If I signed a contract that meant someone else wouldn't be playing.

I grew up on the Bones Brigade as well. The very first skateboard video I saw was the Bones Brigade Video Show and I'd always valued the Bones Brigade and Powell Peralta as the ultimate in skateboarding.

They'll try to apply the rules of the day to the game, where you can't touch your board with your hands, or you can't step off your board, etc and I want nothing to do with it. It's like a game from a different planet or something and it's hard for me to relate to anybody who would think of skateboarding in such a narrow way.

Through getting sponsored and becoming a part of the Bones Brigade and Powell Peralta, doors were being opened. The entire culture was shifting from ramps to street, and I sort of became a poster child for that.

I grew up with heroes, people who made me aspire to raise my game, to dream bigger and I like to keep it that simple.

I would dream of being a pro skater, but I never dreamt I'd be discovered by Lance Mountain and Stacey Peralta, who were two major heroes of mine, and be asked to skate for that team and be a part of their company.

We didn't call it a sport necessarily, and skaters definitely weren't thought of as athletes, we were thought of as misfits.