Checking In With Ronnie Kessner
Portrait by the GOAT Chris Middlebrook.
I’m a big fan of rogue choices.
And clicking on Ronnie Kessner’s recent April part, the last thing I expected was for him to come out of the gates hot to Detroit proto-punk band Death’s “Freaking Out”. It was a choice that felt completely out of left field for both April and Ronnie, who have respectively curated a clean, smooth, and technical image. By the halfway point, however, it was clear the high-energy song made sense, tastefully setting the scene for the fast-paced edit full of back alley crust. Bringing something new to the table, the part showcased Ronnie’s skating in a different light, especially compared to his equally good, yet slower-paced, technical and LA-heavy, New Balance Numeric part from 2024.
I called him while he was in Tampa, getting ready for Tampa Pro, to talk to him about skating to Death, the process of filming the part, and what it's like having both Tom K and Shane O’Neill’s influence on his skateboarding.
How are you feeling now that the part is out? How long were you working on it for?
I’m feeling good. We’d been filming for the past year, but it was really over the last six months, when we started working on it heavily. Shane [O’Neill] and I had a few conversations at the six-month point and decided on making it an April part. As soon as we decided on that, we started taking trips together. We went back to my hometown a bunch, it was really cool.
I liked that there was a good chunk of Jersey footage in there.
Yeah, it’s always nice to get to go back home. I grew up not too far from Philly and New York, so it’s nice being there, staying with my parents, and just commuting to spots around the area.
For sure. You went so hard on Jersey crust. It was nice to see.
Thanks. Yeah, that comes from trying to film in New Jersey. There are a couple of spots in the middle of New Jersey that we skated, and a few near Atlantic City. It’s cool because those spots aren’t in many videos anymore.
Does it feel refreshing going out there after being in LA for so long?
Yeah, that’s why I do it so much. California is cool; it has its perks. The weather is amazing, there are a lot of skaters and filmers, it’s motivating, but at the same time, it’s hard because there are so many skaters. It’s really nice to go back home and have a change of pace. There’s this rail that I nollie crook just outside of Philly, we recemented the ground and fixed it up. It’s a cool rail that no one had skated in years. Things like that are cool because it’s a little gem that only my friends and I back home know about. It’s really nice to be able to put it in a video part and show the rest of the world.
For sure. Especially when in LA, if you wax a spot by the end of the week, it’s destroyed. It’s nice to be able to fix something up, skate it, and it not be rinsed straight away.
Totally. That happened with my last part, too. I skated this bump to bar that was an old spot we grew up skating off the side of the bump. Over the years, they repaved the ground and put a giant bar on it. I went, fixed it up, made it skateable, and treflipped it. Once the footage came out, it became a hotspot; everyone from Philly and New York was going there. There are a couple of spots in the new part that are like that, where they were low-key spots that I hope people go skate because I fixed them up and they’re good now.
How did you get into fixing spots? It really seems like most of the spots you skate, you’ve fixed to some extent.
It came from being in LA for so long. You can rarely roll up to a spot that hasn’t been skated and is good enough to film something on. If it is, the spot has probably been ran through. It’s cool to find a spot that no one has skated but needs a little bit of work. I’ll lurk with Tom K once a week, we’ll find some stuff, then do whatever we need to make it happen. He’s been super helpful with that stuff because he’s way handier than me, so he’s been showing me the ropes.
Has hanging out with Tom has had an impact on the way you approach skating?
Definitely. Just seeing the way he operates and his work ethic. He spends so much time looking for new spots, and then he’ll spend so much time fixing them. He really curates the spots that he skates. Being around him made me realise it is possible to film a boardslide in LA; I just have to work extra hard to find the right spot and make it skateable. He’s really helped my motivation with skating in LA.
It's cool that he’s been doing it for so long, and now he’s finally been able to get his flowers for what he’s doing.
He’s just the best; he really goes out of his way to help everyone on New Balance with anything they’re doing. Anytime there’s someone in town who doesn’t know spots, he’s there to help them. He’s a pillar. He really gets things done.
Dude, yeah. I was just in LA, and he sent me a bunch of pins for things to look at downtown. I was like damn, thank you so much.
He’s a great dude. He got a house two years ago and has been remodeling it, so he’s been hooking me up with recommendations on where to get wood to build cabinets. We’ve made some stuff together, too.
It’s so dope, he’s so hyped on everything.
He knows how to stay stoked, which is hard to do.
Earlier, you mentioned that you and Shane decided the part would be an April part around six months ago. At what point did skating to the Death song come up?
Pretty quickly after we decided it was an April part. On one of the first trips for the part, Shane was asking me if I had a vision or an idea for the part. I was a little nervous to tell him, because I knew it was different, but I really wanted to do something different for April. The company has a polished and clean look, which is great, but I knew that if I was going to do a solo part, I wanted to do something that we haven’t done before. Eventually, after he was pushing me to show him, I was like, ‘Okay, so I want to skate to Death and this song called “Freaking Out”.’ He was so down, instantly, which was really nice.
I had skated to Death a long time ago in this Kinetic Skateshop video called Silk, and at the time, I don’t think it was my choice; it was Jake Todd’s who made the video. Ishod also skates to Death in his Chronicles Vol. 2 part, and that’s my all-time favourite part, so I wanted to have a nod to that. And now that I’m a bit older, I thought it would be cool to skate to a band I’d skated to when I was younger.
When I watched the part, I was in awe. I didn’t expect it at all, but it worked so well.
Yeah, we definitely went a different route with it. It was cool to make the part as much of my own as I could and still have it come out through April. Shane was the man with the whole process, giving me complete control over the part and being so open to anything.
It worked with the fact that it was a very single heavy part; there are only two, two trick lines.
I’m noticing this is a thing where I’m always filming a lot of singles. For my next project, I should just focus on lines because I’m always filming a ton of singles.
But it made sense for this part because if you had lines in this part, it wouldn’t have made sense with the song.
Yeah, halfway through, we realised that for the pacing, we probably need to just get a bunch of quick tricks.
I liked that it was less tech than the last part, too. You do tech tricks too, like the bigflip fakie 5-0 and the shuv crook nollie flip. But it was cool that they were condensed back-to-back.
I’m kinda crazy, so when I think about video parts, I try to break them down. The more I’m doing it, the more I’m figuring out how I skate. I knew that with the last part, I went pretty tech, so I thought that maybe for this one, I’d just do two tech tricks and leave it at that. Obviously, I did a few more because I came up with ideas, and the last trick was tech too. It ended up being more tech than I wanted it to be, but it worked out.
How did you feel about the ender being posted on Instagram?
That was something we knew would happen. Shane was very intentional about not wanting April to be the one who posted it. I do wish it hadn’t been posted originally, but it’s all good, it’s just the way things go these days.
Yeah, totally. It’s so hard to avoid. What was the deal with the one glove clip?
We were in Dallas, and I’d always wanted to try to skate that rail. The ground is so rough, and there were a few tries where I put my hands on the ground. My left palm had a huge gash in it, so I put the glove on. I didn’t think about it as I was doing it. Then when I landed it, I was like oh my god, I didn’t realise how visible that was [laughs].
To wrap this up, I wanted to ask what is it like being around both Tom K and Shane and having them influence your approach to skateboarding? They both are so similar but in very different ways.
It’s cool. They’re both super encouraging and helpful. It’s nice being able to have both of their perspectives on skating. The way I approach skating has aspects of both of them. I really like being with Tom and finding a spot that we need to fix up to maybe only back 50 it. I appreciate simple skating on crusty spots, which might be because I’m from the East Coast. At the same time, I also like trying tech tricks, which is where Shane pushes me. He pushed me to do the back smith tre flip. I honestly didn’t want to do it. I felt like I was done with that trick; I’d done a kickflip back smith tre flip in my last part, but Shane broke it down to me and explained why it would be worth it. It’s cool having that outlook, too.
Tom and Shane are both crazy spot nerds. They both love it when people have ideas and they’d do anything to help see someone's idea through. For this part, Shane was very much like, ‘Okay, cool. You want to go to Texas? Let’s do it.’ ‘You wanna go home? Yeah, let’s do it.’ It’s nice having that support.
Totally, everything they both do is so thought out, too.
Shane is so thoughtful about everything in his career. He’s also making sure everyone on April is set up and doing what they should be doing.
How is it going on trips with him? Does it feel like you’re on trips with your boss?
No, not at all. When April started, it did a bit, because we didn’t know each other super well, but over the years, it’s been super chill. I’ve seen him try tricks and not get them; he’s seen me do the same. He’s really hard-working and appreciates people who are the same. Even if you try a trick for four hours and don’t get it, he’s like, ‘Dude, it’s all good, we’ll come back.’ It took a lot of pressure off when I saw that he works like that. Especially when you try a trick for a few hours and can’t get it, you feel like you’re blowing it, but he's just like, sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. It’s been super fun going on trips together this last year. We were skating this hubba in South Jersey together, which was so crazy to me, being in the run-up for a spot, being like, I’m skating this hubba with Shane, and he’s all the way in South Jersey.