Ryan Lay Interview
Backside 50-50 to backside nosebluntslide, Tempe. Ph. Eric Danescu
There are plenty of Ryan Lay interviews out there about the many facets of his life outside of professional skateboarding. His work as an ambassador for Skate Pal, Slow Impact, veganism and endurance sports have been discussed before in various digital and traditional formats. So instead, I wanted to ask him about when I would drunkenly DM him about a tiny dog he used to have called Crumb, visiting Cardiff on an IPath trip with Fred Gall nearly 20 years ago and insect diversity in Arizona. I had my notes at the ready…
“How’s it going mate?”
“Not so good right now. I’m pissing blood.”
My questions seemed stupid. After spending time in LA with Ryan last year, I was enthralled by the drive he has to battle tricks to the bitter end, more so than anyone else I’ve ever seen. Surely the multi-day endurance mindset plays some part in his ability to keep moving towards his end goal, regardless of how tired and sore he’s feeling in the moment, but his desire to hit spot after spot, later and later into the night feels like it comes from somewhere else. An innate hunger for productivity.The first five seconds of the call immediately set the tone for a conversation that tried to get to the root of how somebody on their third or fourth career in skating is still putting their body and mental stability on the line for the sake of an end result that they may never be happy with.
Interview by Conor Charleson
How come you’re pissing blood? Were you trying something especially scary?
Ryan Lay: Yeah, just jumping down shit. And for whatever reason, this is the third time this has happened this month.
The third time you’ve pissed blood this month?
Yeah.
Oh my God, dude.
I know. I think it just happens if I jump down something for way longer than I should.
As in, you’re not even like repetitively falling on a specific zone?
I think it’s something to do with the exhaustion and like damage to your kidneys, although I’m not 100% sure. I’ve been told that as long as it’s not happening 48 or 72 hours afterwards, it’s fine. But yeah…
Okay. I mean, that’s still… Obviously your body’s trying to tell you something, isn’t it?
I mean. Yeah, it’s… It’s not super common.
Often, skaters in their mid-30s have already wound down. Do you find that you’re having to change or adapt the way you skate? Your body is obviously reacting in some way physically compared to how it used to.
Yes and no. I’m someone who is always reflexively contrarian about the way that I skate and when people tell me like, “Oh, just skate ledges and do lines,” then I want to jump down stuff. And when people tell me to jump down stuff, I don’t want to do that. I’ll always love big, spectacular skating. I mean, I’ve never been amazing at it, but I feel like you see this even in skaters like Tom Knox. Even now I just have a weird drive to want to do that. I still like doing skating that scares the shit out of me. I would say I’m pretty comfortable skating big stuff still, but the recovery just takes so much longer. So I have to be pretty mindful of choosing my battles.
There’s also just kind of a will to prove to yourself that you can still do it. I never really liked when the older skaters that I love just kind of transitioned to exclusively slappy skaters, you know?
Haha…
Yeah, I know who I’m speaking to right now. But, for whatever reason, there’s a… There’s a little bit of Zero in my heart, you know?
Backside nollie kickflip, Phoenix. Ph. Eric Danescu
Is that left over from when the Chief was sending you boards?
I think I tried to get boards from Zero, but I probably wasn’t gnarly enough. I think Jamie maybe sent me a couple boards when I didn’t have a board sponsor, but I couldn’t really bring the heat like that.
If he could see you now, still going… (Skating until you bleed internally!)
I know, right? I have this stubbornness about not wanting to quit that part of my skating. I say this now, but I think this could be the last video part that I put my body through all this.
It’s been a little while since your 100 trick line, do you think you’d still have the stamina to accomplish that? Do you think that’s still something you’d be capable of?
Yeah. I don’t know if I want to put this on… No, we could put this on record, but I’m kind of a sicko in that whenever I go out and skate by myself, my regiment is to do 100 tricks.
Oh, really?
Yeah, and they all have to be unique tricks. For whatever reason, it’s become this device that I use every time I go skate solo, just to keep myself motivated. You know those days when you don’t know if you really want to skate, but you know that you should, because you want to feel sharp when you go street skating on the weekend? Yeah, so I do that pretty regularly, not in a row, obviously, but I did it at Perry semi-recently, the 100 tricks in a row.
Is that the same park?
No, it’s a different park. Mitchell is where I did the original line. It’s very small; there’s only three obstacles. The recent one was at Perry, the new, colourful park. We tried to film a few of them over the course of a couple days and we must have miscounted. It was like 98 or 99. I did a one off that wasn’t filmed. Maybe we’ll film one and put it out somewhere…
You’ve been doing the scary stuff for a long time… You were somewhat of a child prodigy. Do you think we still have a slew of incredibly talented kids in skating who are really young, but absolutely going for it?
Skating’s old as shit now. And I think that there are a very small number of freakishly good young skaters, but it really does feel like there’s not a new generation of dedicated street skaters, or at least I don’t see a lot of them around me. I mean, obviously I’m older and in a different niche, but I’m pretty involved in the skate scene and I don’t see a lot of younger skaters who are replacing the older generation. I’ve gone to Woodward a number of times as a visiting pro and, even the directors there are like, “You know, after COVID, we’ve kind of just seen the level of mania that young people used to have around getting good at skating just fall off a cliff.”
I mean, you could argue that that’s a pretty healthy way to approach skating, but it is a pretty big departure from our generation. Every company I look at has a bunch of 30-year-olds on the team and there’s not a lot of really young people to pick from. I’m not really sure exactly why that is, but I’ve thought about it a lot lately.
I mean, I fully hear you, and it’s not even localised to the States. I would say the same thing kind of applies to London and even to Wales where I grew up. The generation above me was insane, all of them. If they were to appear now, they’d be like the best up and coming kids in the UK. You know what I mean? Sometimes it feels like the standard that people want to achieve isn’t as high as it used to be.
Yeah, and people talk about the lack of financial incentives, but I’m not sure I buy that argument because, most of the people who were good when I was growing up, never made it into the skate industry. When I would go to Tempe Park when I was like 20 years old, there was such a high level of talent. Just a psychotic level of skating and 95% of them never even got sponsored. So I feel like money was never really the issue. I think there’s just like something weird going on with drive and motivation. I mean, they’ve been through a lot, so I don’t necessarily blame them, but it’s been pretty odd, the extent to which people often can’t find younger people to put on teams.
I guess it does mean that when someone is young, stands out, and who you can see has talent and a solid work ethic, companies fucking snap them up and start fighting over them. You know what I mean? But up and coming skaters like that are few and far between for sure.
Yeah, you just think back to our era… Like Arto [Saari] in Menikmati, there was such a high level of talent between the ages of 18 and 25, and 25 was probably on the older end then. I’ve also heard compelling arguments that nostalgia is responsible for keeping all these older pros around for too long, which I understand. People have kind of bought into these pros’ stories and they want to continue supporting them. We’re kind of culturally stuck in a cycle of nostalgia with everything, and so it makes sense that would carry over into skating as well. It’s the same reason why they just remake the same old films that we grew up on. People feel good inside watching Andrew Reynolds frontside flip a ten stair… Who needs anything new?
True…
I will say to any young people who are reading this… Haha, which is probably not the case, but… The door is wide open. There are a lot of opportunities for young people in skating. So I hope that people understand that and don’t feel like, ‘oh, the door’s just been closed.’ Everyone I talk to is looking for young kids to hook up.
I think it’s also something to do with the fact that the technology by which people advertise or portray their skating has changed. It’s short form, it’s instant, as opposed to like, saving clips, building up to these bigger projects. That’s nothing new, but then the people you have running the companies and team managing are people from those eras where they want to see a work ethic that builds towards something.
See, I’ve heard that argument a lot as well, and I’m not sure that I completely buy it, because I don’t see a lot of young people bringing the heat on Instagram [gunshots]. I understand it’s really hard to hold on to your stuff for a longer project and see through a bigger vision. But I also don’t think we see a lot of kids who are crushing it at the skatepark and posting their clips straight to the internet. There’s a few of them, but not a ton. Remember the era of watching Kader, T-Funk and all those kids grow up at Pedlow Park or the Bryggeriets kids from Oski’s era and how exciting it was just watching them get better every day? Maybe I’m way off base but I feel like we don’t see that as much anymore. The kids at Brygg are definitely good still.
Yep. Do you feel that you’re still able to generate good ideas and good clips from Phoenix? You’ve essentially grown up and skated there for years. You didn’t seem too hyped on LA when I was there last year. So is it a struggle to be staying in Phoenix and filming?
I really am struggling with it. Something that is pretty obvious about Phoenix to outsiders, is that it’s pretty architecturally bland. Most of the city is just suburban neighbourhoods.
You’ll see fucked up zoned housing areas in LA and other big cities that give you weird wheelchair ramps and stairs all over the place. Things are a little wonky. We don’t get that. Everything’s very cut and dry and linear. There’s a lot of space in Arizona and it’s very flat. So, yeah, it’s been pretty challenging for me. I’ve been filming parts there for over 20 years now. So I revisit a lot of spots that I’ve skated in the past. Tucson has a lot more character than a place like Phoenix.
Switch backside tailslide, Phoenix. Ph. Eric Danescu
So have you been getting Luke [Murphy] out to Arizona to film you? Or have you had other people?
Early on yeah, I would make Luke come out to Phoenix a lot. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get anyone from Sci-fi to go there, but I don’t blame them. We filmed a good chunk over like two or three trips. And then I’ve filmed a lot with Eric Danescu, who I’ve worked with for a lot of past projects. I feel like I was able to film about half my part there. We did a Tucson trip that was pretty good, aside from me front flipping off of an out ledge.
Oh, that’s the one in the trailer?
No, that’s not even the one in the trailer. Somehow it’s a worse slam than the one that’s in the trailer.
Alright let’s talk about the video properly, because you’re in the home stretch. Are you happy with what you have so far? Is there still time for you to get stuff if you want to?
I feel okay. I have a good amount of footage. I probably had the opportunity to start earlier than just about everybody else. But, I mean, are we ever really happy? I feel like it’s made worse by this era where you record the clip off of the LCD on the camera and then you watch it a million times over. So then by the time you actually see the video… I said to Corey [Glick] the other day, “I only like the clips I got in the last two weeks.” That’s it, you know?
In the last two weeks?
Well, those are the ones that are fresh. I’ve filmed with so many different people that I kind of need to keep track of it, but I think I’m not gonna do that in the future.
Yeah it’s easy to torture yourself with screen recordings.
Watch it on repeat until you hate it. Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes. We have about another few weeks to film and, you know, I’m trying. That’s all I can say is that I’m trying.
Luke was saying how you have described yourself to him in the past as somebody who is not the easiest person to film as you’re very focused, you want the result and you’re in for the long haul if you start. Sometimes this means getting into multiple four-hour-plus battles. How do you feel like that blends with the other guys on the team working on the video?
In the moments that I do have a lot of drive, I have a seemingly endless capacity for suffering. Jerry’s built that way too. In these last couple of weeks, everyone in LA has kind of adopted that mindset. Even Joa, which might surprise some people. I’ve watched Joa try a trick for hours with multiple trips back. But I’m the only one on the team who’s made Luke throw up from skating. Some light filmer abuse.
Damn, how’d that happen?
Having Luke in Arizona, for me is like a really precious thing. We would just overdo it on those weekends when he would come out. That particular day, I had done a trick and then we went to try a line, that was kind of a bullshit line. I shouldn’t have tried it. We tried it for way too long. I couldn’t nose bonk a trash can. I was feeling frustrated about that and was like, “Alright, let’s just go straight to this other spot real quick.” This was like nine o’clock at night. You’ll see it in the video, but it’s like a grind on a curb that goes down from one floor of the parking structure to another. So, Luke’s having to like skate with his extreme down the corridor, you know, braking with his heel and then having to walk back all the way up over and over. At a certain point I think I started carrying his camera up for him. I’m usually pretty good at keeping people on the team hydrated, because I have that from my background in endurance sports. Like I keep electrolytes and salt tabs on me. But in that moment, I didn’t do enough to care for Luke. On the way home I told him I’d buy him dinner, and he said he didn’t feel like eating. When we got to my house and we make it to the backyard, he just starts vomiting everywhere.
God.
Yeah. Then he’s kind of dehydrated,
dry heaving. We hadn’t eaten anything anyway. So it’s almost worse because then there’s nothing really even in there to vomit up. I felt like I needed to go to jail.
It stems from me feeling stressed that I hadn’t been able to film in weeks. So I had to kill myself skating while Luke’s there… It’s not something I’m proud of. And filmers… They’re like the most abused people in the industry. It’s honestly insane. Shout out to the filmers.
Nollie, Los Angeles. Ph. Kyle Seidler
I do think he was speaking admirably of how locked in you get into filming though.
The danger of really being locked in is that you kind of have a disregard for everything that’s going on around you. And that’s not a great state of mind, you know? I have such a laser focus when I’m skating that I pretty much disregard everything around me. My mind isn’t on the security or schedules or anything else.
What about nearly making everybody miss their flights on two separate trips? Narrowly costing Jerry a whole team’s worth of new flights.
Oh, the 50 in Salt Lake. Yeah… What was the other one, though?
Oh, he said the same scenario happened in Toronto.
Toronto was… Oh, that’s right! It’s nice to revisit these. Thanks, Jerry.
I would say in both of those instances it has something to do with the fact that I don’t live in LA. I’m not around a lot of people who I can work with all the time and film with. Also, I feel this sense of urgency when I’m on trips that culminates in me being stressed out, down to the wire on the last day. I still feel like I have to get something. I have to make something happen and maybe I lose my grasp of time a little bit.
Still, the 50-50 in Salt Lake is hilarious. We got it as Jerry was having a meltdown about getting the rental van back to the airport. He was literally sat in it with the engine started, shouting, “Ryan, get in the fucking van!” I thought about just telling him that I was going to stay and take a different flight home, because a good clip is hard to come by. A good clip is worth a few hundred bucks. They don’t come easily for me. So when I’m locked in on something I feel like it just has to happen.
And you never know what the airport’s going to be like, but we got to the airport and there was no one there. We checked in the rental car. We had so much time that we sat down for food, had some beers and got on the flight. So it went from a really stressful to a really mellow situation.
I suppose sometimes it’s the stress of those situations that catalyses a clip into existence.
I just feel like the magic required to get a good clip is the intersection of all these things: Do I feel good? Does the spot look right? Is the trick itself good enough for me? Do we have a filmer and photographer? Have I had enough caffeine? Have I eaten food, but not too much food? Is that weird pain in my hip still there? [Laughs] You know, it’s like all these things have to align together to create this magical moment. That’s why it’s so heartbreaking when you try so hard to make something happen and it doesn’t work. It’s why you get trapped in the cycle of trying a trick, recovering and then going right back. Like a record stuck on loop.
It’s times like that when you forget what it’s like to go to the skatepark and fuck around with your mates. The cycle is all-consuming.
Corey has been in that hell space for the last month. It’s brutal having to watch, you know? You just go try a trick and then you recover for a week or two and you go try a trick again with no skateboarding in between.
Switch kickflip, Los Angeles. Ph. Kyle Seidler
Is it the same thing each time?
Yeah, it’s just one trick. And I think it’s going to be his last trick. That’s kind of where everyone’s at right now.
Do you feel that because Jerry has been part of Emerica projects and stuff like that in the past that, even though he’s assembled a team of unconventional skateboarders, he’s trying to hold people to a standards that he’s been held to over the years?
Yeah, he has that old head mentality still, for sure. It comes out sometimes. Recently more so than ever. I’ve heard Matt Evs tortured people during the Bag of Suck era to the point where they didn’t even want to talk to him anymore.
Something I’ve been thinking about recently is that there’s just not a lot of opportunities in your career where you get to be a part of the video that people will give a shit about. I didn’t really understand that about pro skating when I got into it. You just end up having to do so much bullshit, so many parts that you just don’t really care about. Or you tried to put your best into it, but it wasn’t with the right team or the right company or, like, made by the right person. You didn’t have input and didn’t get to choose the music. It might be a bit different for the stars or the privileged few, but a lot of people just end up having to do so much bullshit over the course of their career. It feels really special when all the stars align and you get to work on something that, at the very least, people will want to watch.
So yeah, Jerry does have that attitude a little bit. He’s like, “Look, this is your opportunity. You know… Don’t blow it.” I have it too. I’ve told him I don’t need any extrinsic motivation. I got those demons. They’re in my head.
