SEAN PABLO On HIS RECENT MOVE TO EDGLRD
Images By Joel Meinholz
When Sean Pablo hit the scene in Supreme’s ‘Cherry’, he and his cadre of friends ushered in a new era of skateboarding.
Now, Sean hopes to reshape skateboarding in a different way, with his recent move to filmmaker and artist Harmony Korine’s company, EDGLRD. We chatted with Sean about his effort to sue the City of Atlanta, him leaving FA, how he came to know Harmony Korine, and what exactly EDGLRD is.
What are you up to?
Chillin’ man. It's raining right now in Miami.
You recently recovered from a broken leg. How's the recovery been?
It was more of a tear in my ligament. My MCL got partially torn. It was a tibia plateau fracture or whatever, too. That healed up pretty quick, but I still have to go to physical therapy regularly. Or just do it at home. I just have to constantly exercise it, pretty much. But yeah, it's good. I'm back skating, which is nice. I couldn't skate for at least a year.
What did you do while you couldn’t skate?
I had this little art show thing in New York. I had crutches and stuff. It really sucks to not be able to walk in New York.
What has skating been like coming back? Have you been fearful that you’ll injure yourself again?
I’m not really nervous about it. It really feels like, for the most part, it's 100 percent healed. Though I do lose strength more easily now. I don't know if that makes sense.
So you get tired more quickly when skating?
Yeah, exactly, whereas that never used to happen. It’s purely around my knee. Warming up is kind of harder because I really just have to like, get it going. If that doesn't go away, I might have to get surgery on it.
I don't know if I'm misremembering, were you trying to sue the taxi company or whoever hit you?
Yeah, we’re suing the City of Atlanta. It was a fucking undercover cop. The lawsuit is happening, but I don't know when the trial is. It's probably going to be pretty soon though. We have a pretty good case, I would say.
Yeah, you can just show them your x-ray and say, give me the money.
Exactly.
And can you disclose what kind of payday you’re expecting? Will you be retiring as soon as you win the case?
Yeah, exactly. The day I win (laughs). I don't really know the number. It's hard to say.
You recently left FA, too. What was that process like? How did Dill and AVE take it?
It was hard to do, because I've been with them for so long and we didn't know what this new project would look like, or how it would turn out. It was a little bit of a leap of faith, I guess. It took me some time to make sure it was the right thing to do. But yeah, it definitely sucked. Dill was cool though, for sure. It's all love.
Was there any thought about going to a more conventional company? Or was it only when EDGLRD came about, that you thought, okay this is interesting?
Yeah, there was really no reason for me to leave FA, other than getting a really cool opportunity.
Let’s talk about EDGLRD. What is it?
That’s such a hard question. It’s Harmony [Korine]’s design studio, I guess. He's working on films, animations, video games and pretty much everything you can think of. They recently produced a movie that's about to come out called Aggro Drift. That's basically the launch of EDGLRD. It’s a design collective and then also a skateboarding company.
Harmony is a great filmmaker and when he came to me with the idea, I really just trusted his vision as a filmmaker and as an artist. He told me that he wanted to make skate videos that are just totally different from what's being made right now, and that's exactly what I wanted to do. We're working on a video now, we have a little team too which is stacked.
I'm excited for everyone to see what the whole team has been working on, which is pretty next-level shit.
How'd you meet Harmony?
I met him in Miami, probably when I was around 20 or 21. He's mutual friends with a few of my friends and I was always a big fan. My friend took me over to his house one day, and he said he recognized me from Supreme. I was so honored that he knew who I was. I didn’t expect that at all. He’s super into skating, so we kept in touch. He would always ask me stuff about skating and send me cool skate videos and photos.
Him and Mark Gonzalez have been friends forever, so he has pretty deep roots in skating, I would say. And then, one thing led to another, and now I live in Miami.
Did you move purely because of this project?
I mean, I was a little sick of New York. I was in LA for a little while, which was nice, cause that's where I'm from. But basically, once I quit FA and now had a skateboard company I had to help start, I just thought, yeah, fuck it. Why not get a year lease?
Right, and then what does the skate program look like? You mentioned you're stacking up a team at EDGLRD, are you the head honcho? How does it all work?
I wouldn't say I'm the head honcho (laughs), but me and Harmony decide who gets on and who doesn't.
Can you reveal who you’ve got so far?
Yeah, I can. It's me, Elijah Odom, Reza, my friend Coleman, and Vincent.
Touzery?
Yeah.
And you’re working on a video?
Yeah. I'll have a part, we're gonna travel and do the whole thing. It's gonna be like a tropical vibe.
Cool. Were there any companies that you looked at as sort of the blueprint for what EDGLRD could be?
I think the closest thing to what this could end up becoming in skating would be like, Girl and Chocolate, because of Spike Jonze. He had the resources.
Harmony wants to do cool shit too, with his reach. And he could really like do whatever the fuck he wants. He filmed his last movie with NASA infrared cameras. It'd be pretty amazing if we filmed skating like that. No one has ever seen that.
That’d be nuts. They filmed Aggro Drift all in Infrared didn’t they?
Yeah, it’s nuts. There’s also this thing called the point cloud camera. It's so crazy. It looks like the fucking matrix.
Basically, we would be like skating and there'd be somebody in front, filming us from a car while we're skating toward them. After it’s filmed, you can watch the clip of you skating down the street from any angle. From the bottom, or the top, it makes no sense. You could do a tre flip and then play it again and again from a different angle each time. It uses sonar or whatever to make a 3D rendering of the room, the environment or whatever.
We haven't even really scratched the surface of what we could do with skate videos.
How much of a calculation was it to leap into such an experimental project? You compare it to Girl, but it’s like if Girl were ten times more experimental and also worked on all these different things simultaneously, rather than just being a skate company.
Well, I was solicited for this project, I really didn't seek this out. Once I saw what was possible, when it was explained to me by Harmony, I was just like, okay. This is too good to say no to.
Obviously, we don’t know if the brand will be successful or whatever. So in that way, I guess that's a little scary. But really, I think everyone just wants to make great skate videos and boards and graphics and just make a really sick company.
And what else have you got cooking in 2024?
Other than skating, I’m thinking about making a new clothing company, but I don't know, maybe just stuff with PARADIS3. We’re doing a trip to South America for EDGLRD too.
Why create a new clothing brand separate from PARADIS3? What would the intention be behind that?
It would be nice to make kind of more bougie stuff. A little fancier, less like merch. I think we'll be able to do all that stuff through EDGLRD though. It could even be like a partnership.
Alright. Well, that’s about all my questions. Is there anything else you want to add? I always ask people, is there beef you want to start? Is there someone you want to throw shade at?
(Laughs) Holy shit. Wow. I’m sure there is, but nah no beef, no beef. I’m keeping it love.
I can respect that. Alright Sean, thanks for chatting.
You too man.