The Art of Being Fluid

While skateboarders across the world might regard him as a living legend, San Francisco native Tommy Guerrero doesn’t want that label for himself just yet.

“I hate that the term is thrown around so loosely,” he says over the phone. “And secondly, it’s usually used when people pass on. It’s like, ‘Fuck, I’m still here!’”

Instead, Guerrero—now a 49-year-old father of one—prefers to keep rolling with what he’s always known best: skating and music.

During his tenure as a professional rider and competitor for Powell Peralta’s Bones Brigade skate team in the ‘80s, Guerrero says he would always make time to come home and play his bass “for hours on end.” Although Guerrero currently serves as an art director for Krooked skateboards, as well as a member (but mostly an ambassador, he says) of the Converse CONS pro skate team, he’s also grown into a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, keys and percussion, in addition to bass.

Music, he explains, was a childhood passion that he began taking seriously as early as 1978, when the Ramones came and put on a show in front of San Francisco’s City Hall.

“It changed my life,” Guerrero says. “Being a skateboarder was already kind of an outlaw, rebel thing to do. And the punk ethos went hand-in-hand with skating … So me and my brother instantly were just enamored.”

Skating by day and rehearsing by night, Guerrero ended up forming a few different punk bands throughout the ‘80s—Free Beer perhaps being the most well-known. As a new decade trickled in, however, Guerrero says his band-playing days slowly came to an end while his skating career soldiered on. But that didn’t mean he was done with music.

Investing in a drum machine and a 4-track recorder—the very first Portastudio, as he recalls—Guerrero continued recording his own tunes, until eventually he got featured on a jazz compilation album in 1995.

Around the same time, Guerrero also provided the soundtrack for a skate video in promotion of a clothing company he had started called Forties, which caught the attention of Galaxia and Mo’ Wax Records. Guerrero produced three projects under those two labels at first, and then a slew of others throughout the 2000s and 2010s—he now has 11 albums in the bank, according to his website.

His latest release, 2015’s Perpetual, is an extension of sorts to the album prior, No Man’s Land, which he characterizes as a “break-beat spaghetti-western noir.” Both albums stem from desert rock and world music influences, including Tinariwen, Bombino, Gabor Szabo and John Zorn, among others.

Now, about six months after Perpetual dropped, Guerrero is embarking on a very brief tour up north to Oregon and back down again to San Francisco: a “run,” he calls it.

“This is just to go and play some music,” he says, “just to go do something, really.”

Before he stops off at the Shady Lady Saloon later this month with drummer Chuck Treece and bassist Josh Lippi, Submerge was able to chat with Guerrero about music, skateboarding and his surprising ties to Sacramento.

Would you consider your music to be tailored toward skateboarders, or that specific culture at all? Or is it just music for a general audience?
Music is for anyone, just as anything is. And I really can’t stand the way people need to pigeonhole you so they can market you in a specific way. That’s what so many people try to do in the music world … which I don’t agree with. It’s either art, or not. And it’s either good or bad, you know, depending on your taste … And, you know, I get a lot of support from the skate and art and surf community, which is great. I love it, that’s my family. But I would hate to be limited to such things, because I’ve met people anywhere from, literally, 5 [years old] to 65 who dig my music. It’s for everyone and anyone.

Would you say that your musical style is along the same lines as your skateboarding style? Your music, to me, has somewhat of a laid-back, free-form feel to it. And your skate style also seems very free and loose, but fast-paced at the same time.
I think the correlation is more about being in the moment. The thing about street skating … everything is in the moment. It’s very off-the-cuff; you’re improvising as you go down. You see a curb, you hit it. You see a stairwell, you see a driveway, you see a bench. Whatever it is, you’re hitting it along the way. And none of this is pre-planned. So music is kind of like that for me … I just want everything to be fluid and seemingly organic and seemingly natural—not forced. And that’s kind of how I approach everything. But I think that’s kind of the thread within skating.

I’m curious to know if you ever wish you were as well-known or famous for your musical prowess as opposed to your skateboarding career.
No. I identify myself, if I have to, as a skateboarder. And that’s just fine. The music thing for me—I’m not looking for accolades from that world. I don’t even really orbit in that world or have anything to do with the music industry. I’m removed from it, which is fine.

Is there anything you wish you could change about the music industry as a whole? Other than the blanket labeling and branding, I mean.
My only thing, truly, with the business end of music is that it would be nice if the people who are trying to run the industry would understand that without the artists, there is no art. So by not paying them what they deserve for their art, or their product or whatever people want to call it, it’s doing a huge disservice to the community. Even [for] people who have my music and dig it. You know, I’ve had people tell me, “Oh, I love your stuff. I just downloaded it from blah blah blah.” And it’s like, “Cool. I’m glad you dig it. It would be nice if you supported me financially.” Just because of the cost of making a record … The cost of me recording, the mixing, the mastering, the art and design and then the final production of the CD or vinyl and/or a digital release [is high]. There’s lawyer fees, publishing fees—it all adds up. I mean, I can’t get away with making a record for less than $10,000 … It’s always difficult to get people to understand that in this day and age, with technology being what it is. Everyone just thinks that music comes out of the ether into their computer somehow, or into their phone. And they don’t even think about the creation of it … So that’s just my thing—trying to get people to be aware of supporting these artists.

I wanted to ask about Sacramento a little bit. Why was Sacramento included on this run? And also, what are some memories you have of Sacramento, if any?
Well, of course I’ve been to Sacramento—many, many, many times. But the idea as we’re coming back [to California]—because we’re gonna hit Bend [Oregon] first, then Portland and then Medford—was to have sort of a stopping point. And since Josh is from Sacramento … why not just play [there]? I’ve never properly played a gig in Sac, and I thought it would be fun. And I know so many skaters there—just so many people—that it just made sense. I grew up in San Francisco, and so we knew a lot of skaters from Sac. We’d actually go up there and skate all the time.

{Photo courtesy of Thrasher Magazine, July 1985}

Wow, really? Any specific spots you’d skate back then?
Not specifically. There were some curbs, some banks. I forget the names of them. But in 1985, Sacramento held a street-style skate contest … I think it was my third street contest ever. And I turned pro there. And that was sort of the launching pad to everything I do with skateboarding. So I turned pro in ’85 in the Tower Records parking lot [off of Watt Avenue]. And what’s interesting is that they just did the Tower documentary … So that was super cool to be part of that, kind of coming full circle. I have a photo of me in 1985 standing in Tower Records next to a stack of Thrasher magazines.

That’s amazing! So you’re saying that contest in Sac was the turning point in your skate career?
Yeah, it was. Because I won the contest and turned pro. And then the next year my [Powell Peralta] board came out and everything happened. So yeah, I know a lot of cats up in Sac, all the old skaters.

See Tommy Guerrero live when he and his band play the Shady Lady Saloon on April 22, 2016. Soak up good vibes, great drinks and copious amounts of old school skater cred. Shady Lady is located at 1409 R Street in Sacramento. For more info, go to Shadyladybar.com.

Put professional skateboarder Omar Salazar on the phone for an interview, even while he’s in Australia on a Nike Skateboarding team trip, and you’ve got one of the nicest dudes you’ll ever meet; caring, witty and all around fun to talk to. Put Salazar on a skateboard, assuredly where he’d rather be than on the phone, and you’ve got a savage on wheels; a straight-up wild man that charges at his tricks with relentless speed, dedication and concentration. The 26-year-old skater from Sacramento has made quite a name for himself in the industry, especially within the last couple years with his part in Alien Workshop’s video Mind Field, making the March 2009 cover of Thrasher and the announcement from Nike that Salazar will have his own signature shoe. But all the success hasn’t come easily.

Salazar was raised by loving and supportive parents who fled to the States from their home country of Chile. Pursuing a career in skateboarding, though, was not exactly what they had in mind for their son in this so-called land of opportunity. “They were always like, ‘Hey look, you’re lucky you have opportunities here, you need to go to school and you need to work for a big company,” said Salazar of his parents outlook on his skating. I was always like, ËœYeah, but I don’t want to do that; I’m not good at that. This is what I want to do.”

Salazar remembers having to hide his skateboards and boxes of products that companies were sending him so his parents didn’t get suspicious. “I didn’t want to disappoint nobody, but I was never good in school,” he admitted. “I mean, I finished high school, but I was never good as far as book smarts goes, I’m better at street smarts.” Those early years also consisted of a lot of couch surfing, riling up change from said couches to hit up Del Taco, raiding Safeway’s sample tables and bombarding open house food platters. “Yeah, I’ve come a long way,” Salazar said with a laugh, looking back.

A long way is an understatement, as this month Nike will release Salazar’s first signature shoe, a career milestone for any athlete involved in any sport. Salazar will be the second Sacramento-area skater to get his own Nike shoe, as teammate and close friend Stefan Janoski did so just last year.

“In the beginning,” Salazar remembered, “Before Nike gave anyone shoes, Stefan and I, we’d had offers before in the past from other shoe companies, but I always stick with what I believe in. I believe I’m a loyal rider. That’s just the most important thing. So, I figured if I kept loyal with Nike and the people I work with, then something good was going to happen.”

Even after Nike told them years ago that Paul Rodriguez would be the only team skater to get his own signature shoe, Salazar stuck it out, all the while telling Janoski, “We’re going to get shoes, trust me.” Eventually they both got the phone call and for Salazar, it was sort of an ‘I told you so’ moment when they did.

“I don’t want to sound cliché or lame, but in a way I kind of manifested it because I knew it was going to happen,” said Salazar, not in a cocky manner, but a confident one. “Even before they offered me a shoe, I drew up a design and straight up put one in my room, one in my bathroom and one in my closet.” Salazar would be gone for months on skating trips and he’d come home having forgotten about his dream shoe designs, which re-invigorated him to skate harder, to keep going so that one day it would be a reality. “Like a year later after working hard and having fun skating and stuff, they hit me up and were like, ‘Hey, we want to give you a shoe after Stefan.'”

When it came time to actually visit Nike HQ in Portland, Ore., to meet the people who would be designing his shoe, Salazar was well prepared with his sketches, his favorite color schemes and other things that represented him and his personal style. “When I first started working on the shoes, they were like, ‘Shoot us your favorite colors, your favorite objects, your favorite things around the house, bring us photos of them.’ I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about,” said Salazar. Nike was essentially asking for pieces of Omar so that his shoe “could tell a story.” Turns out, Nike doesn’t just give signature shoes to anyone and when they do, they always have little stamps of the athlete’s personality and style on them. Take for instance Michael Jordan’s famous Air Jordan logo, jersey number, etc. found on his shoes. Salazar wanted a classic-looking silhouette, but with Nike’s new technology infused.

“I’m really into the ’50s and oldies, and I like old tin cans and old rockets and outer space and all that stuff,” said Salazar of some of his personal interests. Hence the reason his shoe features a cool little rocket ship on the sole. Salazar also pointed out that he likes to surprise people, so he told Nike he wanted to make the tongue of his shoe interchangeable. “I wanted to have fun with the shoe and I wanted it to be functional for people,” said Salazar. “Some people like to tie their shoes real tight and some people keep their shoes real loose. Some people like a thin tongue, some people like a real thick tongue,” he said. He also wanted Sacramento-area residents to connect with the color scheme, so he included purples and blacks to match our beloved Kings’ colors.

What really makes Salazar’s signature shoe stand out, though, is the inclusion of Nike’s Flywire technology, something new to the world of skateboarding shoes. Basically, shoes with Flywire are really light, yet really supportive—two attributes not normally associated with one another in the sporting shoes industry. In the past, more material meant more support, but in turn the shoe got heavier. But with Flywire, Nike took Kevlar and spun it into an embroidery-thin thread for reinforcement, and then they added Lycra in areas that needed power and stretch. According to Salazar, they feel great. “Nike’s technology enables the shoe to be lighter and support your foot more and lock it down really well,” he said of the shoe’s feel.

Sacramentans will be able to witness Salazar ripping up B Street Skatepark in his new shoes on Sunday, March 7, at the official shoe launch demo along with Nike teammates Paul Rodriguez, Stefan Janoski, Brian Anderson, Justin Brock, Grant Taylor, Daryl Angel, David Clark, Elissa Steamer and Brad Staba. Anyone who knows anything about skateboarding knows those are some heavy hitters and that this event is will not be to miss. As our conversation was coming to an end, Salazar closed with a bit of advice for the young skaters out there. “The one most influential person that told me how to get shit was John Cardiel, Sacramento’s best skateboarder ever. Whenever I was trying something, just trying for hours and hours, he’d yell out, ‘You’ve got to want it! You’ve got to want it!’ That stuck in my head forever, so if there’s any message I’d give anyone, it’s that.”

Catch Salazar and the Nike SB team on Sunday, March 7, 2010 at B Street Skatepark. Demo starts at 2 p.m.

Cover photo by Jonathan Humphries