Robert Brink - Writer

Truth Be Told: Kristian Svitak

March 22, 2007 | Skip To The Comments (8)

Truth Be Told: Kristian Svitak
By Rob Brink
The Skateboard Mag May 2007

When I was told I'd be interviewing Kristian Svitak for The Mag, my initial thoughts were something to the effect of "Damn, I almost forgot about that guy! He's been MIA for a while…what the hell are we even gonna talk about? He'll probably be all bitter about losing his sponsors in the last few years and disappearing."

That's the pessimist, cynical, jumping-to-conclusions skateboarder in me. But I wasn't the only one thinking this stuff. It's just the way skateboarding goes sometimes. If you get kicked off the right team, get put on the wrong team, roster hop, get injured and take time to heal, go on a bender or lay low for a while, you become invisible, exiled, out of sight, out of mind, message board fodder—the new captain of "Team Blowing It." Not everyone can pull off a career resurrection or be a Guy Mariano or Gino Iannucci.

So I asked around to see what people thought. I heard that Kristian got kicked off Black Label for doing a Tech Deck ad. I heard that all his other sponsors dropped him because of the Black Label thing. 88 footwear, who Kristian had a pro shoe with, didn't bring him to Vox because of the Black Label thing as well. Rumor had it he ran back to Ohio when all this went down. I heard he wasn't a great skateboarder and never deserved to be pro for Label or to have a pro shoe. I heard he kisses his biceps while drumming in his band, the Heartaches. I heard he was once seen rocking some crazy Polish Power tee shirts. I heard he had some mental problems. People even snickered at his latest efforts with his own board company, 1031 (named after Kristian's favorite holiday, Halloween), as if it's a futile quest.

As much this would've all been some super juicy blog-worthy malarkey when Kristian was getting ground up in the rumor mill a while back (hell, I even believed some of it), none of its really true.

To squash a few misconceptions, Kristian still rides for Innes, Accel, Negative One, Destructo, and Speed Metal—all the sponsors he had during his run on Black Label. He bought a "Poland" T-shirt while on tour there and eventually it was made into a Black Label graphic for him. He might superstitiously skip over the second-to-the-top stair while walking back up to hit a rail again and still has his infamous used board collection, but his "mental problems" don't really exceed those of most of us. He never ran home to Ohio when things got tough, but he'd like to get back there one day. He's the first to admit he ain't the greatest skateboarder and never was, and he's not the least bit bitter about getting cut from the Label—and it wasn't about Tech Deck ads, either.

"All I can say is that I got really lucky. I had a cool job at a print shop in Cleveland. I just figured I was gonna run printing presses for the rest of my life and just skate at night and on the weekends and play some music and that was it. I had no thoughts like I was gonna be a pro skateboarder, and then I got on Black Label. The team was so sick at that point and right when I turned pro is when they went through the roof. All of a sudden, I'm just like some mid level, fuckin' whatever, selling shitloads of boards, ya know?"

It was near the end of 2005 when Salman Agah, Kristian's friend and ex-Black Label pro-turned team manager made some team cuts and let Kristian go after seven years on the team.

"My initial reaction was like, 'Man, you're my friend, but you're fucked!' And then he ended up getting fired a few months later anyway. But In professional skateboarding you're an idiot if you think this shit is gonna last forever. Black Label had to give up their place just because nobody stays on top forever. Sales went down all across the board and that's just how it goes. Obviously John [Lucero] needed change for Black Label. We're still friends and I told him, 'Listen, you've sent me around the world for years, I bought a house and I've done a lot of things because of you. You made me a pro skateboarder; you put me in all the magazines. You never had to do any of that for me.'"

"For me to think it's gonna last forever is completely retarded, so there's nothing to be angry about. I thought Black Label was badass before I skated for them and that's why I always wanted to ride for them. I loved it while I skated for it. I told John "Keep Black Label cool—something that I can look back on with pride when I'm old and be like, yeah, 'I was a part of that for seven years—don't make it gay.'"

The Black Label incident was just adding insult to injury for Kristian. Just prior to that, the plug was pulled from 88 footwear, his then-shoe sponsor.

"Yeah, that's crazy too because it all happened in one year. 88 was ripping. I was working on my second shoe and Osiris just pulled the plug on it. I was like, 'I can't fucking believe this! This is bullshit, man!' But time went on and I was like 'whatever,' because I was secretly focusing on 1031 and the real estate thing. I transitioned out of it really well only because I had 1031 in my back pocket for a whole year prior to this going down. I always wanted to do it but I didn't know when to do it. I was basically just afraid to leave my comfort zone at Black Label."

Svitak says Lucero was of the mentality that his guys should be on the 24-7 skate program, which is why he had to keep all his side projects under wraps. Lucero's mentality may not be a bad idea while you're a hungry am coming up in the ranks or a top pro selling tons of boards and shoes, but what happens when sales drop or your run is over and you get slashed from the roster?

"Jim Gagne was going to school while he was pro for Label and Lucero was so bummed on it, so I was scared to let him know what I was up to," says Svitak. Luckily Kristian had the foresight to save his cash, take real estate classes and get his license here in California. And you might be wincing at the notion of real estate for a pro skateboarder, but Kristian's no dummy.

"Instead of me waking up at noon every day and going to the skatepark, or sitting around my house eating corn dogs until my friends get off work, I have this whole other avenue where people I know in the industry are trying to buy their house, or are trying to sell their house or condo and I help them. It brings in money which is cool. And it's nice because it's totally something different from skateboarding. At the same time, if 1031 fails, which it could, real estate is the one thing that I like doing. I can do it until I'm an old man. I don't have to go into an office, I make my own hours, I work when I want, and I can still skate when I want."

1031 has been going for close to a year and a half now. Kristian literally called his buddy (and 1031 partner) in Milwaukee the day after he got kicked of Black Label and asked him if he was ready. By June '05 they were selling their first boards. Kristian's Black Label paychecks are funding the company and they are doing it from scratch—no distributors, nothing. Kristian and Chad Knight are the current pros. The company recently released its first video, Bleed for Me, on Halloween and plan on doing the same every year for as long as they can.

"The goal was for me and my buddy to do a skateboard company however we wanted and not answer to some fucking kook in some lame brain meetings about bullshit. I don't have to listen to some fuckin guy who doesn't even skate anymore telling me to make fucking coin purses and all this gay-ass shit, then give me some bullshit percentage of my own company, only to cut it a year or two later after they put all this fucking money into it and the sales aren't right. That's fucked man. I've had a lot of friends who've have had their own deals and end up getting burned. I'd rather just burn myself."
As a newer and small company, though, Kristian still has to make compromises. "I can't go put 'Fuck You' on our boards because, first off, I know people are already gonna go buy the new Jamie Thomas board anyway. Let alone if I put 'Fuck You' on it we're definitely screwed. But, at the end of the day, it's me and my buddy and there's nobody else. I just want to be something fucking good for skating you know?"

Growing up in Ohio, Kristian was influenced by his friends and Team Insanity—the local crew who started him skating. As for the pros, he looked up to Vallely back in Public Domain, Rubbish Heap and Speed Freaks; Matt Hensley, Tom Knox, Jason Lee and Natas.

"Those guys are pretty heavy. Then it was a lot of [Kris] Markovich and Laban [Phedias]. I remember those guys always ollieing gaps. And Templeton—I was always stoked on him. I like Stefan Janoski a lot, but there's not many pros I like these days and I think that's just a reflection of where I'm at now. Mainly I'm taking notice of these new young kids. All of a sudden I'm stopping in my tracks. Skateboarding is a revolving door. These new batches of kids come in and they are just taking it to the next level. They are so fucking gnarly and can blow the doors off of so many pros, myself included. The kids on my team, I'm like, 'I'll just give you the pro model man. I suck. I'm still living off of the shit I did in the past.'"

And with all this talk of sponsors gone wrong and new companies and real estate, you might be thinking that Kristian is a serious, straightforward, bland dude. But he's got stories that'll have you laughing for days. And he tells 'em in a calm, yet excited demeanor—laughing the whole way through. He's the type of dude with a little bad luck—the friend you'd pick on because he's a bit sensitive and his reaction will be funny, but then he'll laugh about it with you.

"One night a few years ago, I was just laying in bed at our place in Oceanside and it was raining really bad and all of a sudden I open my eyes and there's this big crack and like this fucking huge two foot-by-two foot hole just opened up in my ceiling. It was like someone was standing on the roof with like five buckets of water, just like pouring them in onto my room over like all my shit. It was terrible and Dave [Ohio Dave Smith, Vans team manager] just came in and laughed."

"Dave is like two years older than me and he's always been that one friend that loves to get under your skin. I think he probably heard my mom say, 'You better eat your peas,' one time when we were kids. So we're at his house skating his launch ramp. And he's hammering me and I'm like 'Dave, shut up, shut up!' And he's like, 'Come on man, say something back.' And I remember telling him 'I'm not gonna stoop to your level.' And he just starts laughing at me. And then he starts going, 'You gotta go home and eat your peas?' And he seriously did that to me for like an hour straight. So I broke down crying and stormed home. He never lets that go man, to this day he'll say, 'Did you eat your peas?'"

"Back in Ohio we were the skater punks from the 80's and the new kids coming in, they were kinda like more emo. We always joked around and said a lot of horseshit and they ended up not liking us. The leader of this whole gang was this guy Sam and he was a fag. He wrote on Dave's windshield in wax just to be a bastard. At the time, Dave worked at this huge potato chip factory in Cleveland called D&D. He used to get boxes of cheese twists, popcorn, potato chips, pretzels and shit for free. We knew Sam had this old Honda Accord wagon and his doors didn't lock, so we went to his work in middle of the night and we just filled the whole inside of the car with popcorn. We sat in the bushes and waited for him to come out. And everyone goes on break at the same time and the other guys were like, 'Sam your car is filled with popcorn!' And he just knew right away who it was and we're just dying laughing while he's shoveling popcorn out of his car just to sit in his seat and he had to drive home with all this fucking pop corn in his car."

As for the present and future, Kristian is very appreciative, realistic and seemingly simple. He's got it handled…

"The pro skateboarding thing is still going—I'm stoked. My band just came out with an album and its fucking killer. I'm psyched on that. I never thought 1031 would happen, but it did and it's great. Even if one day it goes out of business, that's rad and cool and whatever."

Ultimately Kristian keeps it basic and old-fashioned. He wants to do his thing with skateboarding and 1031, have a couple kids with his wife and eventually to get back to Ohio one day.

"I came out here for all the action and it's cool, but sometimes I like going back there and just disappearing into the woods. I want to have a kick ass basement, and I want a barn with a mini ramp in it so I can skate during the winter and then I figure I can put a basketball hoop in there the kids could have a cool place to play in the wintertime. I miss my friends and family and the weather as far as the seasons go. I know it sounds queer but one of the biggest things is the fall. That's the best time of year for everything. That and more of a slowed down pace—like no traffic. Hopefully I'm still paying my bills and supporting my family from skateboarding and still be playing in the band. But even if way down the road all that's done then so be it. So that's kinda like the big picture—the distant future big picture."

As it turns out, Kristian isn't that bitter after all, had plenty to talk about, and takes everything in stride. The Tech Deck ads weren't the death of him—neither was the loss of a pro shoe or board. Blue collar style, he's worked hard, kept his eggs in a variety of baskets and didn't let the skateboarding industry kick him to the curb and break him down. He's surprisingly positive considering what's gone on in his career and doesn't seem the least bit worried about his status as a pro in the eyes of the industry. All too much of a happy ending isn't it? Guess you better find someone new to gossip about.