Words and photos by Andrew James Peters

With the constant flood of new content, it’s easy to miss the good stuff.

Your feed can be buried in garbage within seconds, and it seems the art of putting in time and effort has, unfortunately, fallen victim to the never-ending refresh button. If you’ve landed here at Monster Children looking to find some of the more meaningful releases, make sure to hit play on this new full-length, ESP 2. I sat down and chatted with two ends of the spectrum—Ethan Loy, one of Elements longest serving pros, and the newest addition to the squad, Greyson Beal—to get their takes on working toward another classic.

Ethan Loy

How are you, mate?

Chilling. I’m in the backyard, eating food and watching the chickens go round and around.

So, how long have you ridden for Element?

At least eight years. I got on when I was 16, so… Shit, dude, ten years. I literally hadn’t even put that together.

You’ve been on half the time that Element has been around?

Nah, they’re at 30 years now. I know Nick is the longest surviving rider on the team right now; he’s been on for, like, 15 years.

Who’s the newest to come up on the team?

I’d have to say Eetu and Leon. I just met those dudes. I’ve known Greyson for a while, so I’ve seen him ripping for years. All those dudes are rad, and all their footage shows that. Vinicius, too. That dude is incredible.

It seems like the Europe side of the team has really taken off. How did that come about?

Everything started switching around ‘cause there were a bunch of changes with the US team. There have been divisions of Element for a very long time, like Brazil Element and Japan Element, etc. They also have their own ams and flow teams, but once it shifted gears after Peace, it became more of a global team. Dudes like Madars and Jakko were already a huge part of it, which turned into it just being, like, ‘Let’s have a big global team.’

Was the whole ESP series initiated by the Europe team?

Technically it is a nod to the beginning of Element, which was Element Skateboard Projects when Third Eye View came out. It was the Element before the Element that people know now. Julien Stranger had a part in the video, and Stevie Williams had footage. A ton of legends; really sick shit. So, it’s a nod to the origins of where it really started. That is probably one of my favourite videos, next to Elementality. I think Dan Wolfe made the whole video; obviously, he is incredible.

Are you working on an ESP 3 next?

We had a team meeting just the other day. We have some plans, but it won’t be next year, probably the beginning of 2024. Everyone is gonna be doing their own thing and stacking footage around their hometowns.

How long were you working on this last video?

There’s a handful of tricks that are pretty recent, within the last five to six months, but other than that, like the front board to front board I’d been sitting on for a couple of years; I got that at the beginning of Covid. My footage was more local ‘cause I didn’t get to travel with the guys as I was handling knee shit for years prior to that. I had a long hiatus while these guys travelled for the video.

How long had you been out of commission

Shit, it feels like seven years now. I’ve had three knee surgeries total, all ACL reconstructions in the past seven years. I’ve got two parts done within that time, and I’m still sitting on another part’s worth of footage. They didn’t use a lot of the footage in that video ‘cause they wanted to keep it pretty short and sweet. Originally, ESP 2 was supposed to be an hour long, but a video can drown you out if it’s that long, so we cut it down to halfway. It made it a bit more entertaining with fewer clips; there was no filler.

I feel like that is better these days.

Especially in this day and age with our attention spans. Thirty minutes is almost too long for most people.

What are you gonna do with the leftover footage?

I’m gonna keep stacking and then see if anyone wants to release it for me, hint-hint (laughs). From what I have so far, I’m really stoked on it, so I wanna just keep skating. That’s all I want to do.

What is your favourite clip from ESP 2?

It’s gotta be the dump-truck to grind into the Brass (Nick Boserio) bank. Or the nose bonk nose manual to grind around the curved rail in DTLA. Fucking incredible. I was there every day of those tries. Pretty relentless. His skating and his persistence are gnarly. Every day was probably 3 to 4 hours of battling. It was in a four or five-day span, and we went three days. He needed a day or two off cause he got broke on a couple of the tries—credit-carded the rail, you know, like, kinda assholed the rail (laughs). He was figuring it out every day. On the second day, he locked into one that was promising enough but was scared shitless ‘cause he was on the inside of the rail the whole time, whereas his plan was to stay flat on top of the rail. On the third day, I was running to grab Curren Caples’ HPX, so I could try to film a second angle of it, and I was like, ‘Nick, dude. I think the only way that you can do it is if you hug the inside of the rail,’ and he was like, ‘I know, but it’s the sketchiest shit,’ ‘cause you don’t know if you’ll actually make it to the bottom or swing out on the inside, ‘cause there’s so much momentum on that rail. Obviously, the nose jam to nose manual is not an easy trick either, so the combination of those two was just incredible. To see his approach to it and how long it took him to get it. When he finally did it, it was the best you could possibly do, and it was such a fucking awesome moment. It was just Dave, Nick, and I there, too. There was one homie that just happened to skate by as he did it, and he was just blown away. It was an hour before it was about to get dark, and he had a flight to Barcelona the next day, and filming was going to be done for him, so he had a lot of pressure riding on that last day—and he pulled it.

Greyson Beal

How long have you ridden for Element?

I was getting flowed for what is coming up on six years, but I have officially been on the team for, like, two years now.

So, you’d been getting boards for quite a while, but then they were like, ‘We want to start to take you on trips’?

Exactly. They brought me in and made it official. Before that was like four years of being flown boards and whatnot.

Did you know you were gonna have a part in this video?

Yeah, they told me straight away they wanted us to know upfront to give us a bit more drive.

What was the first filming trip you went on?

The first one was to Paris, but they did two different weeks with two groups. I was a part of the second week.

Wasn’t that only just last year?

Oh, yeah, it was 2021. There was a little downtime at the end of 2021, and then we really started to do a lot of trips at the beginning of this year.

What was your favourite trip?

Probably the Paris trip because it was my first time to Europe and to be introduced to that culture there.

Was there anything you tried out there that you were freaking out about getting hurt on your first trip to start a video?

Yeah, for sure, the ollie into the glass was the very first day. We were just skating past that famous five block that Reynolds and all the dudes skate in Stay Gold. It’s in the back of that place, and you can kind of see it through the fence. There’s a bunch of those hubbas lined up, but that was the only one with glass next to it. The other ones had soft ground at the top, so I just gambled and hopped the fence solo. We had a squad of like fifteen people, so we were all going to hop the fence to check it. That one, the ground was actually concrete, making it possible. The filmer and photographer hopped over with me, so now I had all these dudes outside waiting on me to try it, and for me, it was the craziest trick; it was so hectic. That was definitely scary. It was the first day, and I figured I could get smoked right here and be dust for the rest of the trip or the video.

And you’re in a foreign country, first time being overseas and everything.

I was definitely gambling up there, but luckily it worked out.

What was your favourite clip in the whole video?

I think some of Nick’s (Garcia) tricks really stand out. Like, obviously, the last trick is super gnarly and unique. Lowkey, that manual trick that Eetu (Toropainen) does; he does the 180 fakie Manny to fakie nose grind down the hubba.

Yeah, that was insane, and he is flying, and you’re thinking, ‘Where is he gonna go?’

That kid is so sick.

Who’s the newest dude on the team, one of the younger euro dudes?

I think it’s me. They might have put some of us all on at the same time, like Victoria (Mendonca) and Vinicius (Costa), but I want to say I’m the newest am—on the US team at least.

I heard there’s a bunch of footage left over—you got any?

Yeah, I was literally just chopping it up before I texted you. I’m trying to figure out a place to put it all. I’ve got a good little grip, and I’m still filming, so I think I’m going to keep working on a new project but then also get rid of this older stuff ‘cause I’m sitting on stuff that’s getting pretty old, but it’s still got some value. Just gotta put it out already. I’d love to try to do a Thunder part with the remains of this project. I know those things are usually short, so it won’t have to be the most footage.

Keep it short and sweet, straight to the point; that way, no one’s expecting some magnum opus to change the world.

Definitely, after that, I want to really focus with one filmer. Have a bit more intention and have some art direction behind it, so everything looks somewhat similar and flows together.

What’s up with the rest of the year? You got plans for the holidays?

I wish I could go back and visit family in Florida, but things are a little tight right now, so I guess I’m staying here on the west coast. I do have kind of like a second family down in Huntington Beach, so I might spend the Christmas holidays with them and lay low. Definitely gotta keep filming, though.

What is one story from the premiere night in LA?

It is kinda blurry after the video; I’m not gonna lie. Maybe Victoria popping the champagne bottle in the theatre. I got no idea how that got in there; I think she snuck one in.

Feast your unworthy eyes on E.S.P 2, here.