Milestone: 2005 - The Skateboard Mag

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Has there ever been a Heath Kirchart
interview?
I don’t remember ever seeing one. He’s
always had those, “if you want to know
about me, then look at my photos only”
type of interviews. That left me thinking he
was some totally vacant kid who only skates
and has nothing else going on in his life. That’s
fine. I suppose. I’m sure most of the kids reading this
magazine have skate on the brain and can’t concentrate
on anything else. But I know this kid, and I know he’s
not an empty skate zombie. So whenever I saw the “no
talking/all action” type of articles, I’d wonder, “What is
he hiding?”
Through our mutual shoe sponsor, Emerica,
I’ve ended up going on a bunch of trips and tours
with Heath, and gotten to know more about this very
strange and seemingly secretive kid. On my last trip
with him, in France, I floated the idea that I’d like to do
a real interview with him—that he’d been silent for too
long. But I was sure it’d never happen.
You may ask, “Why would Ed Templeton spend
his rare and valuable time interviewing and writing
an article about a skater who’s not on his team and
benefits him in no way?” Truth is, I was really interested
in hearing his stories, and if Heath wanted to tell them
to me, it was my duty as a skater to report them to you.
I didn’t ask him any questions about his early days, or
about his sponsored am days. This isn’t really a history
of Heath. Someone can do that one later. This is a
conversation about the things that make Heath what
he is—the weird stuff that makes him a legend among
the generation of kids who go out at night on secret
missions wearing black and thinking, “What would
Heath do?”
I arranged for Heath to meet me at my house. All
I did was give him my address and a time. I got to my
house fifteen minutes late and walked up to my door to
find him sitting on my porch.
“He’s always early.” Justin Regan told me while I
was doing research for this article—I found that one out
right away. He’s no longer the skinny kid I first met. He
rides around on a big, burly motorcycle, and has grown
into a tall and muscular man. His hair is greasy and
combed back by the wind and his face has a scruff of
stubble around the chin and jaw. He has a black eye.
I realize that I’m scared of this guy. He looks
very intimidating. But when he talks, he becomes the
Heath I know. We went inside, sat at my kitchen table,
and started talking without the recorder on. I asked
him about spying. He used to take great delight in
finding out where other skaters were going to skate,
then secretly going to the spot to watch from a hidden
location as the skater tried his trick. He did this just
for the entertainment of watching someone go through
the hell of trying a hard trick—the freak-outs, the board
focusing, and the stress. It was all a great spectacle for
Heath, who would be giggling away from a rooftop or
bush. I wondered aloud how he would find out who was
going where, and I realized I should start recording …
In the darkness of night and alone is
Heath’s way of cutting out distractions.
Scary backside 50-50. Photo: Swift
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i wear all black and i’ll sit
in a bush and just watch.
I would just give a random call to Atiba
like, “Who are you shooting?” Atiba
doesn’t want anyone to know, but he
would always be like, “Yeah, I’m shooting
this guy, at this spot, at this time.”
What do you do?
I wear all black and I’ll sit in a bush and just watch. It
started way back with me and Jeremy [Klein]. We used
to do it all the time, and then Jeremy got busy—we
stopped hanging out, and I just kept doing it. It started
off as being like, “Let’s go spy on people that freak out,”
because it’s funny to watch people freak out when they’re
skating. I wanna watch that. Then, all of a sudden, it just
became spying on anybody. It wasn’t even about the guy
freaking out anymore, it was just basically about spying
on them.
So how many people did you spy on and not get
caught?
Tons! There was this one time at UCI [University
of California, Irvine] when everyone was there. People
would go to UCI in groups of ten sponsored and pro
skaters. So you’re getting like Brian Anderson’s backside
tailslide, and Andrew’s kickflip noseslide …
Wait, was I there?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure you were for a lot of those.
Eric Koston’s switch frontside noseslide—weren’t you
there for that? Those were all big groups.
Have you been caught?
Yeah, there was one with FORE [Forest Kirby]
where I got caught.
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What happened?
It turns out Atiba told Lee Dupont about the session,
too, ’cause spying kinda got out and other people were
doing it, too. Like Josh [Beagle] did it, and I’d hear about
these other people doing it. When I went and spied on
FORE, I guess Lee was spying too.
So you ran into other spyers?
I was down on the ground and I heard something,
but I didn’t see him film me. Then I went to another spot
and all of a sudden I walk up and I see someone open
the car door and we just stared at each other. We froze
because we both saw each other. I just turned and
walked away and left. I never knew who it was, but it
turns out it was Lee Dupont and he gave the footage
to FORE and he put it in his video—I’ve never seen the
video so I don’t know.
The fact that Heath walked into my house with a
black and purple eye made me want to ask him about
his bar fight history. He doesn’t seem like the kind of
guy who would get mad enough to punch anything but
his own skateboard, but from the stories I’ve heard, he
generally is pretty good at getting people mad enough
to hit him. One year in Germany, he was sitting in a bar
with some other skaters and was just being Heath. I’m
sure he said something offensive. Ali Boulala took off his
shoe and wound up as far back as he could and fired a
full force shoe slap across Heath’s face. I wasn’t there,
but apparently the sound was so loud that the entire bar
stopped cold and stared at Heath, who just sat there in
shock with a shoe print on his cheek.
A couple of years ago, you wouldn’t see
Heath skating in the daytime, or with other
people. Nor would we be reading his words.
People grow. Switch heel. Photo: Swift
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Gap to noseblunt slide. Believe me,
this is fucking gnarly. Photos: Swift
Have you been in a lot of bar fights?
Not really. Psycho Fuck has punched
dudes for me. I’m not really much of a
fighter, but I like the whole confrontation
thing. I just like to have a heavy advantage,
and if you have a girl who can fight with you, that’s
good, because she’s probably not gonna get hit.
So you’re trying to get in fights with Psycho Fuck.
Well this just happened to be in Alabama. I
wasn’t even trying. This guy was just being a cock
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and he was choking me up against a wall. I was
laughing. Psycho was doing karaoke on stage
when this was going on. She’s got her eyes closed
singing “Lucky Star” by Madonna, and this guy
had me up against the wall. She opens her eyes,
sees this big fight; one bouncer’s got me and this
other bouncer’s got this other guy, and she puts
everything together.
In the middle of the song, she just drops her
microphone, runs over to the guy that’s got his
arms behind his back, completely defenseless,
and everything’s quiet because karaoke just
stopped, and she just fuckin’ punches him right
in the fuckin’ face as hard as she can. He just has
to take it.
What did the bouncers do?
Nothin’. They were just holding the guy
because you don’t think a girl’s gonna walk up to
a guy who’s being held and just fuckin’ sock him.
And she knows how to punch, too; it’s just like this
loud, “POW!” That’s probably the most interesting
story ’cause it’s a girl hitting a guy.
During that story I realized that readers are
probably not familiar with Heath’s girlfriend, whom
I know only as, “Psycho Fuck.” Even as I sit here
writing this, I can’t remember her name. She’ll
probably kick my ass next time she sees me! She
easily could.
During one of the Emerica team photo
shoots up in LA, we were shooting in an alley
late at night—kind of blocking the alley—when
a carload of gangster girls drives up and says
something; lord knows what. The next thing you
know, Psycho Fuck is going ballistic on these
girls, cussing and threatening to kill them. Heath
had to hold her back.
I decided to question Heath on how a
seemingly shy-in-public kind of guy wound up with
such a feisty and outgoing sort of girl.
What’s up with Psycho Fuck? Are you still
going out with her?
Yeah, she lives in Santa Barbara right now.
And you still call her Psycho Fuck?
No. I mean, I can. It’s not offensive or anything.
But if I saw her and was like, “What’s up
Psycho Fuck?” Would she be like, “Hey, what’s
up?” Or would she kick my ass?
She’d probably just give you like a hoot or
something.
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I don’t know if this trick has a
name yet. Heath noseblunts
the wrong side. Photo: Atiba
How did you meet her?
I was on a Foundation tour and I saw her at a
demo. She had a sweatband on her arm that
just said, “Psycho.” So I asked her name. I go,
“What’s your name? Psycho?” Or something like
that, and she goes, “I got another one that says, ‘Fuck.’
I’m not wearing it.” I go, “Oh, so your name’s Psycho
Fuck.” So that’s how the name comes around.
I met her at the demo then we went to a fuckin’
house party and she was there, and then we went to a
bar. I hung out with her. It wasn’t just the usual skatedemo thing like, “Hey, here’s my number.”
It’s been a long time now. Two years?
Three years.
And all long distance, right? Has she ever lived with
you?
She lived with me for a little bit.
Did it work?
It was a nightmare.
I can’t picture you living with a girl.
Yeah, me neither.
Well, neither the bar fight nor the abusive girlfriend
question produced a story explaining his black eye, so
I moved toward skateboarding. Heath is one of those
guys who you just don’t see a bad photo of. He never
seems to do anything that wouldn’t be considered
“gnarly.” You won’t see Heath doing a switch krooks on
a knee-high ledge for some random wheel company ad;
it’s all or nothing.
You know he gets broke doing this stuff. I’ve
witnessed it first hand, but I’ve heard mostly from skate
industry gossip that Heath never gives up on the thing
he wants to try. He will return to the spot as many times
as it takes to get it done. I was wondering how he keeps
his nerve going back to some stunt over and over.
I don’t think a lot of people know this about you, but
you keep going back. You know what you want to
do, and if you have to revisit it like eight times …
The most has been six, but yeah.
Going back and every time walking away destroyed
is pretty much fucked.
This one that I’m trying now, that I got a black eye
on, this has been six, but it’s because of like random
things like the fuckin’ sidewalk getting water all over it.
Is it at UCI?
No.
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Why are you always at UCI?
’Cause people tell me, “Oh, there’s this new
fuckin’ twenty-stair, there’s this new hubba there.”
So I go and look at it.
Because a lot of your coverage is from UCI.
It was a major blow when that place got taken
away from me.
It got taken away? Why?
The handrails are completely gone, the ten
and the six. They took ’em completely out.
When I found out I was going to interview
Heath, I called a bunch of people who are around
him a lot to get the real dirt. I wanted to pull no
punches when interview time came. I was very
happy to find that Heath also wasn’t pulling
punches, but was down to talk about anything and
everything.
When calling people, I didn’t have to beg
to get amazing Heath stories. On the trips I’ve
been on with him, he’s usually reading a book by
himself, laying on his bed with his reading glasses,
while everyone is out messing around, or sitting on
the couch watching a tennis match on TV. The fact
that Heath is into tennis is not as fun to read as his
crazy stories, so I started to ask him about some
of the dirt I was scraping up about him.
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Kickflip back lip to fakie. Don’t think he
doesn’t have finesse. Photos: Atiba
What about the time you and Bob
called the cops on yourselves and
said you found a dead body just so you
could spend the night in jail?
We were down in San Diego, bored, and
we’d never been in the drunk tank before. Gareth
Stehr told me that the drunk tank down there has a
bunch of cots everywhere with pillows and blankets,
and you just go there, sleep off the drunkenness,
and walk off in the morning. So we’re like, “Well, let’s
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fuckin’ do that. Let’s see what this is like.”
We were trying to get caught, by just having
the cops see us on the side of the road stumbling, or
something, but no cops were coming. So then, Bob
gets on the phone, dials 911, and says, “There’s a
dead body; you’d better come quick,” and hangs up
the phone. So we’re sitting there, drinking, and we
come up with this plan. “When the cops come here,
even though we’re wasted, let’s act like we’re twenty
times more wasted than this—just completely fucked
up.’ But the cops never came. After five minutes, Bob
goes back up to call again, he’s walking to the phone,
and just as he picks up the receiver, all of a sudden
four cops just swarmed in, fuckin’ came right at us.
We just started cracking up laughing, fuckin’ grabbin’
our beer, talking shit to them and everything, just
laughing. They knew it was a prank call once they
saw how fuckin’ smashed we were. It was half acting,
half real, but we were just laughing our asses off,
making fun of them to their faces and everything.
Were you afraid they were just gonna start
beating you down?
No, ’cause we were jolly drunks. We were
saying to them, “Oh, look at this guy. Look how tough
he’s being with me. Ooh, I kinda like that.” And they
put us in the back of the cop car. At this point they
realize that we’re just joking and having some fun.
Somehow, I was able to just get out of my cuffs.
How?
I was kinda sweaty and everything, and just
squeezed my hands out. And so I just go, “Hey,
guys,” to the cops ’cause we were talking to them
the whole time. I said, “Don’t get mad or anything,
but I got out of my handcuffs.” They just screeched to
a halt, and were just like, “You! Out of the car!” They
put the handcuffs back on me super tight, and yelled
at my friend.
So was the drunk tank nice, though?
Okay, we get our mug shot and all that, and
it turns out we end up going to where all the DUIs,
all the people who got in fights, and all the real
drunk people go. All the people who actually did real
crimes. If you’re only kinda drunk and mellow you
go to the fuckin’ one Gareth told us about, the nice
one. But if you’re not, you go to the one that’s a real
jail. So we were just in this brick room, and it took all
day to get out of there. Had to go through the whole
hellish procedure.
Was it worth it?
No. It fuckin’ sucked.
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i just like to have a heavy advantage, and if you have a girl
who can fight with you, that’s good, because she’s probably not
gonna get hit.
What about this story I heard of you
smashing a cop car windshield?
I was skating with some friends, and I was just
drinking at their hotel room. Everyone had left,
and somehow I was stuck with the people who were
going out skating. I was like, “I’m not gonna stay here, I’ll go
skating with you guys.” We end up going to some spot.
All of a sudden, some other skaters show up, and right
then, a cop shows up, too. The cop is hassling them while
the rest of the guys are lighting up the spot and skating. For
about thirty minutes, the cop is hassling them. So I’m sitting
there the whole time, just thinking, “That cop is the biggest
asshole on the face of the earth. I can’t believe what he’s
gonna do when he finally comes over to us.” They’re just
skating the entire time. So finally, the cops start heading
towards us. So I’m like, “I wanna get out of here, ’cause I
might wanna come back and I don’t want my name taken
down.” So I go across the street without being seen, and
the cops start hassling these guys. I just kept thinking,
“That cop’s a fuckin’ dick.” So I dared myself in my head
to do something to the cop car. Then I just jumped up on
the hood, and fuckin’ focused the windshield like it was a
skateboard.
With your foot?
Yeah, I jumped up on the hood of the car, and kicked
it right where the driver would have to look out.
How late is this?
This was like one or two o’clock. No one was around. I
ran off and end up having to walk back to the hotel. Just as
everyone was getting in the car to leave, the cops go back
to their car and see that the fuckin’ car window is smashed
out. They were like, “Where’s your friend!” to the skaters,
and they said, “What are you talking about?” Then they see
the window, and the cops just said, “Get the fuck out of
here!” So they were scared to come back and pick me up.
I wanted to change the tone a little bit and ask him
about getting older and what his plans for the future were.
He is always talking about investing money in this or that,
buying houses and making sure he is saving money. I have
never seen anyone so careful about spending money.
He always bargain shops! I was asking him before why
he is so thrifty and cautious about money. And he said
something like, “Dude I’m gonna turn thirty and be done.
I have no work skills; I gotta be ready to retire!” I think he
feels that skateboarding is just going to spit him out and
leave him behind to work at 7Eleven for the rest of his life. I
assured him that this was not going to happen, that he is a
skateboard legend, but he didn’t agree.
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I heard that you have vending machines? Is that your
side job?
It’s just a vending machine in a building. There’s not
much to talk about.
Do you stock it with Skaterade?
No. Just Cokes. Basically, whatever I like is what
people get.
Where do you get the Cokes?
I buy regular Cokes for thirty cents from Price Club,
and sell ’em for seventy cents in my machine.
How often do you check it?
I check it like once a week. It usually has like sixty
bucks in it or something. It’ll probably take a year to break
even on it. Once you have a vending machine in a good
location, you can sell it. The hard part about vending
machines is getting a good location. I could sell that for like
five grand right now, probably.
Sell what, the location?
And the machine, too. Vending machines aren’t that
interesting.
I think it’s funny that Heath Kirchart owns one.
I have to deal with complaints. One day, the air
conditioning went out when it was like a hundred degrees
out, and all the fuckin’ chocolate melted. It’s happened
twice. All the chocolate melts, and people buy it and get
shitty chocolate, so I get a call from my friend saying people
want their money back. But they won’t get it.
How old are you?
Twenty-seven.
And you feel like that’s real old?
No, It’s just that just going on tour with Leo [Romero]
and Bryan [Herman] doesn’t make you feel younger when it
comes to skating.
I think you’re at the stage that I hit when I was your
age. I felt like I wasn’t cuttin’ it anymore. I’d go skate
with Geoff all the time, and he is gnarly, so I would feel
totally obsolete. But I don’t feel like that anymore.
I stress on it when I’m on the road ‘cause I’m not
comfortable. I feel like I’m part of the team, and I want to at
least be able to hold up my end of the bargain. Every time I
go on the road, I never get a photo. I never get anything. But
then Justin will say, “The reason why Leo’s kickflip grinding
that handrail is because of you—that’s your influence. Your
mark in skating is that you influenced people to bring it to
this point. They wouldn’t be at this point without you.”
What Justin said was right … I couldn’t end this
interview any better.
Look how long that ramp is! He must have been
going mach-Julien to ollie that thing! Photo: Atiba
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