Mike Watt -- In his own (overly humble) words
Words: Devon Negatron Photos: -Pod-
Featuring: The Missing Men
“You gotta SLAP!!” (Then he smacked his two hands together like you’d do if you were demonstrating to someone how hard the last guy slammed whilst attempting a 720 spine transfer). 1987. The overly-enthusiastic instructor was NOT Mike Watt, nor anyone anywhere near his status of significance to skateboarding or punk rock. Rather, he was a really rad local skater who lived one neighborhood north of mine. The whole day I had been attempting to learn slappies on “his curb” -- the perfect, 25-foot long, 3” high, red-painted, daily loved with Sex Wax and skateboarders wanting nothing more than to hit it just right and slappie the whole 25 feet.
I’d like to believe that the Sony Walkman that I always rocked back in the day, had my fIREHOSE tape, 'Ragin’ Full On' in it this day, and in the front of my mind I had the ability to flow as smooth as Natas Kaupas during his famous 'Wheels of Fire' ollie-to-720-fire-hydrant-spin-while-Brave-Captain-steadied-my-footwork, but more than likely my eventual success of nailing the 20+ foot slappie curb was probably the result of all the positive variables, which embody and exemplify both skateboarding and punk rock till this day -- hard work, determination, creativity, and the will to overcome at all cost. Fortunately for skateboarding and punk rock, we are all blessed with the great anomaly of a man who not only old schoolers can claim influence from, but as he is still kicking ass and taking names, nearing his 70th world tour (and 53rd birthday!), Mike Watt is arguably one of the most influential “O.G.s” of punk rock who, throughout his career has stoked the fires of skaters and musicians to keep pushing the limits of what is known as “possible”. Anyone who has “witnessed” his greatness perform even once, regardless of how rad and dedicated you “think” you are, if honest with yourself, has been simultaneously humbled, intimidated, and influenced by his level of energy as well as his cohesiveness and mutual respect for his band mates.
Not being one to speak for or pedestal anyone or anything, nor push an agenda on my readers.... without further ado, I give you Mike Watt, in his own words:
Sauce: I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on punk rock and skateboarding -- the parallels between the two.
Watt: You don’t need a lot of money right? A board -- takes to do it, which is kind of an adventure. The idea that you can develop your own style and stuff. I know there’s a little difference between decks and trucks. It’s kind of a level playing field [you] just have to get one that’s decent. From there it’s all the human part. The punk thing too: You know, you just get a drum set and bass that works good enough. then it’s what you can do after. So i see the parallels. A lot of it is do it yourself, you know? For me, I like the ideology: if you fall down, you have to get up. You cant talk your way back up, you actually have to pick yourself up and give it another go! It’s kind of a group, you can do it with a lot of people you can inspire each other. But it’s kinda obvious if you start copying. There’s just a lot of parallels. It’s only natural i think...
I’m friends with Tony Alva and he told me about the closeness of the thing, having to do pools in people’s back yards. Punk gigs were in peoples yards.
Get this -- this summer I did a gig in Orange County, in a house. Bunch of skaters who drained the pool. It was dads and their sons, generations. You didn’t have that in older days. This is a newer kinda of thing. So, I think it isn’t only market forces. I think there were traditions building up, and handed down. And yeah, the merch thing happened too. But even if it wouldn’t have, there would have still been traditions handed down. People felt it in their blood, so it was going to get handed down.
What more, or what less is stuff is in-between you and your endeavor than a person with a skateboard -- there’s hardly anything in between. Experience is very visceral, it’s right there. It doesn’t have to be that abstracted to you or explained to you or sold to you so much. Told you, there’s little variation in these boards. I remember I was a boy, in fact, maybe it was a big distinction in certain ways, you had to have urethane wheels or you couldn't go in the streets. So even the smallest rocks.. so dude’s stayed on sidewalks. And on hills, you sat on them, if you can imagine sitting on them because to keep your weight on them. So things changed when the rubber, urethane, so you could go in the street. So i will say that that okay that technology had to change. Like nowadays the way you can can make records in your room. So there’s small things that way. But as far as the big ethic, it’s about the spirit and the fucking hankering to people to express themselves.
Sauce: .... and rebel as well!
Watt: It doesn’t seem like voting with dollars. It’s just trying to getting art out. To me, a move on a skateboard is a personal statement about a trippy kind of art. It might not be institutionalized in an academic sense but I know from witnessing it and seeing cats, it’s a vital thing, it’s a life force. And what is art you know? It’s about transcending and getting over the confines of a situation, economy, mind set, ideology. There can be some academia to it because these dudes, you can tell, these cats, like Ray Barbee: they develop science about it this shit. Of course they keep it in the natural thing. It’s not just in a lab, they’re actually doing it in the streets. That’s the important thing, it’s the experience.
Sauce: How was it when Santa Cruz approached you to do Wheels on Fire, with Natas Kaupas, and fIREHOSE did brave captain..?
Watt: Well they asked, they asked!
Sauce: Was that the first time you’d been asked, as a member of a band, because I don’t remember Minutemen being on any skateboarding video?
Watt: This thing with the skate guys was a different thing, much different than Minutemen doing the thing “No Picnic” (“This Ain’t No Picnic was a Minutemen music video that was shot in black and white for $600, and got some airplay on MTV in the mid-1980’s). This other thing was like, wow, we like what they’re doing in this scene we see parallels in our own scene, so you want us to do some music to some of your moves. Much respect.
Later on, I met cats in Europe who learned how to skate by watching those videos. A very influential thing. But i didn’t know at the time I just liked the integrity, the feel of them they just that they just seemed like straight up cats. Kinda coming from where we were coming from. I was working a bass and they were working a skateboard. So a little different on the means, but not on the means.
Sauce: fIREHOSE, at that point was, as opposed to Minutemen, more fluid; had an artistic fluidity. The songs were longer and prior to that (Wheels on Fire) skate videos had real hardcore punk soundtracks, like Black Flag, etc, whereas in ’86, when Ragin’ full on/ Brave Captain was out and it got the nod for the Natas part in the “’88 Wheels of Fire video, then all of a sudden then it didn’t have to be about “rah rah rah” -- you know punk rock -- it could be about fluid, artistic expression, because [in the late 1980’s] skateboarding had become about fluid, original expression, like the music of fIREHOSE.
Watt: Well, we never really thought about punk was a style of music, we thought of it as kind of a state of mind, like there wasn’t one way to skate. You know what i mean? That was just the springboard and after that it what was the person took to it. Their experience brought to it. We lost D. Boon. Then Edward became the new mayor. Something about D. Boon, Edward much respected him.
People get carried away with things that are self important. So uh, I don’t put blame or hurt on anybody. That’s the reality. Breath of fresh air I get from watching somebody skating and lighting it up you know? There’s something about it you know? It’s expression, not posing, it’s natural. And it gives me confidence to try to get it together on the bass. Brian Brannon from JFA wrote a column on the Thrasher, and I wrote him a column once about trying to work my base like skateboard.
Sauce: I think when people saw Natas Kaupas doing the 720 on the fire hydrant on Wheels of Fire, and heard Brave Captain, that’s when skateboarders really took attention and asked, who’s this fIREHOSE? Who the fuck is fIREHOSE? And that’s really when everyone I was skating with was all about fIREHOSE, because it was a true, new real expression.
Watt: It was difficult for me because I was having to play without D. Boon. I had George Hurley who I’d played with for 14 years, and Ed Crawford -- a lot of it was about other cats. that’s what I’m saying: a lot of society is trying to say “you you you” as a self centered thing, but that song [Brave Captain] came out of a very difficult time for me. So for some cat to work his skateboard who could relate to that, that was very special to me, because it was kind of a personal dilemma to me because what do I do without my buddy [D. Boon]? Well, music. Try try! Eddie wants to try, Georgie wants to try. And I try with them. And those cats (skaters) went and did that and shared with us in a trippy way, they shared with us, connected with us. It was big for me.
Sauce: I think the skateboarding community is blessed to have fIREHOSE to utilize as a creative outlet as music to get stoked to go skate to. Just today, I was telling someone that I was interviewing Mike Watt and he told me that he had “If’n” in his tape deck and that he was going to go skateboarding. It’s [fIREHOSE] is not dying. So it lends itself to the idea that you can have real new expression with every experience.
Watt: You can write a very original story, but never invent a single word. It’s the same thing as the music and the skate. It’s a lot of interpretation. It’s the inner voice trying to come out and express. But of course it’s through the community. It’s a weird thing, it’s trippy.
Sauce: the dynamics..
Watt: It’s dynamics, you got it, you got it.
