This is an interview I did with my
friend Buck who I have been skateboarding with for a long time.
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Buck: How did you get into making stuff
for skateboarding?
Kaiser: I built my first skateboard
ramp when I was 12 years old. I took apart the table I used for my
train set for to make a little quarter pipe. It wasn't a good ramp
but I guess it wasn't bad for my first try. I also made a couple
sketchy decks out of plywood. I skated for a couple years and then I
kind of fell out of it for awhile when I got serious about other
sports, especially downhill ski racing. That's when I really got into
modifying or making my own serious equipment.
Buck: What kind of equipment?
Kaiser: Almost all of it. I started by
modifying my helmets. I'd cut them up, add or remove padding, and
then I'd custom paint them. I had helmets with hot rod flames,
camouflage, a spacey silver to blue metallic fade, tiger stripes and
polka dots among other designs. I eventually developed a fairly
unique tuck for downhill racing with my hands right up to my face so
I ended up having to do custom bends on my poles to facilitate that
position.
Modifying stuff got addicting. I once got a pair of boots two sizes too small and tore the stock foot beds out and I cut the shells up to get the kind of tight fit and flex I wanted. Sometimes I went overboard with the mods but that's how you learn. I learned nothing is perfect and can always be improved somehow, even if it is just to adapt for your own style and preferences.
Modifying stuff got addicting. I once got a pair of boots two sizes too small and tore the stock foot beds out and I cut the shells up to get the kind of tight fit and flex I wanted. Sometimes I went overboard with the mods but that's how you learn. I learned nothing is perfect and can always be improved somehow, even if it is just to adapt for your own style and preferences.
Kaiser downhilling.
Buck: Did you get far in skiing?
Kaiser: I guess about as far as a poor
flatlander can get in a super expensive mountain sport where you need
to be training on snow in the mountains 8 months or more a year to
get to the very top. Then there's the politics of who gets chosen to
go to races or for the higher teams, and I had no one in my corner to
defend me from the rich people and coaches who didn't like having a
dirty skatepunk kicking their kids' asses. Lol One of my friends
ended up getting a medal in the Olympics so that was cool and I was
really proud of him.
Buck: So back to skateboarding. When
did you get serious about it?
Kaiser: I never got serious about
skating. Unlike skiing I was never competitive or ambitious about
getting good at it. It was just for fun, which is probably why of all
the sports I have done I have stuck with it for the longest. I never
stressed about trying to be the best. And it was a natural extension
of my musical and artistic pursuits.
Skateboarding is a creative act and skaters appreciate the arts. I was heavily into the punk scene and the whole "DIY ethic" of punk appealed to me. Once I quit skiing I just took all that energy and put it into making stuff to skate because I sucked at street skating and there were no ramps or skateparks around then. Anyways I preferred the speed and flow of bowls and ramps to the street.
Skateboarding is a creative act and skaters appreciate the arts. I was heavily into the punk scene and the whole "DIY ethic" of punk appealed to me. Once I quit skiing I just took all that energy and put it into making stuff to skate because I sucked at street skating and there were no ramps or skateparks around then. Anyways I preferred the speed and flow of bowls and ramps to the street.
Buck: Is that when you started building
bowls?
Kaiser: I built a vert ramp first. It
was 10 feet high and sixteen feet wide. It was pretty good but it
only lasted a couple months before the cops made us tear it down.
Then there were a couple of miniramps before I got a chance to try
building a bowl. An indoor skatepark closed and the owner told me
he'd let me and my friends have the wood if we did the work of
tearing it down and carting it away. Some artist-musician friends of
mine had a huge backyard in the house they rented in the inner city
so I convinced them we should build a bowl. I'd never skated a wooden
bowl let alone build one so it turned out to be a lot harder than I
thought but it turned out pretty well.
The Flaky Hills Compound.
Buck: I remember that bowl. It was
featured in Thrasher magazine.
Kaiser: Yeah that was the only backyard
bowl of its kind in Canada at the time so it got kind of famous in
the underground scene. People came from all over to skate it and the
guys from Thrasher stopped by for a session when they were on tour
with the Real and Antihero teams. Bob Burnquist messed up his ankle
that day. I think he's OK now though haha. A couple months later
Thrasher printed an article I wrote about the building of that bowl.
Pic from Thrasher Magazine's story on Flaky Hills.
Buck: I heard you built another bowl
after that.
Kaiser: I got hired to design and build
a skatepark inside an old movie theater. It was a hell build for
various reasons but I worked my ass off because I wanted it to be my
calling card to get more work. That was another bowl that had people
coming from all over to skate it. (Name dropping alert) Jeff from
Pearl Jam was here one year while on tour and he skated it with us.
When he's on tour he skates parks all over the world and he called
the Blood Bowl the best wood bowl he ever skated. That was quite an
honor and a huge ego boost!
Avenue Skatepark's Blood Bowl
Buck: Is that when you started
Darkspeed?
Kaiser: Sort of. But before that I
actually started out trying to get a kneepad design to market. When I
was a vert skater I was constantly frustrated with pads slipping off
so I made my own pads. They were an improvement but still slipped
down during heavy bails. I eventually realized that the only way to
solve the problem was to completely redesign the concept of a
kneepad. I had meetings with an inventors' investment group to get
prototypes made and then try bringing the pads to market but then
vert skating died and so the market for pads dried up. This was
before skateparks started making a comeback.
Buck: What happened to the kneepads?
Kaiser: They are still on the back
burner. They were such a radical departure from anything that came
before that they would have taken a lot of money to get off the
ground. They still ARE more radical than anything out there and they
are more commercially viable than ever with all the skateparks,
longboarding etc. But even with modern prototyping being more
affordable and overseas manufacturing and all that they still require
more money to get going than I have at the moment so they have to
wait.
Buck: What's so radical about them?
Kaiser: Without giving away any
secrets, they do what I originally set out to do which is stay on
during even the most gnarly kneeslides, even on rough roads. But they
will also be a lot cooler to wear and will stand up to the abuse
longboarders dish out on abrasive concrete and asphalt. They also
won't slide down constantly like other kneepads do and you will be
able to take them apart to wash and dry more easily to avoid the
dreaded "pad rot". With staph infections becoming more
common that's important.
Buck: Cool. So where did Darkspeed come
in?
Kaiser: Me and a friend started making
grabrails for our boards when we built the Blood Bowl so we could do
smith grinds and board slides better on the concrete coping. We made
and sold "Shivs and Shanks" rails for a few years but there
just isn't a big enough demand for old school rails to make it
anything more than a hobby.
At the time we were getting into downhill longboarding so we used the knowledge from making the rails to come up with our own pucks. Like the rails they were just for us but people started asking where they could get some. We'd never even heard of a market for slide pucks but we thought we'd give it a shot. We bought 40 bucks worth of plastic and Velcro and the first batch of Darkspeed pucks went onto the hands of our friends.
Our friends started
going to races and freerides and talking about them on the internet
and word spread quick. Next thing we know we're getting requests from
all over North America for our pucks. It was pretty cool to see our
little garage project in pictures of world champions and other world
renowned riders! That initial 40 bucks was the first and last
investment ever put into Darkspeed. We owe no one money. Especially
banks!
Shivs and Shanks
At the time we were getting into downhill longboarding so we used the knowledge from making the rails to come up with our own pucks. Like the rails they were just for us but people started asking where they could get some. We'd never even heard of a market for slide pucks but we thought we'd give it a shot. We bought 40 bucks worth of plastic and Velcro and the first batch of Darkspeed pucks went onto the hands of our friends.
Original Pucks Package.
Early Sticker.
Zombie T.
Angelina Jolie Zombie T.
Buck: How did you get into gloves?
Kaiser: It took a couple years before
we had the money saved up to pull that off. We ordered some generic
gloves from a company and modified them ourselves, putting the Velcro
on, reinforcing the fingertips and screening the new logo I created
on. It was a lot of work so understandably my partner bowed out since
he has a family and a full time job. He just didn't have the time to
dedicate to it anymore.
It was tough because the same week I was delivering my first batch of gloves I wrecked my leg playing skateboard hockey at the Danger Bay race in B.C. I was in a cast and on crutches for six weeks and had to use a cane for about a month after that so I considered putting Darkspeed on hold but like the pucks before, once word got out about the gloves a lot of orders started to come in. So I got team member Nick Breton to help me make pucks and mod gloves and I did what I could from the couch.
It was tough because the same week I was delivering my first batch of gloves I wrecked my leg playing skateboard hockey at the Danger Bay race in B.C. I was in a cast and on crutches for six weeks and had to use a cane for about a month after that so I considered putting Darkspeed on hold but like the pucks before, once word got out about the gloves a lot of orders started to come in. So I got team member Nick Breton to help me make pucks and mod gloves and I did what I could from the couch.
Darkspeed Gloves v.1
Buck: That was the original glove. How
did the version 2.0 glove come about?
Kaiser: It was the fall and I was ready
to pack it in for the season when an overseas manufacturer approached
me about doing gloves. Initially I was going to do an updated version
of the gloves I already had but with the weak points improved but
then I decided that I should have a completely original design. It
took almost six months of designing, testing and back and forth
discussions with the manufacturer and team member and tester Patrick
Switzer to get the prototypes to where they needed to be but we did
it. The factory was very obliging and patient with me and for that I
am very grateful to them.
Buck: So what is happening with
Darkspeed now?
Darkspeed Gloves v.2 Black
Darkspeed Gloves v.2 White
Kaiser: Well even before my injury I
was dealing with a chronic illness that kept me from working a
regular job. So that combined with the injury made operating things
on my own very difficult. I wear a lot of hats as the designer,
artist, webmaster, shipper, receiver etc and I noticed I was getting
burned out and it was making my illness worse. By the end of last
season I was not well so I knew I had to take a rest and reevaluate
things. I took care of some lingering business, filled my last orders
and then officially put Darkspeed on hiatus.
Buck: When will you be coming back?
Kaiser: Hopefully as soon as possible
but only when certain things are in place to ensure that I am
spending my energy doing the things I do best which is creating new
stuff like the kneepads, a unique truck design, decks, skateparks
made with new techniques and materials and all these other ideas I
have had in mind for years. I just need to find the right people to
work with to make that happen.
Buck: Where do you see Darkspeed going
in the future?
Kaiser: Downhill skateboarding is the
perfect mix of my previous involvement in skiing and the DIY ethic of
art, music and skateboarding. My involvement is definitely an
artistic take on technology and I really enjoy combining the two. I
see no reason why a company like mine can't become a mix of hard
goods, soft goods and creative content such as videos, music and the
other arts me and my friends do. Making money is cool but to me money
is merely another tool that allows me to accomplish creative goals.
In other words, resting on my laurels by just churning out the same
old widgets or generic art for cash has never been a motivating
factor. To me it is the act of pushing boundaries and sharing the
fruits of one's labors that is the most satisfying.
Buck: Ok cool. I wish you luck and
thanks for your time!
Kaiser: Thank you too.
A few custom paintjobs on past decks.
