Another Brick – The Eddie Wall Interview

Eddie Wall does not need an introduction (typical start of an interview cliche) if you don’t know who he is throw it in your favorite search engine. After this interview I went and stopped eating meat, gluten and refined salts until the Shred season started and stop smoking (my addiction was about 1 cigarette every 3 years) What Eddie Wall says goes!

How is Venice Beach treating you these days?

Its awesome. I love the mountains, and never thought I would like living in a city (during summer), but we live right by the beach and the skatepark, so surfing and skating are super accessible. Also there is so much creativity with the music, art, and street performers down here. It’s just refreshing to walk out your door and never know what to expect. You see the craziest stuff on such a daily basis. People are full of life down here.

OK now you have to tell us some crazy shit that has happened in Venice Beach…

Well every single Sunday there is a drum circle that forms on the beach and usually it ends up being a couple hundred people! You can here the drums from miles away. It’s pretty crazy. There are just the usual street performers that do weird stuff and of course the “freak show” where they have a guy with 1000 piercings on his face, the bearded lady, the wolf boy, and 2 head snakes and things like that. There is just never a dull moment on the boardwalk.

You have gone through some life changes recently that have left you with a lack of Nicotine in your system. Was it as hard as everyone said it would be.

Haha. yeah, I quit smoking which is a pretty big deal for me. I never considered myself a full time smoker, but I was pretty much in denial. I just finally woke up and realized I needed to stop. I read this really good book, Allen Carr’s The Easy Way To Stop Smoking. It makes you look at smoking in a different way, makes you happy to not be smoking rather then miss it.

I hear you are also a vegan? Just keeping it crazy healthy these days. I would have a hard time with the whole “can’t eat bacon” thing…

well I’ve never eaten meat in my life. I was raised a vegetarian (technically a pescatarian because we eat fish and dairy). But lately I have cut all dairy and fish from my diet, it just makes sense. If you doubt this at all, just read the China Study. It’s the largest study on human’s in the history of the world, it’s all facts and data. You’d be surprised what they find. It’s like if you have a really nice car, would you pour soda all over the inside? Hell no.. so why do the same to the inside of your body.

People like to go through stages of growth where they grow out of one thing and mature into another. Snowboarding has been going through some transformations as many things do naturally. Do you feel the snowboarding industry has gotten a little to serious compared to when you where filming for Forum/Jeenyus and DC?

Well, when I signed with those companies it was in 2000 and there was a ton of money in snowboarding, so it was pretty awesome. Big budgets, big trips, big projects, etc… it was like the stage where someone makes a ton of money and spends it all and has an epic time… now snowboarding is like that person woke up and realized they have been spending way to much and need to get their shit together. HA! So companies are paying less and expecting more from riders. So yeah, its a bit different now.

Who was the craziest dude on the crew in terms of partying and getting wild. Any Stories about them?

Well back then, it was our team manager Ricky Melnick, he would go nuts! Travis Kennedy was no stranger to the party! But really, we all just filmed and worked really hard and when we had a day off we partied hard! Definitely woke up in some strange places. Once I was partying in Dubai and woke up in Paris! Try explaining that to the people at the airport. HA! Now I’m quite a bit mellower.

Who where some people that stoked you out then?

When I was on Forum/Jeenyus and DC it was all the guys on the team who stoked me out. Kevin Jones, Peter Line, Travis Kennedy, Pat Moore, Blauvelt, Iikka, Lauri, Stevie Bell… shit, pretty much everyone on those teams was motivating me to ride and have fun. We all got to travel the world together doing what we loved, it was an unreal time.

Who gets you going these days or are kids just hucking way too much?

I like the Think Thank crew, they are getting really creative. Muller, Rice, Gigi, and Blauvelt are obviously amazing. The Deja Vu crew is on some next level street riding. The guys chucking triple corks are dope too, I mean people thought we were chucking because we were doing 9’s and trying 10’s back in 2000. I actually enjoy watching the young dudes do the crazy doubles and triples, I’m happy I don’t have to do them. ha

Yeah seems to be every crew has their own way of doing things. Did you get to hang out with any of them at “The Reels” in France?

Yeah, I pretty much hung out with all of those guys in France. The REELS is one of the best things to happen in snowboarding. A true film festival giving credit to the people who deserve it. Not to mention you get see all your friends from around the world and go to some insane parties in a beautiful French town!

Judging the real snow backcountry segment this year, was that a pile of pressure? There were so many bangers in that!

Judging anything is always really hard. Especially the Real Snow Backcountry. We take it really serious with writing out tricks of every part, etc.. All the riders are so good and even doing similar tricks. It’s easy to justify why this guy or that guy is better. It almost comes down to style and opinion in the end, which changes from person to person. All the feedback from the results was positive so we were hyped on that.

How has the transition into being a commentator been working out for you?

Its pretty cool. But its also hard. There are only a few big events a year and most of them already have people they have been working with for a long time like Sal, Keir, etc… So its pretty hard to break into it and be able to do it full time. I really enjoy it, so hopefully I can continue getting some gigs.

Has it changed your perception of snowboarding at all?

No, not really. I loved being at the top of a huge jump or rail and riding away from it. But after some serious injuries and a pretty long career I’m pretty satisfied being at the bottom of the jump talking about how crazy it is rather then the one hitting it.

Any injuries that you have had in the past that are still messing with you to this day?

Yeah, my knee and shoulder. I had three knee surgery’s from shattering my knee cap and 4 shoulder surgeries from a bad collar bone break. I just have some bad arthritis… takes me awhile to warm up weather it be skating, surfing, riding… its always pretty painful. Definitely takes some of the fun out of the sport… but its been quite a few years now that I’ve been dealing with the pain, and I’m pretty used to it now, so even though it’s there I don’t think about it to often.

Any Chance we will see a Peddie Files 2, out on bail?

Haha! I like that sequel name. but unfortunately I don’t think its gonna happen. We were planning on it after the first one, but we weren’t able to raise enough sponsor money to pay our filmer, so it kinda fell apart. But honestly, it’s kind of amazing for me to have my last part in a movie project along side Peter Line, and also to a Bob Dylan song… dream come true.