An Excerpt From Our Interview With Fancy Lad
/To read the full interview pick up issue 5, a thing you can do by clicking this link! Wow! HTML!
KP: How did Fancy Lad get started?
BIG: The name Fancy Lad came from me working at a cafe with Legs who I guess you could say is on the team but not really because he doesn't really skate anymore. Same with Vey. I wish they had full parts but it's impossible to get it out of them. I was working at this bakery with Legs and our manager Phil was, I don't know how to describe him besides he was very...let's say, pretentious and kind of a snob...a little prissy in ways. We used to call Phil, Fancy Lad Phil. We got that term from Cabin Boy, the movie with Chris Elliot. So I was working there and we were using that as a derogatory term for really rich, pretentious hipster people. We thought it was funny because we were gonna make this low-fi, really shitty looking, whatever it is video. We were making that video and we finished it and I pretty much had no ambitions at the time. I was filming Fiske who skated for Heroin and he wanted to edit his own part. We just ended up making that video and it was just an afterthought. We showed it to Arty who used to own Coliseum and he suggested just printing one graphic and seeing what happens. We actually printed that VHS graphic which is still our best seller today. So, I guess we got lucky that he decided to print that one.
KP: So you always had that grimy VHS, comedy style from the first video?
BIG: Yeah. There were some parts that were kind of meant to be funny but the comedic aspect wasn't as prevalent in the first one. The first one was supposed to be intentionally shitty and breaking all the rules just so you could start from scratch. Obviously, if we're making this you can't really criticize someone intentionally trying to make something fucked up....we figured whatever we did if we made something that was just completely destroyed and an abomination it would still be uniquely more interesting than everything that was cookie cutter at the time. I think the idea was there but I don't think our skating was there besides Fiske. Like I said we were just skating and filming but not caring at all. Fiske had a big influence in that first video too because he was editing his part and I think that kind of influenced a lot of the video and I just followed suit afterward.
KP: One of my favorite parts of Fancy Lad is seeing tricks I've never seen before and boards I've never seen before. Where did that start?
BIG: I can't even say when that started because that's always been the skating I've always gravitated towards and it's always been my favorite. We used to skate for Coliseum and right around the time of the Boston Massacre vid it was a shift in focus from the biggest trick you can do to a trick you haven't seen before. Those were always my favorite videos like the Tilt Mode videos. I would always just wait for a trick that I hadn't seen just to rewind it a million times. Those are the closest thing to what I wanted to make. I always describe our videos as an entire full length but it's after the credits. That's where they disregard all the tricks that weren't good enough but to me were much more interesting just because they're, "goof tricks". But they're much more interesting than what's in their part but for whatever reason, it doesn't have the same value. I don't know who's gauging this skateboard point system. There was never a eureka moment it was just a slow build towards what we enjoy. Simon Woodstock is obviously the originator in board manipulations. Just to give credit to him.
KP: If Zumiez came to you and said, "We want Fancy Lad to ramp up production cause it's gonna be everywhere. We'll buy you out." Or whatever. Would you consider?
BIG: Well it's a little different with Fancy Lad, Fancy Lad never preached any core morals. Come on, front me that big check. Hell, I'll take a check from Mountain Dew, whatever company loosely related to skateboarding. I mean we all work full time jobs I don't know if everyone knows that. That makes everything way harder because we really have to utilize our time. Usually when people work, after their jobs they want to go home and Netflix and Chill, instead of trying to make the greatest skateboard company of all time. It would be a lot easier to make videos more often if it was our soul focus. It's probably not that surprising that we all have full time jobs. Is it?
