Kyle Leeper Interview

Kyle Leeper has a flair for taking run-of-the-mill spots and finding new angles on them. With style and creativity that offer a breath of fresh air in skateboarding, he's making plenty of moves. Leeper's been getting tons of travel in, has a fresh new video part with Black Label, and just designed a shoe with etnies. When you see Kyle skate you can tell he really is having a good time rolling around... at least that's what we thought when we swung by his house.

(Photo: Tal Roberts)

FUEL.TV: You guys are dropping the Black Label video right now, how did it turn out?
Kyle Leeper: Yeah, it’s called “God Save The Label.” It’s good, I’ve got a full part. We just premiered it down at Hensley’s Pub. I didn’t really stress-out on it. I’ve just been traveling a lot, doing on trips and filming other stuff.  I usually try to always film a lot cause it’s good to have footage in case you get hurt. I just filmed at a steady pace, **** that I thought was cool. It’s definitely not gnarly, I mean, maybe I have a trick down like 4 or 5 stairs. Just a lot of manuals and the kind of sh-t I normally do.

FUEL.TV: Do you hang out down at Matt Hensley’s Pub much?
KL: Yeah, it’s a sick spot. It’s weird, when I’m home I don’t really drink much. I feel like I drink more when I’m on trips. I’ll go through phases where I’ll go down there a bit. Some cool bands come through there, it’s definitely the best spot around here to go kick it, a lot of cool people hang out there. 

(Photo: Oliver Barton)

FUEL.TV: What are some of the best sessions you’ve had on your backyard mini ramp?
KL: We’ve had a couple good parties here. My friend Ryan Wiley, who lives down the street, he doesn’t get to skate as much, he’s got a full-time job and he’s got a kid. We don’t get to skate as often, but when we do he kills it. We had his 30th birthday party here, it was really fun, with a lot of dudes I grew up with. We just had a welcome back party for my friend Andy who just came back from Australia too. I’ve found that a lot of random people have showed up to skate. Tony Hawk has come by, John Rattray, Pat Duffy, Ryan Gallant, Omar Salazar, Brandon Biebel, Stefan Janoski. I’ve always wanted to film like one or two clips of each dude that’s skated here, it would’ve been funny to see all the random people who have been over here. We have had some sick sessions, you get spoiled having a mini ramp, you know. I’ll be inside sometimes and look out and be like “Holy sh-t, I’ve got a ramp out there.” It’s pretty cool.

FUEL.TV: What’s up with your shoe with etnies?
KL: It’s a “designed by.” It’s called the Perro. The name came as a last minute thing, I was on the phone with my friend stressin’ about it, and he was like “call it the perro.” Perro means dog in Spanish, and I love dogs. It’s kind of a strange name, I guess. The shoe comes out in July. I’ve got some samples I’ve been wearing, and I'm pretty psyched on them.

FUEL.TV: You’ve also been doing some trips with etnies right?
KL: We just got back from a three week Europe trip. Did a couple demos in the south of Spain, Barcelona, Machester, Leeds, London. We were filming a podcast kinda deal. Pretty much the whole team was there.  Sheckler came along, he killed it. Malto, Davis Torgerson, Jose Rojo, Mikey Taylor, Tyler Bledsoe, and the whole Europe team. The whole Euro crew killed it. It was a kinda big posse but it was sick. Then before that we were doing Skate and Create. Etnies is doing a bunch of stuff right now, they got us all over the place. Which is good, I think people are psyched, we’ve been doing some cool sh-t.

(Photos: Oliver Barton)

FUEL.TV: You’ve got a really creative style, but who influences you?
KL: You know, Mark Gonzales, of course, he’s the best skateboarder of all-time. He can push mongo down the street and you’re like “f---in’ hell, that looks tight.” To me he’s a pretty epic dude. I also like watching Kenny Anderson, he’s the same way, just pushing down the street, doing a 180 or a kickflip just looks sick. I got a ton of dudes I just like to see, Mike Carroll, Jason Dill. It’s funny being younger and looking up to those dudes and then the next thing you know you’re getting older and skating with them, it’s kinda weird. Ever since I’ve been young I’ve those dudes were the ****. I grew up in Leucadia, which is a little beach town, I just skated with my friends and we didn’t know anything, we’d just ollie over the hose in the front yard and skate to the store to get candy. When we were younger it was more just transportation.

(Photo: Oliver Barton)

FUEL.TV: When you go to a spot do you think like, “How can I look at this differently?” Or does that just come naturally?
KL:  When I was younger I used to be a jumper. But now, I can’t jump man. Well, I could but two jumps down these things kids are kickflipping and it kills me. So, maybe I do go to spots like “Ok, what can I do here?” I think it has a lot to do with skating around here, in Carlsbad, there isn’t sh-t. There’s not that many spots, so you gotta go there like “I gotta make some sh-t happen out of nothing.” A lot of my part is filmed in Carlsbad and there’s not much here. There are so many skateboarders in this area that if a new spot does come up within two days it’s annihilated. It’s like Johnny did this and Billy did that, well what the f--k am I gonna do? You can ride your bike by a spot you see everyday and maybe one day you’ve learned a new trick and you’ve got something for that spot. It’s hard though to make **** work, everytime I see a new video I just think “Man, these kids are so good.” And just being on that last trip, Malto and Davis Torgerson and Sheckler, they’re f---ing good man. Those dudes were blowing my mind.