Who is Bill Weiss?
When you think about ways in which you can get involved in the world of skateboarding, it’s safe to say Bill Weiss has done it all – well, at least most of it. Pro skater, videographer, team manager and even brand owner, Bill has been an important name within the industry for longer than I have been alive. Crazier still, this all started when he took a coach from Toronto, Canada, all the way down to California at the age of 14, in the hopes of making it as a pro-skater – something that just wouldn’t happen nowadays.
This makes Bill an incredibly interesting person to talk to, with a bottomless pit of stories and experiences such as managing skaters like Jake Duncombe for Blind whilst on King of the Road, filming some of the craziest skating to have gone down, starting not one, but two of the most individually vibrant skateboard companies in a current state of brand saturation, and much, much more! Check it out.
Small talk
What music are you listening to at the moment?
What am I listening to currently? Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Earth, Wind and Fire. The Descendants…
You seem like an incredibly busy dude. What’s your favourite thing to do when you have some free time?
When I have free time, my favorite thing to do is hang out with my kids. I love to go jump in water, jump in the ocean, go eat way too many desserts is always a plan.
I really enjoy watching the clips you post on Instagram. Do you prefer skating transition or street generally?
Nowadays, when it comes to skating, honestly, I’m just down to skate whatever anyone else is going to session. I just like jumping in and seeing what I can come up with.
A lot of skaters reach a certain age and end up skating curbs. Is there a reason we haven’t seen any curb clips from you?
As far as curbs. Where I grew up in Canada, we didn’t have a lot of like red painted curbs or definitely not those long red double sided curves like they have a lot in California, so I never really skated them. I don’t really skate a lot of curbs.
You experienced the ‘death’ of vert skating. What/who do you think brought it back?
Yeah. The death of Vert. That was crazy. It was like overnight, man. It was like it was just gone. There was no vert ramps. The industry, like, threw us out, like used toilet paper. It was very bizarre and very depressing, honestly. But what do I think is bringing back, I would have to say probably just the backyard ramp scene that I saw starting to sprinkle around.
And, you know, I think people realize just how amazing that community is, those sessions are and just how fun it is to, you know, link up and get a ramps going is one of the best things ever. So I would say backyard ramp jams is probably why vert is back.
Who is your favourite vert skater, past or present?
My favorite vert skater, past or present. Mike Frazier without question, the first time I saw Mike skate in person. The first thing he did was like a finger flip, lean disaster revert over my head, and I was shell shocked. From that day on, man, Mike has just been doing the gnarliest shit, man, the whole way through.
To this day. I’m sure he’s skating right now and just crushing it. He is the epitome of vert skating to me. When I see him do the inverts to fakie. It’s a thing of beauty. I love Mike Frazier.
Who has more natural talent, Muska or Penny?
Who’s a more natural talent? Muska or Penny? It’s tough. I’m going to say it’s a draw. Both of those guys are like the masters of this style of skating. They both raised the bar so high. I went on plenty of sessions with those guys. And like, nine times out of ten, they would just do that shit first or second try, man.
Those are some awesome dudes.
Talking of Muska, everyone talks about your naked 540’s but I think the boombox 540 is way more impressive. How scary was it to pull a 540 with that thing on your shoulder?
The Boombox 540, 100% inspired by Chad Muska. Really, it was just a joke. And you know, he was like, yeah, you should do it with the boombox. And then sure enough, I tried it. But you know, Muska always has a big boom box. And second of all, they’re filled with like 18 double D batteries. So they’re super heavy.
And I had it in my arm. That usually helps like, guide the spin. So it kind of threw you off kilter and it made it really awkward to follow through. Sure enough, after a while it actually ended up working. And definitely, definitely a crazy one that, you know, I didn’t see coming.
Life after being a pro skateboarder
You tell the story about you throwing your boards into the bowl at the Vans park and effectively retiring being a pro skater at 26/27 years old. Is this something you regret at all? I know you mentioned it was a huge sense of relief when you did it at the time.
Yeah, I did retire myself. And no, I don’t regret it at all. I was always super into the progression of skateboarding and trying to push myself as hard as I could to learn new stuff or think of stuff and try to make it happen. And at that time, I just felt like I wasn’t contributing at a level that I wanted to.
And on top of that, I felt like I didn’t deserve to have a board, and nor did I want to have a board with my name it on the wall if I wasn’t, you know, progressing at the level I wanted to.
How did you find the transition from skater to filmer & editor for your Digital series?
The transition from skater to filmer, that was built out a necessity when I retired myself and quickly was like, how the fuck am I going to eat? And I was trying to figure something out. I had a bunch of crazy ideas, but this one actually kind of resonated with some people. Most importantly, Rune Glifberg and Mike Crum, who backed me on it, which was crazy to say the least at the time.
But, you know, I felt like 411 and stuff had gotten kind of stale and repetitive, and I wanted to do something that sort of showed kind of what I was seeing daily between all these skaters we were skating with, and some different friends and stuff, and I just wanted to try and make something different, make something new fun.
Also, focused on good skating. And basically with those guys help, I was able to get started and all of it was a complete and utter wild learning process. I had never filmed, I had never edited, but you know, we were able to get some people stoked on making the first one. And yeah, we just went from there.
Have you got a favourite clip that you have filmed over the years?
If you’re asking me about a clip that I got of myself, it would be the varial 540 in Vancouver with no pads. That’s definitely the best thing I’ve gotten on tape of myself. If you’re asking me if it was a clip that I actually filmed, I’m going to go with Kevin Romar nollie back heel Santa Monica triple set.
So much went into that and he just did it so perfectly and it was just total chaos. But man, that was a that was a beautiful experience to see him get that.
Being a skate team manager
You won King of the Road as the TM for Blind in 2007. Would you ever do anything like that again?
Yeah. King of the Road was wild to say the least. But it was awesome. So, yeah. Fuck. I’d go right now.
Who was the hardest skater to manage during the Blind days?
I mean, obviously, you could say Jake Duncombe and Jake Brown were on the team at the same time. But honestly, man, those guys were so awesome. The skateboarding, they did just as people. I love those guys. I was probably more of a pain in the ass to them than they ever were to me.
How did you discover skaters such as Sewa Kroetkov and Yuto Horigome?
Someone had put some footage of Sewa in front of me and we had started speaking online. He was coming out to California, so I was like, we should meet up for sure. We ended up meeting at Stoner Park, had a great session. He was totally ripping, super nice and chill. I asked him, you know, what his plan was while he was here, where he was staying?
And then I just said, you know what, man, Just come stay with me. And he did. And you know, we just hit it off. It was awesome. With Yuto, Micky Papa had mentioned that he had a really cool kid staying with him that was ripping. And you know, we should line up a session. So we did. We ended up skating all day.
I was just blown away, man. I was like, this dude is on another level. He was something I had not seen before as far as talent. At the end of the session, I asked him, you know, do you want to skate for Blind? And he said yes. Shortly after that he was back in Japan. But I immediately was like, man, he should come back.
We should, you know, try and shoot and film as much as possible so more people can see just how amazing Yuto skateboarding really is. So he came back. He didn’t speak any English at the time. He stayed with me. We basically would have flash cards for food for him to pick for the day. And you know, he would stay in my daughter’s room and we would just skate all the time.
Man, it was awesome. And it’s just been absolutely amazing to see what he’s done.
Dylan Jaeb has just gone pro for Quasi. Whilst a lot of people have been criticising Primitive for not turning him pro when he skated for them, it had me thinking about the story of you trying to turn Yuto pro for Blind at Street League. Could you talk us through what happened there?
Yeah. I mean, every situation is different with turning someone pro, you know, there’s a lot that goes into it. Obviously, there’s an element of surprise and, you know, trying to pick the right time. You know Yuto is new on the scene. But he was winning street leagues. I felt like that was some validation there. So I had planned the surprise.
I had a board made for him. I was flying to Chicago for Street League. It was a little tricky keeping that thing under wraps. We had a full plan to surprise him, and then, right before it was going to happen, he had a new agent at the time, I was bringing the board, like right about to walk in the arena, and we got into a conversation that led to that decision not happening.
It wasn’t the best situation, but at the end of the day, Yuto ended up on April with Shane O’Neil, who was favorite skater is. So it’s like, that’s all good with me, you know? And I’m stoked for him.
Is there something that happens way more than us regular folk realise?
The only thing I can think of is just how much can go into a trick sometimes, and just how much chaos is involved. You know, I can name one time where we went eight weekends in a row both days, Saturday, Sunday to try and get a trick.
And, you know, if it was traffic, if it was kick outs, if it was rain, if it was security, if it was an angry teacher, you name it. And just driving back and the somber back and forth and motivation can get really low. And then that eighth time on the Sunday, you know, when we went and it happens and all of the shitty stuff just disappears, and just seeing how stoked everyone is makes it all worth it.
There are so many amazing skaters in the world now, what do you look out for when it comes to putting someone on the team?
Yes, indeed. There is so many amazing skateboarders around the world. It really is unbelievable. As far as when I’m looking for something or someone for the team, the main thing is I want someone that can bring something different to the table. So that’s the main thing I look for when I’m looking to add someone to the team.
Is there a noticeable difference between skaters in the 2000s compared to skaters from the 2020s?
One difference for sure is skaters in the 2000. You know, video parts were such a big part of that time. Your favourite skater waiting for their next part. Your favorite company waiting for their next full length video, and just wondering, like, man, what are they going to do next?
And all the time in those videos, man, they overachieved, and it was just such an amazing experience. Now with social media and, you know, skaters largely having a bubble effect of their social media and looking outward, you’re just hit with so much amazing skateboarding all the time. I kind of feel like it lessens the shock factor that you might have had from skaters in the 2000, but the skateboarding level is continually just going through the roof, so that’s one thing I can think of.
Shortly after you were fired from Dwindle, you made a quick post quickly explaining what had just happened. In response, the whole team quit Madness in solidarity with you. Did that decision from the team inspire the inception of Opera? I imagine it’d be pretty easy to walk away from it all after what you experienced at Dwindle during your last few years there…
Yeah, the whole experience with Dwindle was a fucking nightmare! Watching those people, you know, take something that I cared so much about in Madness Skateboards and burn it to the ground was fucking devastating. But, you know, I made my post and that was that. And then shortly after seeing all those people quit, man. Absolutely, it motivated me to build everyone a new home.
And fortunately, that’s what we’re doing now with Sidewalk. So all the shit we had to go through, man, it was honestly worth it.
The return of Madness Skateboards and building Opera
How good did it feel to post that video telling the world you had Madness back?
Man letting the world know Madness back was probably one of the best feelings I’ve ever had. I honestly didn’t know if that was even going to be possible. And when it was, man, it just felt fucking great.
Now you have both, what is the difference between Madness and Opera?
Madness’ Origin was always based on transition skating, and it will focus on that completely now. And Opera will focus more on street and some ATV.
With Opera being more street orientated compared to Madness, was that a deliberate move in case you got Madness back?
No, it wasn’t deliberate. I never thought Madness coming back was an option.
What lessons did you learn whilst working for Blind that you brought to Madness/Opera?
That applies to Madness and Opera. One of the main things I learned from doing Blind was just to, like, work really hard. Find out what you want to do, focus on that and make it happen.
Both Opera and Madness really set themselves apart from the rest when it comes to technical features of their decks, be it Pop-Slick or Slick Shield constructions, grip grooves or in-set wheel wells etc. Was that always going to be a priority for you when starting the brands?
It was one of the main priorities. When we started Madness, we really wanted to try and bring a different skateboard to market. We really wanted to explore what we could do with the wood shop as far as fit and finish details. So yeah, that was that was one of the main things.
How do you add these features without the decks becoming super expensive?
We work with the best factory in Chop and art director Eric Willem is an absolute master in detail and design, so he’s super conscious when it comes to fit and finish trying to create something amazing for the consumer, that’s not going to be too expensive.
There has always been a thing about Canadian skaters having a harder time making it as pros for big US brands. Madness and Opera both have teams with skaters from various countries outside the states, is this something you consciously created?
Yeah. When I was coming up and being from Canada, it was next to impossible to get recognized out in California by the industry. It was tough. There’s a lot of roadblocks. Nowadays, I think it’s a little easier. But, you know, even more awesome is you don’t have to come to California to get recognized anymore. You can stay home and represent your city. So I love that.
As far as having riders from all over the world on Opera and Madness, I mean, I love the flavor and different styles. All the skaters, all these different countries bring. So man, it’s just a total honor to have these guys representing the brands.
How does planning a tour for a team of mainly transition focused skaters compare to a tour for a team of street skaters? Is there much of a difference at all?
As far as planning a tour for street guys versus tranny guys, I don’t really look at it that way. Most recently, I sent Sora Shirai, Kieran Woolley and Nassim Lachhab to Barcelona, and when I first mentioned that, I think some people thought that might be a bit of a weird posse to put together to go on a trip, but I didn’t really think it was weird.
I was more curious to see what would happen if you put brand new spots in front of all these guys, and sure enough, the result was great, man. They were feeding off each other, seeing different ways to skate stuff, and the video came out awesome. So I was actually really stoked on the group that went out there.
What’s next for you and your brands?
Coming up soon. We’re going to have a Kieran Woolley Opera part that I’m super excited for everyone to see. Kieran’s got a really unique take on skating and he’s just an absolute beast, so that should be coming out hopefully in the next month or so. And then as far as that, man, my goal is to be able to get the Madness and Opera guys on the road and tour, hang with people, skate with the kids.
That is the absolute goal.
Thanks Bill!
