Jon Nguyen Substance Interview

After landing on the scene via Tiltmode’s 2008 release, Bonus Round, Jon Nguyen had more or less gone quiet over the past seven years. Almost terminally written off as perma-flow—following stints on enjoi and a brief flirtation with Toy Machine—in 2011 it seemed Jon had finally found his real home when he became an official am on Blueprint. Unfortunately, only months out of flow-gram purgatory, Blueprint itself would go on to suffer its much-publicized implosion, with the entire team plus Dan Magee and Paul Shier all abandoning ship. Finally settling in with Shier at Isle, 2015 may finally be the year that Jon Nguyen’s silky smooth style gets its due. With a part in Isle’s first video out by the time you read this, his first cover on the very mag you’re holding, and an official spot in Substance, the next TWS video, here’s Jon’s take on the long road from Bonus Round. - Mackenzie Eisenhour
Photos by Dave Chami

What’s up? How was your summer?
Yeah. It went pretty well. I’ve just been trying to skate as much as I can. Keeping busy.

I’ll jump right in. First off, I was told your parents split up when you were a teenager, so you moved in with Daryl Angel and his mom. Can you break down that story?
[Laughs] That’s not exactly true. What happened was, I was 17, still finishing high school, and my dad got a job in Arizona. So they all wanted to move, and I was like, “If you let me stay [in San Jose], I’ll finish high school. I just want to skate with my friends.” They agreed. They moved and I was on my own basically. I ended up dropping out, too. Like, “No one can tell me what to do.” So I just dropped out like an idiot.

Rebel move.
Yeah. It was stupid on my part, but I was just young and dumb. But yeah, I was skating a lot and trying to focus on that.

Were you hooked up yet?
Not really. I think I had a shop sponsor from Skateworks. I could buy blanks for like 20 dollars, so that was my hook-up.

Your parents weren’t tripping on just leaving you behind?
My mom was tripping. She was really bummed that I dropped out. She still talks about it. But they let me stay, so I guess they were relatively cool with it.

When did you move in with Daryl?
I was staying with my friend, and it was sort of a weird living situation with him and his dad. He was pretty strict, and I was lurking at his house with no direction. I finally met Daryl under the bridge that we all skate. I met him there and we just hit it off and he was like, “You should come live with me.” My options were very slim, so I was like, “Fuck it. Sure. I don’t even know you, but you skate and you have a place to stay. It’s probably better than what I have going now.”

How long did you live with Daryl?
Probably about six months. Around there. I had also started working with my sister at the mall, doing a stock boy kind of thing. Making nothing. I was barely getting by for a long time. I just had a bunch of shitty jobs. I think I was getting flowed from adidas, enjoi, and maybe WE clothing at that time. But I pretty much just sold all my product.

Was this Bonus Round [’08] days?
Yeah. Probably around that time. Right before.

Was that kind of your breakout part? I feel like that was the first time I saw you in something.
Yeah. That was my first legit part, I guess. By then I was sort of floating around. My girlfriend had moved to SF, so I was going back and forth. Stay a few days in the city, then come back and lurk around San Jose.

How did you go from enjoi to Blueprint?
Basically, I was on enjoi until I was about 19. Like I said before, I was a dumbass at the time. Piling out. Learning how to get drunk basically. I kind of stayed at Jerry [Hsu]’s house for a bit too, and I think I was kind of blowing it over there. And then I moved to the Mansion where Louie lives, and I was still just piling out and being an idiot.

How do you get in trouble for piling out at the enjoi Mansion? That’s like going to Animal House and getting in trouble for doing keg stands. You must really have to be going hard.
[Laughs] Yeah. I thought everybody was stoked. Everybody else was partying too; I wasn’t the only one. The Mansion was seriously going off at the time. But the thing was that I wasn’t backing it up with skating. I think that was the problem. You gotta skate, too. By the time I figured that out, I felt like they were over it. I didn’t think they were going to put me on. I heard some things too where they were hating, so I felt like I had to make a move. I sent my tape out to pretty much all my friends who knew somebody and told them to send it to whoever. I ended up getting Toy Machine flow for a bit, but that didn’t work out. Eventually, I got hooked up with Shier and after meeting him once, he was down.

Is it true that you refer to Paul Shier as your guardian angel? Was this when he kind of saved you?
[Laughs] I think he may have self-proclaimed that. But he definitively helped me out and continues to help me out a lot. He was really the first dude who truly had my back. So I got on Blueprint around 2011 after the Toy Machine tryouts. It was going good, but the guy that actually owned Blueprint was a kook. He wasn’t listening to Shier and people weren’t getting paid and it got to the point that Shier basically had to leave. He told us we could do whatever we wanted, but I wasn’t about to stay if he was quitting, so everybody quit. Then we were on a trip a short while after that and he pulled me aside and told me he was starting a new company. He didn’t even have a name yet, but he asked me if I wanted me to be a part of it and I just told him, “For sure. I’m down.” And that was how Isle started.

And now you guys are about to drop the first video.
Pretty soon now. It should be out in October. Probably already out by the time people read this. [Ed note: Vase is premiering in the coming weeks in LA and London]

Is it true it’s all filmed in PAL VX 1000? How hard did that make filming?
Yeah [laughs]. It was kind of stressful. My friend was borrowing Dan Magee’s PAL VX. I could be wrong, but I think this was the camera that filmed Lost And Found [’05] and all that with. So already it should be in a museum. Then it was just me and my friend going out to film with it, but he had a full-time job so it was hard to get times to film. It got to a point where I just told him, “Let me take the camera,” and then I would just ask people at the spot like, “Hey, can you film this?” And I would just hand over the PAL VX. It was a struggle.

Do you drive Uber cars to supplement your income too? How is that?
Yeah, I do. It’s fine. It’s work. It’s relatively easy. If you don’t mind driving, it’s not a big deal. It’s kind of cool because I can just do it whenever I need to. If I’m really hurting for money, I can just push it and work like a week straight too.

Are you sort of looking for spots too when you’re driving people?
Oh, for sure. I’m always doing recon. That’s one of the best perks of it.

How does it work? You’re just in the system and if you want to give rides, you clock in?
You sign up to be a driver and then you just turn the app on and set it to driver mode when you want to work and you’re ready to go. You get paid weekly; it goes straight to your bank account. They take like 25 percent or something, but it’s so convenient. You don’t have a boss and then if I’m going on a trip, I can just not work for a couple of weeks. They’re just trying to make money, so they don’t give a shit about you. But I’m just trying to make money too, so I don’t give a shit about them.

Capitalism at its finest. I also heard that you used to work valet and that middle-aged women were always giving you their number. Did you call any back?
Not like a ton. But every once in a while I’d get some drunk old lady trying to hit on me. I have a girlfriend, so I wasn’t trying to get into that. But they were pretty forward. Older ladies trying to hit on the valet boys.

I was told that you and your girlfriend lived in the Mission but recently moved to Oakland. How was the move?
It was great. So far everything’s been easier. Not as much traffic and rent is better. I lived in SF for like eight years. It’s fun, but once you stop going out and all that, it has really changed to live there. I drive people all day, so I would just notice like, “I’m driving a lot more kooks these days.” The gentrification stuff you read about is real. They pushed out so many people, and the culture is just being rinsed out.

Dave Chami told us you were going really hard at this TWS part. Is this a big one for you? Plus, it’s another VX project.
Yeah. No, I love VX. That’s not a problem. VX is my thing. I’m stoked on all that. But yeah, I was sort of at a weird place where I thought I might be over skating. Not to quit, but kind of put it on the back burner. I’m almost 30; I should probably have a savings account and stuff like that. So I had sort of slowed it down for a few months and had just been working and then he [Chami] hit me up about it, and I was just like, “Fuck, this is exactly what I needed to hear. I’m down. Let’s do this.” I just got the stoke back.

Is it true you were the éS game of SKATE champion one year in SJ?
Yeah. When I was like 14 or 15. I remember everyone was bummed because I was just some little grom kid and there were these other older guys that were kind of sponsored. These dudes were in their twenties. I remember one dude was super bummed. I beat him, and he was just like, “Man, you didn’t even pop your tricks.” I was just like, “Shut up, you sore loser!” [Laughs] I skated a lot of flat growing up. That was my shit.

What was your winning trick?
I can’t even remember. Maybe a Cab flip. But I got some shoes and a little éS package. I was pretty stoked.

Chami also told me to ask you about throwing up in your tent for your birthday a few weeks back.
Oh, man. It was a great night. I just couldn’t unzip the damn tent in time. It was my birthday weekend and we were out camping. I ate a bunch of food and drank a lot and then was trying to go to bed and laid down and started getting the spins. It was just me and my girlfriend sleeping in our tent, and I felt it coming. I finally puked all in my mouth. So I was holding it in my mouth, trying to unzip the tent, and another rush of barf came and it just splattered half inside the tent, half outside. I got out and finished off outside, then went back in the tent and it just reeked of vomit. My girlfriend threw me a bottle of water and told me she was going to sleep in the other tent. So there I was, alone, freezing, and in a tent covered in vomit.

Nice birthday. These questions are from Daryl Angel: You’ve been around for a while, but it seems as though you’ve been on fire lately. Can you give us some insight on what caused that?
Mostly just motivation from the [TWS] video. It’s a big opportunity for me, and it’s always good to have something to work towards. I just feel like I’ve been sleeping for a while. Time to wake up.

Having grown up in San Jose—best skate era in SJ?
Growing up I watched a lot of 411s where either Jerry or MJ were in them. I really liked that time period. Around 1997. Tiltmode was going off. I was just a little kid, but I remember going to school and going to my friend’s house afterwards and just watching all these videos of them. I had never seen any of them in person. I didn’t even really know where the spots were. But just knowing that it existed around me—it was just pure stoke.

Substance official trailer

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