Interview: Akram Abdelfattah

Generally, the interviews we print in Monster Children run 2500–3,000 words, which works out to be roughly twenty-minutes of recorded conversation.

When we transcribed this interview with professional skateboarder, entrepreneur and—let’s be honest—hippie Alex Olson (conducted by his friend Akram Abdelfattah it came in just under 17,000 words. Dudes talked forever. And it was all gold. Well, mostly gold. The meaningless adverb ‘like’ accounted for around 5,000 of those 17,000 words. Which was helpful because after we cut them, we only had to trim another 12,000 to get down to the requisite 2,500–3,000. Long story short, we had to come at this bastard with a whipper snipper to get it down to a reasonable length.

What you have here then, is an hours-long meandering conversation about surfing, skating, running a business, Steve Olson, Wim Hof veganism, sobriety, and the secret to living a happy life, all distilled into a sensible and very digestible 2664 words. Enjoy.

When I first heard you left LA for New York, I was like, ‘Oh fuck!’ And then when I heard you were all sober and healthy, I thought, ‘Oh, maybe he’s not the same asshole anymore.’

I’m the asshole?

Yeah. What influenced you to get clean and sober?

I don’t know. I think Dylan (Rieder) and my grandma passing at similar times made me look into it more. I just started reading about it, you know John Joseph?

John Joseph who wrote Meat Is for Pussies?

Yeah. I read his book and I was like, ‘I’m gonna try this; see if I feel a difference,’ and it went from there. Then I did these Wim Hof online courses and from there I started meditating and just diving into it. Then I heard rumours about me being an anti-vaxxer.

Are you?

No. But people are saying I’m that crazy.

Well, let’s back up a little bit. You’ve figured out a healthy lifestyle and integrated it into your skateboarding, and obviously this will add years to your career. Because you’re at fully-fledged vegan, you don’t drink…

I don’t know, dude. After twenty years or more of skating, my fucking body is all fucked up, you know what I mean?

Right.

So, I thought, ‘What can I do to improve that?’ The [sobriety and veganism] also comes from having stomach issues. I went on a Quiksilver trip to Peru and came back feeling lethargic one day out of the week. Then it became two days, then three and four and five. And I was just like, ‘Dude, this sucks.’ I just felt gross and unhealthy. And I went to a doctor, and he goes, ‘Yeah, you have a parasite in your stomach,’ and he gave me a pill I’d seen on TV which was completely not for what my issues were. So, when it didn’t really go away, I decided to try and figure it out myself. And that’s why I stopped drinking. I cut that out first and it helped a lot, but I was still having problems. So, then I stopped eating meat and all that.

What was the first thing you picked up: eating right or Wim Hof?

I mean, that’s a big gap from when I started getting into breathing techniques and all that stuff. At the time, I was just seeing what would happen if I cut certain things out of my diet.

Right.

Also, Dylan was a big part of it. Because I was like, ‘This guy is sober and he’s skating really well.’ And Andrew Allen was another one who had stopped, and he was filming a bunch. So, I was like, ‘I got to get on this program.’ But Dylan would get mad at me, like, ‘You don’t need to be sober!’

Dylan was telling you not to be sober?

He was just like, ‘You don’t have a problem,’ and I’m like, ‘Relax dude.’

So eating right and not drinking was the first thing you dipped your toes into. What about Wim Hof?

I got into Wim Hof stuff, which is just breathing technique, breathwork. And that led me to yoga and Pranayama and all that.

Is anybody else in skateboarding into this or veganism or whatever?

I know a lot of people who are plant-based. I think Kenny Anderson had a big influence on the Converse team. But with meditation and stuff, the idea isn’t as foreign to people anymore, and now people are a little more open to trying it out. The perception of it has shifted.

What were the perceptions of meditation?

I think it was maybe seen as this thing that people from India or Tibet did and that was that. But now I think—especially with the rise of app culture—it’s become more of a globally accepted thing. I think Instagram plays a role in that, when people are all about being positive influencers and all that. It plays into the bigger picture.

While we’re talking about being healthy and staying fit, it seems these days the kids in surfing and skateboarding are training more, doing core workouts and cross-training and stuff. What do you think of that?

Yeah, I mean, I’ve done it. But to be honest, I just think go to fucking yoga—it’ll match all that other stuff and it’ll loosen tension.

Tension?

I mean, from what I’ve seen, we all hold tension in our muscles in various forms. And if you’re more limber then the tension can move. Anyway, for me, it works. Some people like pilates, some people like CrossFit, some people like swimming. For me, yoga gives you all that.

What about the mental benefits of yoga?

Oh yeah, you’re getting a full 360 out of it. I think Hatha yoga definitely gets you to that point of being in the now, you know what I mean? Like when you’re surfing, you’re not thinking of anything else because your mind’s focused on so many different things that nothing can distract you. And that’s kind of like enlightenment. Skating for instance: doing a trick, you don’t really think of other things because you’re so focused on the task at hand; everything else stops. And so that’s basically the same thing with meditation. Wim Hof is all about going in the cold. And when you’re in thirty-degree [Fahrenheit] water, your mind’s not really rattling off a grocery list or blah, blah, blah. It’s focused. And so, yoga is the same thing: sit in the pose and focus on what you’re doing at that moment.

Recently, you’ve been texting me screenshots of Tom Curren riding these Frankenstein boards and stuff like that. When did you get back into surfing? Because I imagine you did it when you’re younger with your dad?

My introduction to surfing was through my dad and my uncle. But I didn’t like it. And we lived in Malibu at the time.

Why didn’t you like it?

I just hated the mentality, especially in the nineties; it was nasty. It was super local, you know, Pennywise, NOFX, fucking Black Flys, and big dudes with tatts fighting… It was not interesting. That was my introduction. I was like, ‘God, I don’t like this.’ I liked boogie boarding, but my dad was like, ‘No, you’re not allowed to do that.’

Did you ride a Mach 7?

Yeah. I think I was on a Mach 7.

No, fucking way.

Yeah, I had one with fins. And then I think I saw the Modern Collective video, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is cool.’ I skated for Quiksilver at the time, and I was like, ‘Oh, I want to go on a surf trip. I want to learn how to surf.’ And they would never bring me on one. Everyone scoffed at the idea.

The skate guy getting into surf.

Yeah. And Dylan surfed, so I was like, ‘I want to, too.’ So, I started.

And he left right after.

Yeah! We’re on the same team, and he’s like, ‘I’m leaving.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait, what? I just got on!’

Didn’t the same thing happen at Vans?

Yeah, exactly. I got on Quicksilver and Vans, and I’m like, ‘We get to go on trips together now!’ And he’s like, ‘I’m quitting.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Gravis,’ and I’m like, ‘Gravis? Are you kidding me? That snowboard company? You’re fucking kidding me.’

Especially with the shoes they had out at the time.

Exactly. Anyway, I saw the Modern Collective video and I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool, this is more like skating.’ It had electronic music and Dane Reynolds and Jordy Smith doing big airs and they’re surfing different and there wasn’t the aggressive surfer vibe. So, I’m like, ‘I can skateboard. This shouldn’t be that hard to learn.’

Good learning curve?

I don’t know. I was doing it and then I fell out. I didn’t have any friends to do it with.

What got it fired back up again recently?

I went on a trip with my dad to Waco, Texas where they have the first wave pool. And I had never gone front-side surfing, I just caught a couple of waves and was like, ‘Oh, what is this—front side?’ I never liked surfing because going backside is so foreign and everything in California is predominantly rights. So, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to get good at this.’

Are you creeping on Curren’s Frankenstein boards and [George] Greenough and stuff?

Yeah. Tom Curren is an interesting guy. He’s good. He’s an introvert and he just rides weird boards, you know what I mean? Greenough is the godfather, and all the cool innovation stuff is like… Like Neil Blender and Mark (Gonzales) and all those guys. It’s ingenuity. Those guys and the Greenoughs and the Currens of the world are the interesting ones—and I mean interesting because they have a different approach.

Do you know who the upcoming surf kids are?

No, I’m really bad at it.

What about the current guys?

Well Craig [Anderson] and Dane [Reynolds], they’re both sick. [Dave] Rastovich for sure. Fucking [Steph] Gilmore. She’s cool. I don’t understand why she doesn’t enter guy contests at this point. [Rob] Machado for sure. Lopez.

Gerry Lopez?

Yeah.

Alex Knost?

Yeah. I like Alex.

What do you think of contemporary skateboarding, like with up and coming kids and stuff?

I don’t know, it’s not interesting for me right now.

Really? And why is that?

It’s hard to stay interested after twenty-something-years. It’s hard to be excited or to find something new… I just… I feel maybe we don’t see as much creativity anymore. And maybe that’s how it should be? I mean, a lot of the rules have already been written. That’s why surfing is cool, because you can just take a different board out and it completely changes.

Let’s talk about music. You’ve been DJing and making music. How’d that come about?

It’s something I’ve always done; I’ve had turntables since I was a kid. And then when I moved to New York, I had my friend Andy Brown, and hanging out with Andy it’s all about disco and house music, which opened the whole world up for me because (at the time) I didn’t listen to anything but metal or hip hop. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Maybe The Smiths and The Cure and some eighties, and maybe some alternative rock, but that was it.

How serious has DJing been? Do you have an agent?

Yeah.

Where have you been booked?

I went and played in Ibiza for an hour.

How was that?

It was a trip.

How big was the crowd?

There was no one.

Okay.

I mean, I was super early. I played at like 6 AM.

Tell me about Bianca [Chandon] and 917.

Well, they were both experiments, you know what I mean? I was just like, ‘Oh, let’s just see what happens.’ I had no business plan, no nothing. And really, I had no ambition for it to get as big as it did. I was just like, ‘All right, we’ll do this little fun thing.’ And then it turned into…

A big machine.

Yeah. It was like gremlins, don’t feed them after midnight or a fucking bunch more will come. Don’t put water on ‘em.

Has it grown to a point where it’s intimidating for you?

No, it’s not intimidating. I have the tools to take it to whatever next level it needs to be taken, you know what I mean? But, yeah, I was just doing it for fun and then everything fell in place.

Where do you want to see the companies go?

I don’t know.

You still figuring that out right now?

Yeah, kinda. I think anybody that starts a brand like… It gets to the point where it’s grown and where there’s success, and then there’s this…

Plateau?

I wouldn’t say a plateau. It just reaches this point where it’s making money, it’s doing well, and then it’s like, ‘Do I make it grow [or] do I cut off some branches so it stays alive longer, so it stays fired up in people’s minds?’

How do you integrate your interests into the companies?

It’s interesting because you want to have a company you can tie your influences to so that it’s an extension of you, but when you start adding a team, they have their ideas as well, and it becomes this broader…

It has a broader collective of influence?

Right, which is really cool.

How’s surfing in New York?

I mean, three to four [feet] is good at Rockaway, like, you should probably go out.

That’s your spot, right, Rockaway?

Right. But Rockaways, I mean, there’s a lot of people in the water. There’s rental vans and people take the A train all the way and just rent a board and a suit and it’s fucking packed. All the jetties are packed.

Nightmare scenario.

Yeah. So, it’s not the best place to go surfing. But I bought a car, so I can get out there easy. Lately, I’ve been seriously thinking, ‘Fuck, I don’t even care. I’ll just live in a van.’ But now when I went to Rincon and fucking County Line and there’s these people in their fifties and sixties that just live on the beach. And you’re like, ‘Oh shit. If I’m not careful, that’s going to be me.’

What are you doing to avoid that?

Nothing. It’s funny, I watched my dad for so many years, and he’s always lived this very bohemian lifestyle, you know what I mean? And I’m like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t have a job. Why doesn’t he have a normal [house]?’ And you get to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s ultimately happy and he’s doing what he wants to do.’ He’s never really tied down to anything, and that’s what maintains his happiness. But I never understood that, or had that foresight to understand that because…

You were too young at the time.

Exactly. But ultimately, he’s doing what he wants to do. And I’m happy with the way he raised me. If and when I have a kid, I’ll be raising him or her the exact same way. He was always very supportive and very open. He had his opinions, of course, and he instilled in me a moral compass, you know, ‘don’t steal,’ but he was always very supportive of whatever I was interested in… Except boogie boarding.

Right.

I have this big fear of him dying because I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s so unhealthy. He smokes, he drinks, he doesn’t take care of himself. All his friends are dying around him. He’s not waking up to the message.’ But he’s in the moment. And for me, through all the yoga and reading and all that stuff, I’ve finally come to understand that if you have a positive attitude and are able to be in the moment—you’ll live well. You’ll be happy.

To revisit this interview in tactile 3D, grab a copy of Monster Children 66 for the low, low price of Whatever-You-Want. That’s right, you decide how much to pay. Insanity. Here’s a playlist Alex made for us and you.