Talking To Townley

Images by Daniel Hare.

Lately, we’ve been doing a lot of work with Ryan Townley, the professional skater and multimedia artists. 

For example, Conseptual, our editorial video where we took a piece of Townley’s work and scaled it way up to a skateable-sized sculpture in collaboration with Cons. That was a good one. Before that, we’ve mostly watched his tall-guy style huck noseblunts over bump to ‘ledges’ (does that count as a ledge?) and yank out of things with the upper body strength of the gorilla that the internet says would destroy a hundred normal guys in a 1 v. 100. 

In Conseptual, you’ll have heard that in recent years, Townley has gotten quite involved with resin-encased collaging - an extremely tedious and intricate practice, and potentially toxic to the participant, which, given Townley’s predilection for the dangerous side of life, makes perfect sense. The man lives on the edge, even in meditative moments of creation. For years, we have followed Ryan Townley and marveled. And yet, somehow, we have never had a feature interview with Townley, and so here this is, a general getting to know you chat with Ryan, so as to correct that severe absence in our lives.

How was El Paso?

It was good, it was fucking wild for sure. We were out there doing an event with a reservation. They run that town. They were giving us vouchers every night to go gamble at the casino, they took us to the strip club, it was going the fuck off. It was fucking gnarly.

Did you win?

I won a hundred bucks. 

Ayyyyyy attaboy. We’ve never had a formal interview with you. How long have you been skating?

I don’t know. Probably over twenty years.

How old are you? Like twenty six?

Thirty four.

I was close.

Yeah, so a long time. 

How’d you start? Why’d you start?

My dad skated and has always been into skating, dirtbiking- extreme sports. He got me into it. We used to go to the Vans park back in the day.

Do you go dirtbiking too?

Yeah, we go out to the desert a bunch, me and the family. Go camping and go dirt biking.

Why skating? It seems like you had a lot of options there.

Yeah, I don’t know. I was snowboarding a lot, too. I think that skating was the most accessible. You can do it right in front of your house. I just became obsessed with it.

If you had never found skating, what would you be doing?

I wonder about that a lot. I have no idea. I think it sounds so cliche and corny, but skating kind of saves your life, a bit. Especially when I was in high school, I was partying and fucking around. I had a lot of friends who fucked up their lives, but skating kind of gave me something else to do.

It’s weird how a lot of people say that skating is the thing that saved them from a life of drugs, but for a lot of them, skating is the thing that introduced them to drugs.

At least for me, it’s something to keep me occupied. You can get fucked up and skate, but you can’t really do it for that long, you know? You kind of have to be somewhat focused. 

What’s your trajectory here?

Trajectory of what?

Your life. You’re a pro skater, an artist, you’re in the prime of your career - the world is your oyster. You could do this or do anything. What do you think is next?

I don’t know, really, I guess just not ever get a normal job. Try to be content and happy with wherever I am. 

That’s a pretty abstract answer. What would that mean for you?

I don’t really know. It’s hard to answer that question when I’ve dedicated my entire life to skateboarding. Trying to figure out what you wanna do next- I never went to college, or went to trade school, so I’m not really sure what else I would do. I went to high school and graduated, and that’s more than a lot of people, but I don’t know man. Maybe if I weren’t doing this, I’d get into a trade. My dad is a general contractor and I was doing that before I ever got paid for skating.

How’s that going? How’s being a professional skater in this day and age?

I mean, it’s great! It’s rad that we get to experience life like this. Travel all around the world with friends, get paid to do it. I think that at least for me, I live in constant anxiety. Youre kind of hanging on by a thread always hoping that a contract will come through. I think that skateboarders’ longevity has surpassed what it used to be, people are taking good care of themselves. I think that the internet is kind of a double-edged sword, you can play the game and squeeze a few more years out of a career or something.

I was talking to this older pro and he was saying he’s making way less money than he did back in the day, but he’s doing it for way longer than he ever could.

Totally. I think it’s helped a lot to have my art coincide with my skateboarding. Maybe brands see some value in that, that it’s not just skating. Sometimes you can kind of get lost in the mix. Everyone’s good at skateboarding. There are so many people who are way better than me that deserve to get paid out. Being a pro skater in this day and age, it seems like it sucks a lot more than it used to. 

There’s this whole idea of vibe pros who are not good at skating but are just cool to hang with, but that isn’t you, you are good at skateboarding. What do you think it takes to be a pro today? Most people say you need to be just okay at skating and have a good instagram. Unless you’re Jake Johnson. 

I understand both sides of it. Even when I first started getting paid with skateboarding, it’s changed drastically since then. Your job was to film video parts, shoot photos, do interviews. But now with the internet and social media, there’s this whole other element you have to lean into. It’s not just about a video part, you have to put out social media clips and be somewhat of a personality that people can relate to. You have to be consistent with content that you’re putting out, and I feel like there’s a tasteful way of doing anything. You don’t have to go full on, ‘what’s up, YouTube,’ if you don’t want to, but you do have to market yourself and the brands that are paying you. But then you hear a lot of people saying it’s lame if you post things or shout out the brands you’re sponsored by, but hey man the world is changed. It’s reasonable that a brand that is paying you wants you to promote them, and be present on the internet or at events or whatever the fuck it is. I also think that with all that being said, it does matter to still put out video parts, shoot photos - that’s how you can weed out people who are core and for the culture. 

Do you find that there’s any similarity in the art world? Do you have to have an internet presence in order to get acclaim?

That’s all pretty new to me. I have friends that are very involved in the art world - and this is me speaking as someone who isn’t well-educated in the art world - but if you’re kind of whoring your art out and making it almost too accessible to people, it seems like the art world cares about kind of starving them for more; waiting for something else to come out instead of making a billion things and being super available.

An exclusivity, or a scarcity.

Yeah, for sure. And you can see that in skating, too. There are only certain people who can do that, though. There are some skaters where they’re starving the audience and the audience is like, ‘dude we don’t even give a fuck.’

Those were a couple of hardball questions for you.

Yeah, hopefully I answered them, it’s eight in the morning.

Here’s a softball: it’s date night, what’re you cooking for dinner?

I’m not much of a cook. Maybe like a salmon dish, a nice pasta, and a good salad. Or just go out to a nice dinner. 

I mean salmon isn’t an easy thing to make.

Yeah just like on a skillet. Pan seared salmon. 

What do you do that isn’t skating? You’re not a cook, do you garden?

I snowboard a lot.

That’s another extreme sport, though, that’s not really a chill hobby.

I guess I’m into a lot of extreme shit. I go snowboarding a lot, go dirt biking, I go camping with my friends and family.

What does relaxation look like for you?

I’m not very good at relaxing, and I think that a lot of people in my life would attest to that. Just experiencing life with Delaney and my dog Blue. 

You’re not a spa guy?

Nah, not really.

Delaney is an award winning equestrian, right?

She is! She’s amazing at riding Western and she shows her horse, Tommy. She crushes it.

You both are very chill people, relaxed demeanor, but you’re both just involved in the gnarliest shit possible. Do you think that because you’ve been doing this for so long that the excitement is somewhat gone? You’ve become desensitized to the extreme?

Yeah, I mean, maybe. That’s all I know. When it comes to that kind of stuff, I think I have to do the gnarliest thing possible. Like with skating, I have to try and do the most extreme or the gnarliest trick I think I can do. 

So what’s next? Skydiving?

Maybe dirt biking more. F1 racing? Maybe get into that real quick? Who knows.