Kevin ‘Spanky’ Long On The Future Of Emerica

Photographs by Kyle Seidler and Peter Sutherland. Supplied by Emerica.  

Emerica has a soft spot in my little skate nerd heart.

It was my first favourite shoe company. I spent my teenage years obsessing over the brand and its visual image: the green, the videos, the team, the nose stickers that sat perfectly on the nose of red Baker logo boards and the shoes, which, even to this day, I swear by the Herman G6 being one of my favourite shoes I’ve ever skated. It was also the first company I got flowed product from – thank you, Niddy. 

However, at a certain point, the company started to feel off; like something was wrong. The ambition that was formerly there within the shoe design, videos and visual output seemed lost. Every shoe started feeling like a Wino, just on a different sole. The team was slowly diminishing: Brandon Westgate left, Bryan Herman left, Andrew Reynolds left, and then, it was the majority of the team, most of whom had been seemingly let go. Rumours were circulating everywhere, from Slap’s message boards to conversations over skateshop counters that Emerica was about to shut its doors. 

Then all of a sudden, it was clear that those were nothing more than rumours. In 2024, Sole Tech – Emerica’s parent company – announced they had been bought out by Swiss-owned Snowboarding juggernaut, the Nidecker Group, with Sole Tech founder and CEO Pierre André Senizergues saying the acquisition would, ‘ensure our brands can thrive in new and exciting ways.’ A year later, Emerica released Jollymane, a short promo video by Matt King for the launch of the Mike Gigliotti x Spanky Hi. The video introduced underground favourites, Stu Kirst and Patrick Franklin, to the brand's roster and felt different from where Emerica had visually been for the past two decades. It was the first glimpse of the new life that was being pumped into the brand and sparked the question: Are we experiencing the beginning of an Emerica rebrand? For the first time in a long time, it felt like something exciting was happening with the brand. Now, a year on from its introduction, this era of Emerica feels strong. 

Curious about these changes, I called Spanky, who, alongside being a team rider, has been delegated the unofficial role of ‘creative director’, to talk about the future of the shoe brand he’s called home his entire career. 

What is your exact role at Emerica?

I don’t know if I have an exact job title, but as well as skateboarding for the company, I’m consulting. Which means I’m offering my opinion and being involved in the creative side, which is similar to what I do behind-the-scenes at Baker. 

When did you being a bigger part of the brand's image and your opinion mattering more happen?

It’s been a gradual thing. As most people know, there have been some big changes at the company. Sole Tech was bought by the Nidecker Group, and when that happened, all the companies had to be looked at and reevaluated. Unfortunately, because of the state of the industry and the companies when they bought it, they had to make some really tough decisions, which meant team cuts and things you need to do to restart on a business level. That was really tough, but it left some openings for asking, ‘What’s next?’ Once the dust started to settle, we looked in and were like: Okay, there is a smaller group of us now, let’s do some things we’ve all been talking about for a really long time. 

What were some of those changes?

We wanted to start new creative projects that we’d be stoked on, and started thinking of the brand as a small company, which it now is. It wasn’t so much about what we didn’t want to do or be anymore; it was more just being like, let's just act like we’re filming homie videos and have fun.

That’s really cool. Because out of context, it’s weird when you’re like, why is Matt King making an Emerica video? But in the context of you all being friends and you explaining it like that, it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, and it’s not like we are setting out to try to show people that we are new, contemporary and different. It’s just that now we’ve got a little bit of freedom to involve some people who we’ve always wanted to work with, and have the privilege of a new team of people being like, ‘Yeah, we’re down for some change.’ We have an opportunity to get a little bit weird and add a couple of people who wouldn’t have made sense before. Now we’re smaller and scrappier, we’re running the brand with fun in mind. I’m such a big fan of Matt’s work, I always have been, and I’ve been trying to get him involved long before the change. Also, being from the Midwest and the age he is, he grew up with Emerica and is so familiar with the company. There’s this thing with Emerica that it isn’t specifically Midwest, but it’s where we used to thrive; we would do demos all over the country, and we were the shoes for the people and less elite, so it’s nice having this Midwest presence. 

What has it been like going from the mid-2000s, when you were all superstars with the Emerica Mansion, to now being this small scrappy company?

It’s weird, but it’s this ever-changing thing. When you’re in skateboarding long enough, you see it with most things. It’s hard for any brand to be around for a long time; everything changes so quickly, and the evolution of a brand is slow. It’s hard to remain relevant, especially with shoe companies; it’s not like boards where you are just making stuff. Shoes take forever to do, and so many people need to be involved; they’re less mobile, so it can be frustrating to watch that over the years. It’s always been cool with Emerica because they have this unique thing where it has always been owned by skaters, even now, the Nideckers, they’re from ski and snow, but they know skateboarding, and they skate. But yeah, to come back to your question, it’s fucking weird. It’s weird to watch a company age in awkward ways. It’s weird to do that as an individual and also as someone a part of the brand.

It probably has another layer too, being involved with Baker for the same amount of time, but Baker as a whole held that cultural relevance.

It’s nice to think that people say that about Baker; it’s definitely up to interpretation. If that’s true, it’s an exception instead of the norm. It’s natural for a company to go through different stages of relevance. What you really don’t want to do is fight against any part of a brand's history, even if it’s ugly or there are parts you’re not hyped on, because ultimately, there have been so many rad things in Emerica over the years, it’s just timing sometimes.

Totally. As you said earlier, the Nidecker Group acquired Emerica, which has coincided with all these changes. How did the acquisition affect the company?

To be honest, a lot of that stuff happens in a way that I’m not privy to, and it’s almost in my best interest not to be involved in that. There were a lot of changes with who was in charge, which happened before they even acquired Emerica. When a company is in that state, it's natural for positions to keep changing and there be a lot of disorganisation. Importantly, we lost a lot of team riders, which was a hard decision they had to make to keep the company alive. Slowly, after something like that happens, you can build back up and start to bring new people in. It’s different now, it’s almost like a whole new company, but without any change to the ethos and brand direction itself. Under all that turmoil, there was no ability to make any changes; it was just survival for a long time. 

I don’t know if there is any truth to these claims, but rumours were circulating a few years ago that Emerica had limited time left.

Yeah, I think that was on a lot of people’s minds. It was a question of how these companies are going to survive. It’s not really a great place to do anything cool when you’re just trying to survive. It’s hard to be creative, take care of a team, and have morale, so it’s no surprise. For me personally, for years, I’ve had a lot of opinions on what we could do creatively, with ads or stripping things down that I just wasn’t engaged with because of the messiness of the situation. There were many years where I was silent about things, so it’s nice that they’ve asked me to come back and have a bigger role in those kinds of things.

Yeah, there definitely were some weird eras, like even just before this, there was a stage where Instagram was posting clips from Yellow with a weird AI-style caption about the video.

For sure, people were put in some weird positions where whoever they were getting directions from kept changing. It was a really messy time. Our whole objective now is to get rid of all that stuff and build something that we’re proud of. Because for me, long before I even got on Emerica, I looked at it as a very aspirational company that always had something cool about it, but it’s hard to stay cool for thirty years.

When you saw Austyn [Gillette] do the Globe rebrand, did you ever think that you could be doing the same thing with Emerica?

Yeah, that’s an example that comes out a lot in people’s minds because that was a hard reset. He’s done such a great job with that. It’s not really our objective to be like: we have a new look and a new team. First of all, I didn’t want to lose any of those riders; that was really tough. For us, the reset was like, let’s do some things that we’ve wanted to do forever and let’s act like a smaller company that doesn’t have to answer to a million people or have to live like we’re just trying to tread water.

Yeah, how has it been seeing so many people leave or be let go from the company?

It’s been so strange. It sucked; it’s not something any of us wanted to happen. There have been many eras over the years that have just changed the company a lot. Even when Andrew [Reynolds] left, he was the figurehead of the company, so even that was like: this is a new brand now. 

Does it still feel like the company is in survival mode? 

No, but who knows. They’re not opening the books to me, but there is a really good atmosphere around it where people are excited to do new things. The new owners see the new videos and get excited; that’s a whole new feeling.

I went on the shoe thread on Slap the other day, and people were speaking so highly of your shoe, which I thought was nice because for so long those threads were full of people ripping on every shoe being a Wino.

Yeah, it’s been a bit of an easy target for a while, so I can’t even blame them [laughs]. We’ve been trying the same thing with diminishing returns for a long time, and as skaters, what we want to see is staying true to yourself, but also while trying some new shit.

How many people are behind the scenes now? I couldn’t imagine there are many.

It’s a super small group. I talk to three or four people, and that’s enough so that everyone is hearing one another. There’s a lot more communication, ideas flowing around, and a lot more excitement with all of it.

Yeah, it seems so stripped back. Kelly Hart’s the TM of all three Sole Tech companies, right?

Yeah, it’s a lot. Yeah, there are a lot of people doing a lot of different jobs, but someone like Kelly, for instance, is passionate about it, and so is everyone who’s involved. They’re good at recognising who cares, which is what you want.

Two of the people who are new additions to the team are Stu Kirst and Pat Franklin. How did getting them involved come up? What are you looking for with the new riders?

The big thing with Emerica, which goes for the new people and those in the future, is involving people who love the company and have the space to imagine its potential. Stu is someone who grew up on Emerica. There are clips of him when he’s like thirteen, frontboarding a huge rail in Santa Monica in an Emerica shirt. Those are the kinds of people we want involved. It’s the same with Pat; he loves the company and is also helping out a lot creatively, coming up with ideas for videos and ads. It’s really just getting people who want to get scrappy and want to try shit out. They’re also people who trust that we’re basically starting up again and we’re building something together. 

For someone like Stu, it’s weird because he’s like, you’re losing Kevin Bækkel, and now you’re introducing me, aren’t people going to compare me to that? And it’s a circumstance thing, that’s absolutely not what happened, we didn’t trade anyone for anyone. We’re just in a new position where we are starting up, which is why we’re acting like we’re making homie videos again. There are no rules right now, we’re just kind of doing it and trying to avoid anything we feel like is corny or forced.

Oh, totally, that’s such a good way to put it. I couldn’t even imagine how it would feel for him.

And that’s the tricky thing about talking about any of it. There are people who are on, but some of their best friends who were on the team aren’t anymore, so it’s hard to keep morale up. We’re hoping that everyone can take a bit of a nuanced look at what our circumstances are and try to move forward in a way that where it’s kind of like a new thing, and we’re trying to make it as fun and creative as possible.

Are there more people in mind you’re thinking of putting on the team?

Definitely, and that’s also hard because you need to prove a new direction before people want to put their cultural chips into what you’re doing. Companies now also don’t have money to throw at skaters, and skaters aren’t making enough money as it is. We’re just trying to build it slowly. Trying to make stuff that people like so they can slowly get behind what we’re doing.

Yeah, and it’s only been a year and a half.

The thing I’ve always maintained from the beginning, when they started asking for my opinions about these things, was, if we try stuff, let’s give it a couple of years, because that’s how long it’s going to take to clean this stuff up. I’m really happy that people are responding to it already because I always think it takes a while to change people’s minds about this kind of thing.

It's one of those things where, when a brand has been so stuck in its ways for so long, it’s almost shocking to see it shift in any way.

Yeah, you also don’t want to isolate the people who have loved it all along. You don’t want to be like, ‘we were wack for the last ten years,’ because that’s not the truth; it was just some growing pains.

What's next for Emerica?

We’re working on a video right now, but everyone’s been tied up and busy with other projects. We’re just trying to come together, take trips, go to shops, see people, do demos, be on the road filming and put it out when it’s something worth watching.

Is it going to be a full-length?

Not right now, I don’t think we’re in a place to put a full-length together, but we are going to take a bit more time than the last couple of videos. We’re just going to keep trying to put stuff out that excites us and is representative of what we’re trying to do now.