Revisit: Our First Jason Dill Interview
interview by jason crombie. photos by peter sutherland. This article originally appeared in monster children issue #29, 2010.
Here comes professional skater Jason Dill sauntering down St Marks place in a grey down jacket and silver Slayer pin, smoking a cigarette and looking for all the world like a guy who doesn’t wanna do this.
And why would he? I stood him up last night. We can’t get into it here, but suffice it to say I slightly slighted him, and to get back in his good graces I had to offer him a steak dinner, which he reluctantly accepted. So here I am, standing from the table to shake his hand, smiling like an evangelist, trying to make good on my bad. I wring my hands and apologize for the previous night’s flake-out, and he say’s “It’s okay, man. It’s just interview protocol. Y’know?” And then he sits down, side on, and I spend the first half of the interview looking at his right ear; his awesomely small, shell-like, right-side ear. I want to ask him about the ear, but of course I don’t because he’s still annoyed that I rescheduled our meeting at the very last minute and then lured him back with the promise of meat. Once the dust settles, however, I’ll be asking after that unusually small ear, and the left one too.
So I spoke to one of your buddies today about what I should ask you.
One of your buddies?
One of your buddies: Alex Olson.
Oh, that guys a fucking retard.
First thing he said was MySpace.
What the fuck is that? I wasn’t even on it! It was my roommate that was on it all the time…
And then he said to not mention that. Talk to Dill about fashion, he said.
Is this thing on?
Yeah. It’s recording.
Well let’s start from scratch. So you talked to a young boy named Alex Olson today?
And he said you have this theory about how skateboarding informs everything else in culture – fashion and stuff – which I have to say I agree with.
People have said that for ages. Skateboarders wearing certain things… I see it more like skateboarders wearing cargo pants at one point, like years ago, and then it’s at Gap. I see it more along that line.
You mean the mainstream is copying trends in skateboarding?
There’s always been a correlation between the two. I really don’t fucking care, and if I had said that to Alex at some point…
“Nowadays, I’m super into skating. When someone tells you you’re going to die, you get really excited about things you can’t do when you’re dead.”
He said you would really go on and on about it.
I’ve known Alex since he was probably 13, I might have been inebriated when I was talking about that. It didn’t make much sense anyways. Skateboarders, at times, are a bit ahead of the curve, whatever the curve is. That’s all. Don’t listen to what people say, especially Alex Olson.
How’s living in Brooklyn?
It’s good. I’ve lived in so many places in Manhattan, like Canal Street, Prince Street, Wythe Street, Grand Street. I’ve moved around a lot. I always moved around a lot, since I was young.
I had this one place on Kenmare and Mott for a couple years. I got out of there. Now I live in a basement in Brooklyn. There’s a lot of space.
Are there windows?
There’re two windows but they are offset from the wall so you look out the window and there’s a pit and you look up and there’s the sidewalk. I really do live underground. I like it.
You didn’t come from New York though, right?
No I was born in California. The first time I came to New York I was 16.
Do you miss it?
I don’t miss California, no. That’s why I came here. California stays the same. It’s too bad that New York doesn’t stay the same as when I first came here. That would have been really cool.
What do you mean?
It sucks here now. Full of fucking bullshit everywhere you go. It started with the Whole Foods on Houston. But at the same time, I’m saying that because I had a particularly small world, small group of friends and we’d all stay very tight and cut off from everybody else in the late ’90s, early 2000s, in this 8-block radius that we are in right now. That time’s gone, some of those people are dead, so I’m going to be that bitter-sounding aging guy. People in the late 1800s, early 1900s said the same thing about New York – like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t recognize this block anymore.’ And there was a lot of that, ‘Oh these fucking rich people, out-of-towners, moving to town.’
The Industrial Revolution ruined everything…
You can’t escape what the internet world has done to our cities. I may have to move to Detroit.
You don’t like computers, do you?
They seem to take away everybody’s edit button and everyone turns into these self-promotion machines. I obviously skateboard for a living with skateboards that have my name on them to be sold and there are times the computer works for me. But its just all these internet babies, the kids that are like ten years younger than me, they’re all internet babies, but its all changed, it’s all fine. Just because I had to get ‘put-on-to’ and search for music doesn’t mean they have to go through the same thing.
It is kind of cool though. I enjoyed that about growing up without computers: discovering new things.
I was thinking about it the other night, like, where’s the end? These kids are never going to handle tapes. I even played 8-track because I grew up with older brothers, they are in their 40s, so when I was like 6 years-old, they had Kiss 8-tracks. I’d push those in, and you’d have the 4 songs and you’d have to press the button and you’d have the other 4 songs. These young dudes aren’t going to experience that.
They are kind of getting ripped off. For me, you know, being 15 and discovering the Doors, and then through that finding Jack Kerouac and then through that finding William S. Burroughs… mining subcultures. You can do that in twenty minutes on the internet now
I really don’t like Jack Kerouac.
Kerouac is great when your sixteen, seventeen. You don’t like him, though?
Man, if you’re in the room with some hot señorita in Mexico City doing tons of speed, don’t start describing the fucking chicken in the corner and the lampshade. I want to hear about pussy and shit. I want to hear about big Spanish titties. I want to hear about Mexican titties.
Who do you read?
I like Vonnegut a lot. He’s easy. He’s great. I love Vonnegut as a person, too. When I was a kid my brothers got me into reading, especially my brother Chris, because all the movies that were coming out when I was young like The Outsiders, Rumble Fish and that, those movies were based on books by S.E. Hinton. My brothers would make me read the book before they let me watch the movie. I was angry at the time but it really made me happy.
You’re lucky that you had brothers to do that.
It’s super cool, my brother Chris put me on to so much music. The first concert I went to was The Who. I was like 9 years-old, The Tommy Reunion Tour at the coliseum in LA. It was so bizarre. It feels unreal, too; I’m not that old.
How do you feel about the future of skateboarding?
I don’t give a fuck. I only care about my own future of skating. I don’t know how much longer I have left.
That’s another thing Alex said to ask: what do you want to do after you quit skateboarding?
Fuck, he’s a dick.
Well, let’s talk about you being sober. Can we talk about that?
Yeah, sure.
What brought on your sobriety?
I wound up in the hospital and the doctor told me I was going to die if I didn’t clean up.
You drank that much?
It’s all I really liked to do. If anyone was every wondering why my video parts got shorter and shorter, it’s because I was drinking. I just love drinking. I love the whole lifestyle, everything about it. I love the smell, the women that hang out at night and stuff like that. I like walking super far late at night and going from place to place. I like everything about it. But one day I woke up and I threw up blood all over my apartment. I’ll talk about this at length, but people have to know I love that life; I wouldn’t take it back for anything. I don’t know how I’d feel if the ambulance people didn’t get to me that day because, according to the doctor, it was real bad. I woke up in the hospital and I didn’t know what was going on. I had some internal bleeding and they were like, “You almost skipped out.” So I was like, wow, shit, man. I had jaundice and I thought, “That’s ridiculous, who gets jaundice? Pirates?!” I told the doctor, “Next you guys are going to tell me I have scurvy!” They kept me in there for a little while, in the hospital, and then this doctor that treated me in the emergency room – because I was in the emergency floor for a couple of days and then they transferred me into the ICU – this doctor from the emergency room would come up at night and visit me in the ICU, and he was a really good dude. He would check on me, and he was really straight up with me. He said if I was going to continue that stuff I wasn’t going to be around too much longer, and I was like, nah, you’re just trying to scare me so I don’t have a drink when I get out. I won’t get into it but he shocked me with some of the shit that he told me about my insides.
What was happening with your insides exactly?
It was almost a total shutdown of my stomach and kidneys. Hey, look at that chick. She looks Australian.
Shut up, dude! You’ve obviously never been to Australia.
I spend lots of time there. I’m just joking, man, but I mean, come on, look at her!
Why do you think she’s Australian? Because she’s blonde and her pink cell-phone matches her pink boots? Actually… she kinda does look Australian…Let’s talk about Australia. Do you like it?
I had a girl who lived out there and she was a real sweet chick… Yeah, I really liked it. Lots of speed and lots of drinking
Speed?
Yeah. Lots of speed. I did lots of speed there.
Did they give you shit in Australia about your last name?
About Dill?
Yeah. Did anyone tell you what ‘Dill’ means in Australia?
What does it mean?
“What’s some asshole going to fucking talk about, all the fucking logos on his hat? Fuck that. Fuck skateboarding, unless you’re doing it.”
It’s like, “Oh you’re a dill.” It’s like you’re silly, clumsy.
It’s like an old term?
Yeah. It’s something my grandma would say.
Actually, I do remember that, but no one openly said it to my face, thankfully.
What’s going on with Fucking Awesome?
Business as usual, nothing set it stone. Openly critical like everything else that comes out.
Are you like that? You hate everything you did three minutes later?
I hate everyone else’s shit too, so… I’ve been really happy with what everyone has been telling me about [Fucking Awesome] lately, though.
I like the sidecar t-shirt. I think that’s the last thing I looked at
Which one?
It was like a sidecar?
Oh, yeah. That was a big deal. Hopefully there’s a bunch of new shit that’s coming out soon. I got a lot of time of my hands now.
Really, why?
Because I live in Brooklyn.
Why do you think god hates Brooklyn so much?
I think he hates Williamsburg
He definitely hates Williamsburg. Where are you in Brooklyn?
Greenpoint. I like the industrial section of it, I guess. Tons of shit to skate.
There used to be a really good spot over on the water but I think it’s an apartment complex now. Not sure.
I don’t want to talk about spots.
Oh, come on. Let’s talk spots.
That’s so boring. Have you ever read an interview with some skateboard asshole talking about stairs, fuck that. Fucking stupid.
What should we talk about then?
Have you ever interviewed before?
A couple of people, yeah.
All right, well then do it.
I am doing it, it’s happening.
Any skateboarder who puts himself in the position to be interviewed must be a nimrod.
What are you talking about? You have to do it. It’s part of having a professional career.
No. Not necessarily.
You gotta get out there; give the kids something.
What’s some asshole going to fucking talk about, all the fucking logos on his hat? Fuck that. Fuck skateboarding, unless you’re doing it.
Here’s a question: How’s your steak?
It’s great.
I’m glad. I thought I’d lost you last night.
What do you mean?
Because you sounded real mad in your texts.
See, that’s the thing though…
You were kind of mad…
Slightly perturbed, yeah, but this texting shit is new to me. It’s new to me to have a working phone that does the text stuff.
Are you serious? This is your first texting telephone?
I didn’t have a phone for three years, and when I did have a phone all I wanted to talk to was call my long-term old lady at the time. When we broke up I was like fuck, if you don’t have a regular job, and you don’t have a girlfriend, you don’t really need a phone. It’s true.
Sorry about last night.
Whatever, that’s just interview protocol. I mean if you’re asking, I don’t meet you at home. It’s fine.
Sorry, dude.
No, it’s totally fine.
Do you like olives?
No, I don’t. I like pickles. You like olives?
They’re ok. Do you have any magazine subscriptions?
I don’t have subscriptions to anything
Do you read magazines, though?
I read the paper everyday. Oh, you mean skateboard magazines? Yeah, of course. There was a long time I went without seeing them. Nowadays, I’m super into skating. When someone tells you you’re going to die, you get really excited about things you can’t do when you’re dead.
I’m super into skating right now but I never have a subscription to any magazine. When I go to Mark Gonzales’s house I notice he has a subscription to every magazine, I’m like, shit, I should do that, but I always forget.
All you have to do is shoot off an email or make a phone call and they’ll just send it to you. I’m surprised they don’t do that anyway. In surprised they don’t give all the pros free subscriptions.
It’s a lot of money.
It’s like 20 bucks a year!
Yeah, but per guy?
How many pros are there?
There’s too many probably.
There’s like eighty.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t care to count.
Are there any young cats coming up that you’re excited about?
Grant Taylor. I like Grant Taylor; he’s incredible. He skates for Alien Workshop. There’s Grant. Dylan (Reider)’s only 22, I consider him a kid. I have a lot of faith in the guys who are going to be in my position in ten years: Grant, Dylan, David Clark, he skates for Krooked, kids got a great style. That’s the main thing, you know? People don’t fucking get it, man. You feel kind of funny talking about skating sometimes, especially in an interview. You’re kind of like, who the fuck is going to know what the fuck I’m talking about? I guess it doesn’t matter. The main thing is, some dude is going to 50/50 a 20-stair handrail and do a back flip and land back on the board and grind the rest of the rail. Of course I’m gonna catch that. It’s going to look sick. But nothing, but nothing, but nothing beats style. It’s all in the way each individual fucker looks doing it the way they do it and that’s the one beautiful fucking thing about skateboarding, man: You cannot, not, not fake style. It has to be a completely born-into thing and that’s what’s so beautiful.
There’s this one ollie that Jerry Hsu does in Bag of Suck in the first 30 seconds of his part, and it’s probably the least gnarly trick in the video, but, for me, it’s the best part in a video ever. It’s perfect.
Yeah! I love that shit. It’s so funny the way things are with skateboarding. I love the dissection of it, y’know? It really comes down to the way each motherfucker looks and exactly how they’re doing it. Like when I see someone push, I see them quite a ways down the block, I know who it is, just by the way they push. I saw Julien Stranger push away from me the other day and I had just seen him on Grand Street out here and Julien pushed away from me…I never forget how incredible… Goddamn, that push, man. It’s shocking.
You’ve got really small ears.
I know. I’ve got tiny nipples too. Check it out.
Don’t whip them out here.
Have a look.
Wow. They are really small.
I used to be self-conscious about them, when I was a kid, but then some chicks were like, Aww, they’re cute. So I’m ok with them now.
Last question: Who’s your all-time favorite skater?
Mark Gonzales is my favorite skateboarder ever. He’s the best skateboarder who ever lived.
In the whole world?
Mark’s the best ever.
