Five Favorite Parts With Max Palmer

Interview by Farran Golding
Photo by Zach Baker

One of the most requested installments, for obvious reasons.

And it’s also for those reasons that we included a lil’ bonus for the legion of requesters.

Safe to safe, Max is a DLX head.

+++++++

Nate Jones — Real Skateboards: Real to Reel (2001)

I don’t know if this is my #1 video part, but it was the first one I thought of as “This has to be in there.”

Real to Reel was one of the first videos I had. My friend Joe [Inglis] and I watched that so much growing up. Nate Jones had the first part and I love that he skated to Gil Scott Heron [“Gun”]. He was stylish, looks cool, and he’s also from Ohio, a small town an hour away from where I’m from. Seeing someone from Ohio skating in San Francisco was sick. The reason I grew my hair out long was because of Nate Jones. My mom was mad that my hair was all crazy and I was like, “I just want to look like this guy.” I was always hyped on his style: doing simple tricks but fast.

I’d get one video, Joe would get another and we’d watch them over and over. I don’t think I was good enough back then to think I could do those same tricks, but it influenced what we wanted to skate. We also didn’t have that many choices of what to skate. We were blown away by how sick 3rd and Army looked because there was nothing like that where we grew up; any type of ledge at all, let alone multiple ledges in a row. It was a dream spot and I did end up going there when I was around 13, but I had a sprained ankle. I couldn’t really skate, but I was tripping out. I was in S.F. with my parents for a couple of days. We went to the Deluxe store and my dad asked them, “Where’s a spot?” and they sent us to 3rd and Army. I was like, “Oh my god, this is the spot.” It was like a pilgrimage. I went there and Pier 7.

Something I realized is that, across all of these parts I picked, there’s a lot of spontaneous lines, cruising and flowing.

John Cardiel — Transworld Skateboarding: Sight Unseen (2001)

My friend Joe and I grew up down the street from each other and we were basically the only skaters in our neighborhood. My brother was hyped on John Cardiel and was always telling me how sick he was. When Joe got Sight Unseen — I mean, every part in that video is insane — but I was hyped on Cardiel especially because of my brother and because he has such a unique style and intensity. You can tell he’s adapting to everything in the moment. He flies into the air, barely holding on, but landing stuff and getting away with it.

Back then, we were so hyped on skateparks. It was the best we had, even though the parks were really bad. Our dream was to go on a skatepark tour across the country, which we eventually did. It’s sick to watch people skate at a skatepark; you don’t really have that in videos anymore. I grew up skating parks so I like them, especially weird skateparks. When Cardiel does a super long line, hitting everything in a row and flowing through the whole park, he makes it look so fun. I couldn’t decide between this and Cash Money Vagrant; I might actually like that one better, but I watched Sight Unseen so much.

Like I said, my brother was the one who turned me onto Cardiel in the first place. Probably when I was 21, he found out Cardiel was DJing at this bar called Lit. We were hanging out in Brooklyn and he was like, “Dude, we have to go.” We took a taxi into the city and we got a photo with Cardiel, and we were so hyped to meet him. He was so cool.

Dennis Busenitz — Real Skateboards: Seeing Double (2002)

Real to Reel is also one of my favorite Busenitz parts. He does so many tricks as fast as possible. The consistency comes through and how talented he is.

The premise of this video, I think, was a road trip across the country and they went to skateparks. Busenitz and Peter Ramondetta had parts and everyone else had footage. That was like our dream, to do a cross-country trip and skate parks and spots. They made it look like so much fun, all the hotel and party footage.

My trucks were always loose and I guess that’s what I was hyped on: going fast and loose and that’s how all of these guys skated. Especially Busenitz and Cardiel being able to hang onto anything.

Matt Rodriguez — iPath: “Summer Preview 2005”

I skated for iPath at that time — I was flow — and they sent me that video, so we would watch it constantly. It had a sick soundtrack. Jack Sabback has the first part and skates to The Kinks [“Sunny Afternoon”]. I loved that, but I thought Matt Rodriguez’s part was so sick because he’s also making his own song and they’re filming him playing different instruments. He has a sick style, going super fast with a cool trick selection. I feel like he’s why I learned the front board 270.

I remember watching his older Stereo parts and he’s always flowing. His part in this seemed very spontaneous, like ollieing on a weird cobblestone blob, but it looks sick because he’s going fast. That powerslide on the vert wall monument thing — I feel like that would never be in a video today. There’s all this random footage in there which seemed like he was having fun.

The iPath promo isn’t that long so it’s a sick video to watch all the way through. All the parts have not-too-serious of a vibe. It’s like just having the camera pointed and seeing what you get.

Van Wastel — Krooked Skateboards: Podcast Part by Mike Fox (2008)

Krooked Khronicles was one of my favorite videos and this came out afterwards. Van was so ahead of his time with such a creative approach. When he firecrackers down those stairs and wallies over a shitty wall, that’s one of my favorite clips, but he can also do hard and tech tricks. We would skate stairs and gaps because that’s what was around [in Ohio], so I thought it was cool he was fluid but could also skate that stuff. On a lot of the lines, it seems like the filmer said, “Hey, do a line,” and he’s vibing. That opening clip [continually landing to fakie, then reverting back to regular after each trick] feels like they were just messing around and he did it on the first try.

I moved to New York in 2006, and I had this downloaded on my computer. I would watch it so much when I was going to Pratt. Naughty was another of my favorite videos at the time and we would watch that so much. It would be looping at my apartment because [the DVD] doesn’t stop playing. It’s mostly filmed in New York. I probably should have, but I couldn’t pick a part from that. Van isn’t in Naughty as much as he is in Gnar Gnar.

Max’s Bonus Five

Inspired by the occasional “Mini Top Five” included among the QS Year in Review series, Max dished out another handful of favorites. We’re listing them, because, yaknow, Max.

Genesis Evans — The DANY Video by Emilio Cuilan (2016) — I was lucky enough to meet Genesis when he was super young and spend a lot of time together. This came out and I was like, “Holy shit, when did you film this?”

Jon Rowe — Venue Skateboards: Nightmare Van by Will Rosenstock (2019) — He skates the crustiest spots and seems like he does not give a shit taking gnarly slams.

Massimo Cavedoni — Deluxe Distribution Catalog Video Part (2008) — This was another Deluxe podcast part. I met John Choi at Pratt and Massimo came to visit him. Shout out Irvinesucks.

Dave Caddo — Anonymous Skate Shop: Anonymous II (200?) — He’s a classic Ohio skater with the sickest style and I watched that part a lot.

Rune Glifberg — Volcom: Chicagof (2004) — He’s literally catching air into the clouds.

Previously: Etienne Gagne, Jacopo Carozzi, Nicole Hause, Matt Militano, Evan Wasser, Ryuhei Kitazumi, Sarah Meurle, Vitória Mendonça, Andrew Wilson, Ben Kadow, Chandler Burton, Pedro Delfino, Johnny Wilson, Nick Michel, Wes Kremer, Jordan Trahan, Ariana Spencer, Elijah Odom, Greg Hunt, Zered Bassett, Neil Herrick, Trung Nguyen, Nick Boserio, Elissa Steamer, Casper Brooker, John Gardner, Bobshirt, Brandon Turner, Shari White, Nick Jensen, Tony Hawk, Naquan Rollings, Jack O’Grady, Josh Wilson, Maité Steenhoudt, Jahmir Brown, Una Farrar, Chris Jones, Mason Silva, Beatrice Domond, Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, Breana Geering, Sage Elsesser, Bobby Worrest, Nik Stain, Anthony Van Engelen, Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbert Crockett, Ben Chadourne, Tom Knox, Louie Lopez, The Chrome Ball Incident, The Bunt, Lacey Baker, Andrew Allen, GX1000, Brian Anderson, Gino Iannucci, Josh Kalis, Sean Pablo, Wade Desarmo, Chris Milic, Chad Muska, Hjalte Halberg, Danny Brady, Bill Strobeck, Aaron Herrington, Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams