FTV SHOW: Jeff King Interview

Season Two of "Built to Shred" gets underway and Jeff King turns even more seemingly unshreaddable objects then ever into skate, surf, snow and wake masterpieces of defiance. 

FTV: What are the 5 strangest things you have built something out of?

1. Flat Bar bike. We took a bunch of kids bikes cut up and welded together and then added a few pieces of metal and rebuilt handlebars so we could put it all together. You could ride it to the spot then pull out some pins and skate it.

2. The Thrift Store Episode. A lot of good things came out of that. The Toaster oven skateboards. Skating on a toaster oven, when does that ever happen? We had to do it just to say we had. Other goodies out of that episode were the skate-able carpet, guitar case skateboard and the mini piano.

3. The Genie. This became a theme for the show. We got our hands on a 20 foot tool Carpeteria man. He used to hold up the giant Carpeteria sign at a store. I built a 15-foot ledge that he proudly holds his hands up and supports. We took it to Bob Burnquist’s house and then did a wake skating thing and then took it to June Mountain where some snowboarders hit it. They were super stoked on that.

4. Surf rail of death. That was cool because it hadn’t been done before. It was a culmination of the three sports, wakeskate, surfing and skateboarding. It was cool to tie all of those sports together. You are going to see some really good slams in that one.

5. Operation Dirt Pipe. We like to think of ourselves as really eco-friendly so we had a dirt gully and it had good tranny on it and a flat bottom. We shoveled it and laid plywood down and made it skateable. We didn’t use any 2x4s on that one and it was using the earth and some wood to make it happen.

FTV: What are must have tools for Built to Shred?
JK: Circular saw and a drill. These are key. You can build a million things with that.

FTV: What’s they craziest thing you think you have ever built?
JK: I would have to say the rock sifter.” It’s what you use on a construction site. They are like ten feet tall and have a triangle on each side. It’s tall and super gnarly and steep. We built a ramp going up it. Kale Sandrige in the Hawaii episode. It was impossible. He had to get towed behind a car and then aired off the top of it and landed in the most horrible excuse for a ramp that I have ever seen. He crashed like 25 times. I thought there was no way he would walk away from it.

FTV: Have there been a lot of episodes where someone could have almost died?
JK: Well things get pretty crazy at times. The Genie episode was gnarly. We were trying to put the genie together at June Mountain and it was two parts and so we were trying to do that from above in the snow and were on top of a jump and the top of the genie was on these forks and the whole thing almost tipped over. It was the sketchiest thing ever.

FTV: So do you get hazard pay for being on Built to Shred or is it just part of it all.
JK: (hahahaha) There was just that one time. We do a lot of sketchy **** that’s for sure. At Bob’s we put half the Genie up on his ramp and it was like 46 feet and the wind was blowing and it was insane. Let’s just say there are some death defying moments.

FTV: What was the most creative concoction ever built?
JK: Flat bar bike was my favorite. That was the smartest I have ever been. The shopping cart ramp was good too though. I modified 3 shopping cards so you could push them but when you tip them over they become a ramp. The shred bed was another good one. That was fun because we went to Sequioa Lakes Skate Camp and turned a bunk bed into a shredable item.  That’s the best thing about what we do. There’s no limit as to what can be shred on and we prove it.

Take a look at this episode with Dennis Busenitz, Omar Hassan, Daewon Song, Arto Sarri, Rune Glifberg and more from last season.