📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Art by Francesco Pini
📷 Photography by Jas Cuhadar, Don Luong & Raisa Abal
Bouquet after bouquet, Ruby Lilley was inundated with flowers at this spring’s premiere of Foundation Super Co.’s latest full-length, Today, Tomorrow, Forever. “Why are people just bringing me flowers,” Lilley says she remembers thinking, “is it because I’m a girl?” Between bouquets, people were bugging Lilley for tickets she didn’t have. On top of all that was the matter of her video part, her first for Foundation, and the nerves associated with putting yourself out there on the big screen for all to see. When her part was about to play, Lilley says she worried: “What if people look at each other and laugh?”
Nobody laughed. Instead, Foundation surprised Lilley, a disarming 19-year-old bowl threat who loves frontside disasters, by turning her pro that night. Months later, nursing a broken foot at home, she reflected on that evening, saying, “It was the most overwhelming, overstimulating, stressful, best feeling ever.”
Ruby Lilley and Tod Swank by Raisa Abal
According to SkateVideoSite, Today, Tomorrow, Forever is Foundation’s 24th video. I loved it – viewers get all the best of modern skateboard videomaking in terms of editing, skating and vibe, all while the video makes sense alongside the Foundation videos I first watched 30 years ago, when I started skating. Or, as one YouTube commenter puts it, “This feels like something from 2004 to 2009-ish and should be on DVD, something about this feels right, great video.” Today, Tomorrow, Forever prompted my editor here at Quartersnacks to pitch me the idea of writing this story, texting of Foundation: “It [has] such a weird trajectory, in the most admirable way imaginable.”
“That video really resonated with me because at the time I was getting into punk rock, emo music, girl pants, and I was like, ‘These guys are fucking rock stars.'”
That trajectory, of ever-changing team lineups and styles of skating — unified by distinctive art and a certain Foundation-underdog je nais se quois — is charted in its two-dozen videos. As I found out reporting this story and discussing it with friends, everyone seems to have their Foundation video. Aidan Campbell, who describes himself as “unc-ed out” when it comes to riding for the F, agrees. “Across the board, everyone has a favorite Foundation video, from every realm of skateboarding,” he says, pointing out how much Carlos Ribeiro loves the brand. “It’s left a mark on a lot of people.”
Aidan Campbell by Jas Cuhadar
Don Luong has worked at Tum Yeto for 15 years, which distributes Foundation and its sister company, Toy Machine, and made videos for both brands for nearly as long. For the last year or so, he’s been the Foundation team manager and the driving force behind the brand. Luong says the first skate video he ever saw was Foundation’s That’s Life, which came out in 2004. It was handrail-heavy and featured Corey Duffel at perhaps his most Duffman. “That video really resonated with me because at the time I was getting into punk rock, emo music, girl pants, and I was like, ‘These guys are fucking rock stars.'”
“Foundation is the ‘indie rock band of skating.’ We’re not mainstream but we’re gonna put out some good EPs and LPs. The band is cool and they’ll talk to you after the show.”
It is 2001’s Art Bars; Subtitles and Seagulls, though, that’s had a lasting effect on how Luong says he runs the brand. With its tongue-in-cheek title and potpourri lineup headlined by Justin Strubing, Ethan Fowler and Kris Markovich, it comes up often as more aged people’s Foundation favorite. “It’s literally what I pull inspiration from. I still watch it when I have writer’s block and I’m trying to do something,” he says. “That’s Foundation to me, that’s Art Bars.”
Luong says Foundation is the “indie rock band of skating. We’re not mainstream but we’re gonna put out some good EPs and LPs. The band is cool and they’ll talk to you after the show.” Similar to modern musicians, many of the people associated with the brand have jobs on the side to make life work, a pretty common occurrence in skateboarding today, Luong says. And like some long-touring musical acts, Foundation, somewhat famously, has had an ever-evolving team, at least once rolling out a whole new set of riders from one video to the next. Luong downplays that aspect of the brand’s reputation, but admits it’s a thing. “It seems like Foundation is always doing that, and I don’t know why …but a lot of companies are always doing it!”
The cast of Today, Tomorrow, Forever, from left, Aidan Campbell, Tanner Lawler, Austin Heilman, Jesse Lindloff, Ruby Lilley and Jessie Darnall. Photo by Don Luong
Today, Tomorrow, Forever includes new and old faces. When it comes to skateboard team-building, Luong says, “the best process is finding riders from within.” Recently minted Foundation pro Austin Heilman and new team guy Tanner Lawler mutually describe each other as best friends; Lawler never quite found the right board sponsor fit, so Heilman says he sent Luong his clips and got him on. Jessie Darnall, whose part opens the video, took skate lessons from Heilman and Lawler. While Luong says Heilman was the link that got Darnell on Foundation, Lawler says it’s possible that he was responsible for teaching her how to kickflip. Campbell’s origin on the team goes back to a previous iteration. He was on Girl flow but barely skated with those guys. He did skate with a concentration of Long Beach Tum Yeto heads, making for an eventual natural fit with the F. And Lilley, previously on Madness, says she was skating a ton with Foundation ATV Jesse Lindloff, who helped get her on. “I wanna get on somewhere that has local vibes, people I know,” she says. “I want it to feel like a team. Don brings us all together.”
“He knew one street skater, and that was Josh Beagle. ‘Josh, you’ve got to get me a team.’ They dumped the whole fucking thing and started over.”
Known for his backside tailslide 270 nose manny, which went viral in 2023, and that bonkers hydrant ollie to frontside bluntslide in Today, Tomorrow, Forever, Lawler is aware he’s not the most obvious fit on Foundation. He and Heilman say it was a bit of a running joke that he should ride for the brand, given that he self describes as a “ledge guy” who grew up loving Girl and Chocolate. His landing place isn’t completely random, though. Lawler, a longtime Furnace Skateshop employee, says he’s known Luong as a local around town for some time. He was obsessed with onetime F-Trooper Leo Romero as a middle-schooler. And he went to the 2017 premiere of Foundation’s Oddity, Luong’s first video for the brand, and enjoyed it so much that he did something out of character. “I hard-posted that I was at the premiere,” he says, reiterating his love for Girl and Chocolate. “Dude, I hard-posted a Foundation video!”
Tanner Lawler by Jas Cuhadar
Even after Lawler was welcomed to the team by Luong, he says he still wasn’t sure if it made sense for him to ride for Foundation, but he’s working through it. “I think [them] being down for me helps dudes who like ledges pay attention to the brand.” Foundation has its own lexicon, mottos and phrases. “Today, Tomorrow, Forever” as a video name is lifted from the introduction of Art Bars. (Hat tip to Simple Magic for pointing that out.) “Adventure Today” was an early catchphrase, too. Mike Sinclair, who for a decade-and-a-half worked for both Tum Yeto board brands before recently stepping away from Foundation to focus on Toy Machine and his own company, Slappy Trucks, noted a Foundation motto to me that I’d previously not heard: “Consistently Inconsistent.” Maybe Lawler does make sense on the F.
Sinclair attributes the motto, which showed up in old Foundation print ads, to Tod Swank. A onetime pro skater, zine-maker, photographer and the guy pushing on that iconic Grant Brittain-shot Transworld Skateboarding cover, Swank started Foundation in 1989. Sinclair says he gave him and Luong the greenlight to run Foundation their way so long as they stayed true to the brand’s look and feel. (I touched base with Swank over a handful of messages, but we never found a time to chat.)
“It’s such a weird time in skateboarding — it’s kind of bleak — but Foundation-wise, everyone is super optimistic.”
Despite Swank’s backseat role at Foundation, Thrasher editor-in-chief Michael Burnett says that, to this day, it’s “Tod’s baby.” He mentions Swank Zine, his eponymous D.I.Y. mag. “That’s how I got into making magazines. Swank loomed large.” A fictitious pro skater named Justin Lovely was the seed for Foundation. Burnett says Swank was cutting down boards from his sponsor, Simms, and making them into Lovely pro models. Swank got a deal to make the fake pro models through Skull Skates, by then using the iconic tea kettle and star and moon graphics for which Foundation is well known. Foundation, named after an Isaac Asimov series of science fiction novels, moved under the World Industries umbrella and put out its first video, Glam Boys on Wheels. “They still had vert guys on the team,” Burnett says. Then ramp-riding died. “He kicked all the vert guys off, the writing was on the wall, and he knew one street skater, and that was Josh Beagle. ‘Josh, you’ve got to get me a team.’ They dumped the whole fucking thing and started over.”
Don Luong rolling, Aidan Campbell, lensman Nando Yiv by Jas Cuhadar
Jason Rothmeyer is a former pro skater who nowadays sells shoes for New Balance Numeric. He says that in the early 90s, he quit Santa Cruz to ride for Foundation because he was skating with Beagle, Richard Mulder and Ronnie Creager, who all rode for the brand at the time. “The term ‘Tum Yeto’ might have started when I was there,” Rothmeyer says, pointing out Foundation had already departed World. Though not as obvious more than 30 years on, Rothmeyer says it was fun to skate for what he considered an upstart company. Namechecking Foundation’s second video, The Magic F from 1991, he says, “I liked the vibe of this little brand. It was kind of Rubbish Heap, World-style.” Rothmeyer appeared in 1992’s Cocktails, and filmed for its 1993 followup, Super Conductor Super Collider, but by the the time it came out he wasn’t on the team. “I got kicked off by Tod and he gave me this beating around the bush speech about how I wasn’t who they expected to be,” Rothmeyer says. “In reality, they needed salary to put on Steve Berra.”
Berra getting on Foundation, as Rothmeyer puts it, helped usher the brand into the mainstream. Berra’s stint with the company culminated in a curtains part in 1995’s Rolling Thunder, one of the first videos I ever saw and my Foundation video. Though Toy Machine’s Welcome to Hell, released a year later and also out of Tum Yeto, would subsequently overshadow Rolling Thunder, I consider it Foundation’s first modern video. It struck me as more cool than the other videos I’d seen back then, with progressive rail skating and weird interview sequences that had me mumbling Steve Olson quotes. I’d argue it set the tone for all the Foundation videos to come.
“Foundation – we kind of have every aesthetic and every year all combined into one.”
Board brands out of the same distribution are frequently compared to each other, though the interplay between Foundation and Toy Machine looms larger than most other situations. “Toy’s always had fucking superstars,” says Rothmeyer. “I think that Toy Machine blew up so fast simply because Welcome to Hell was so gnarly. It was like Plan B, like Questionable. I don’t know if Foundation started off like that; it didn’t have that initial punch.” And yet, the two brands remain closely associated in skaters’ minds. Burnett says a former Thrasher editor, writing the “Trash” section in the early 2010s, congratulated Dakota Servold for finally turning pro for Toy Machine. “They were super bummed because he was pro for Foundation,” Burnett says. “There was homogenization around that era, look and style of skating. Rock and roll, strumming the guitar, handrails.” Foundation now seems to be in a new era. Its ability to shapeshift is built-in, Luong says. “With Toy Machine, you kind of know what you’re gonna get, the aesthetic is so established. Foundation is just very free. There’s no restrictions.”
Austin Heilman by Jas Cuhadar
Of course, Heath Kirchart skated for Foundation, a point proudly made by both Heilman and Campbell. The two also take pride in the brand’s deep history. Heilman says, “Tod is so legendary, owning the company for almost 40 years, never sold it, I’m sure it’s so hard at times. He’s keeping it alive at all costs; that’s a testament to being a true skate rat, I think.” Campbell: “I forget sometimes that I’m considered an O.G., up there with the company. It’s a mix of emotions. I’m grateful. I was obsessed with That’s Life, my little 12-year-old self wouldn’t believe I have a board with Foundation.” He says the vibes at the brand are the best since he’s been on. “It’s funny, because it’s such a weird time in skateboarding — it’s kind of bleak — but Foundation-wise, everyone is super optimistic. I think it’s a good time for Foundation.”
Lilley, who says she was convinced to ride for Foundation after watching Whippersnappers at its 2023 premiere, is honest about her level of knowledge at the time. “I feel so bad that I didn’t know anything about Foundation and I didn’t know the history. I’m just a fully padded skate rat at the skatepark 24 hours a day, just skating with these people.” She has since made amends, and has even watched the F’s first video, Glam Boys on Wheels, a video that I, as I type the end of this story, still have never seen. (Bits of Glam Boys play in the intro to Rolling Thunder; the vert shenanigans, even in my youth, seemed to be from a past so distant it was as if they existed behind some kind of event horizon.). Lilley gives the video two thumbs up. “I really liked it. I thought it was really cool to see Tod skating in it. I just hadn’t been educated. I knew that Tod Swank was a legend but that was Tod, who comes in the warehouse walking his dog.”
Given the brand’s ramp-riding roots, Luong says Lilley is a “full circle moment.” She embraces it. “I do feel like I bring a little bit of the old edge,” she says. “I don’t really know my next move. Any skate team needs someone like that, someone who is self-expressive and not shy to look a little crazy sometimes. If you look at me and then Austin, you wouldn’t think that we ride for the same company and that’s what I think is really cool.”
“Foundation – we kind of have every aesthetic and every year all combined into one.”
