake Jones who are both a part of Deluxe now. They rode for it (Experience) back then, and Real wanted to help those guys out so they were going to hook us all up, like maybe distribute or something. But then Roger, the guy who owned Experience screwed it up somehow. It ended up going sour and Deluxe got pissed at us. It was just war. It was only a matter of time before I was tired of buring bridges with Roger, so when the time came, I made another sponsore video for Black Label and I was going to try that again. I sent to uh--actually I didn't even send it. Dan Drehobl had a copy of it at his house and Laban saw it, then a couple of day later he asked me to ride for Invisible. Black Label had been sketchy, but I always liked Black Label anyway. So I got on Invisible and that went well for a long time. Ron: And from there, you pretty much to Toy Machine with Ed (Templeton)? Jamie: With Invisible it kinda felt like I couldn't go anywhere. I wasn't making any money at all--not that money was a big issue, but enough to live on. In order to live and ride for Invisible, I had to live at Dave Bergthol's house, who is the owner of Invisble. I had to live at his house and eat Ramen; but it was just a super struggle. I guess my name started getting bigger or what not. So when I quit Invisble, it wasn't that hard for me to get another sponsor. A few people were calling me, and Toy machine seemed to have a lot of potential so I went with that. I knew Ed would do anything. He had no--there's nothing he wouldn't try or do, you know? There was no limits, we could do anything we wanted--anything. We were all stoked. When I first started riding for Toy Machine, everyone was all, | |||||||||||||||||
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