Interview by Kevin Perez.
What's good Ben? Tell everyone a little bit about yourself, where are you living at the moment?
What's going on, I'm 22 years old and I live in Orlando Florida.
So the word around town is that your running the skate scene here in Orlando. Dropping parts left and right! Is that true?
[Laughs] Nah definitely not running anything. A lot of other guys here put out way more stuff than I do. I just happened to have two friends who made videos recently and got lucky enough to have footage in both.
How do you manage to produce so much footage in the same place for so long?
I don't know, I think living in the same place really helps. You drive by the same spots everyday for years and sooner or later you're going to stop and try to skate it. Or you revisit spots that you may have skated years ago and all of a sudden you think of something new to try there. Filming something around your hometown is always way more fulfilling than filming stuff on a trip. Plus Orlando has so much stuff in the surrounding cities and areas you can usually always think of a spot to go check out.
So what's the deal are you getting hooked up from anyone yet?
No not right now, not getting hooked up by anyone.
How long do you think it took to film this Exhibit part? Or should I say parts. You basically have one in the VX bonus disc as well.
I want to say around a year, maybe a little less? We filmed a little bit, then the first trip we took was to New York last October. It premiered this August, so yeah around a year. That was a fun video, some of the best trips with the best people. And no way I wouldn't consider that stuff on the VX disc a "part." Most of that was left over footage from our homie Tommy Bohn. It wouldn't have been possible without him contributing stuff. Thanks mane!
Do you ever plan on moving out of Orlando, Florida to pursue the SKATELIFE dream like everyone else?
[Laughs] Honestly I don't know if see that happening. I just want to go where my friends are, so maybe if all of my friends moved somewhere. Pursuing the SKATELIFE seems overwhelming though, and Orlando's pretty fun at the moment. Never know though.
Is there anything else you're working on at the moment? How many video parts do you plan on putting out before the year is over?
I'm done man.You've been talking about doing a VX video so we've just been filming stuff for that a lot lately. And I've been filming with Tommy who's premiering his video Swish Vid in January. That's going to be sick, I'm really looking forward to it.
We did a bit of traveling up and down the east coast. Which trip was the best one while we were filming for Exhibit?
Either those quick weekend trips we'd take up to Georgia, or that first New York trip. The weather was so good and I had never been there before, it was so much fun just skating around the city with some of my closest friends. Shout out to your brother for putting us up each trip!
So we all know you're good at skating. But word on the street is that you're the king at ping pong. Is that true?
[Laughs] I don't know about that anymore, I haven't played in so long. I'm always down though, let's get it!
Okay, let's wrap this up. Any shout outs to anyone, thank yous, etc.?
This is going to be the longest response yet [laughs]. Shoutout to Kevin Perez, Jesse Turley, Caleb Hook, Chris Hardy, Tommy Bohn, Billy Dunn, Eli Syed, Willie Wilson, Taylor McCrary, Troy Vetri, Kevin Campbell, Travis Charles, Lam Le, Stephen Knight, Austin Griffith, Bryan Shaefer, Jake Goodrich, Mike Wine, Manny "Roots" Claudio, Cesar Fernandez, Matt Mattos, Manny Atanacio, Travis Grant, Tanner Tinsley, Mike Heikkila, Chad Poore, John Marello, Eric Testerman, Scott Garisson, Danny Dipp, Kanaan Dern, Daniel Mcuctchen, ETRAIN Dupont, Zack Gustafson, Keith Gibb, Rob Wootton, Chris Blake, Max, Juicey and the Outsiders Video squad, SoftHoagieRolls, Poorsport.usa. Extra thanks to Kevin Perez, Jesse Turley, Tommy Bohn, Stephen Knight and Blair Alley for all the coverage on the TWS site.
Ben's 5 Trick Fix
