The following interview took place just after Away Days premiered and the Mike Carroll / Jenkem shitstorm ensued. People have been asking me to post it for quite some time.
Marc and I did it in four sessions and the conversation spans more than 8 hours of tape. I think about 80 pages of a transcript, plus months of on-the-record texts back and forth as well.
Initially Marc wanted it to be his rebuttal to the bashing he took—telling his side of the story. But, sadly, with all the hate and pressure coming his way from the skate community, he decided it was best he not add fuel to the fire and stress himself out more, so we tabled it.
I'm editing and releasing it in segments as a way to handle the undertaking without feeling overwhelmed every time I sit down with the 80-page transcript—otherwise I'd never finish. But when all is said and done the important parts of conversation will all be here, over time, broken down by topic.
The Away Days Premiere:
When your surprise Away Days part with Daewon came on, the whole theater erupted. That had to feel great.
It was so weird. adidas called me a few days before like, "Can you go out this weekend and get some clips?"
The video premiered on Thursday, May 12th. I filmed my tricks the Sunday before that. I got a shuv-it noseslide on a bank-nothing to write home about. I didn't know if it was gonna be in the video. I didn't know how it was gonna be edited. I didn't know what to expect. I just knew there was gonna be an adidas video that they had already worked on for three years.
So, when our part came on I was like, "Oh shit. Really? They put some tricks of me too? Daewon of course but, me? Damn. Alright!"
The dude sitting next to me in the theater, he worked at the former company I rode for. He just gave me a look and hugged me. He's like, "Dude, congratulations, man." And I was like, "Wow, I thought this dude was gonna be fucking bummed on me."
"Someone else wants me. People are psyched. I'm still valuable ..."
I tend to lean toward the negative, out of fear: "The world is ending tomorrow!" It was ingrained in me as a child and something I'm working on fixing. But I talked to other people and realized like, "Dude, Who the fuck else could get a sponsor at 39? Most people are done by 39!"
The lightbulb flicked on and you're right. Daewon and Guy both got new shoe sponsors at 39 and that's gnarly. But most of the excitement was overshadowed by what was happening at Lakai.
Like, "These people over here don't fucking respect you. They don't value you anymore despite everything you've fucking done. It doesn't amount to shit. It was all for nothing. These people over here clearly don't give a fuck about you and they've demonstrated it. They don't give a fuck about your well-being. They don't give a fuck about your child-they don't care about your fucking life.
"Nothing you did for them has amounted to shit; they're done with you, motherfucker." And then there's these people on the other side at adidas and at the premiere like, "Don't even sweat it. Don't fucking worry about that shit. Come skate for us!"
If I didn't have that, I would've probably ended up in a fucking looney bin or something.
But that night was such a moment. Seeing guys like you and Daewon getting another go at being taken care of so that you can do more of what you do best—so people like me can enjoy it, was amazing. People don’t want to see guys of your caliber under-appreciated. We wanna see you and Daewon and Guy being treated as well as possible for as long as possible. That’s where I think those reactions came from at the premiere.
It's like when my favorite bands get a new record deal, I don't care who it's with, just that they now have enough resources to make more good music, rather than staying with the indie label and having no money and no producer.
Dude, you hit the fucking nail on the head. Now imagine if your favorite band was on the indie label and they weren't getting paid, they didn't have any fucking resources or a producer, but were still expected to come out with a fucking album by the end of the year? That's what I was dealing with.
Did it feel better coming on with a friend, so you weren’t the only new guy?
That’s exactly how I felt. I’m glad it was Daewon too because I was nervous about going to a new team. When you get a new sponsor, usually it’s because you know some people on the team and it’s a natural transition. This wasn’t like that. I didn’t really know anybody that well, only the team manager, so it was awesome that Daewon was there.
I think everyone can relate to that. If you start a new job and you’re not the only new one that day, or there’s a group orientation, that’s less pressure.
I was also nervous about the first time I was gonna go on a trip with the dudes too. I knew Lucas from the Fully Flared days when he was a little kid but that was eight years ago.
I remember going to France for a Lakai tour and they were like, “We got this 14-year-old kid from Toulouse and he’s insane.” So we go skating and I’m like, “Oh my God!” It was fucking shocking.
I hadn’t seen him since the premiere of Fully Flared. When he left Lakai for adidas I knew nothing about it. A year down the road you’re like, “Wait, Lucas doesn’t skate for us anymore?”
They’re like, “No.”
“Since when?”
“Like last year.”
“Well, when were you gonna fucking tell people? Jesus.”
They’re like, “It makes us look bad when somebody leaves the team, so we didn’t plan to bring it up.
The End of Emerica:
Editor's note: I contacted the Emerica TM mentioned in this segment last week to fact check Marc's statements on his departure from Emerica before posting. He was left anonymous because his absence at the time was due to personal reasons.
Although Marc's perspective regarding the length of time by which he did not hear from Emerica as he should have may be exaggerated, the then-TM indeed confirmed negligence on Emerica's part as far as their communication and availability.
You mentioned some shit Emerica pulled, trying to trade you to adidas or something?
Yeah, they tried to pass me off to adidas back in the day.
I was thinking how amazingly ironic that is because not only are you now on adidas, but their success absolutely contributed to the obliteration of Sole Tech.
At the time, Sole Tech was reorganizing their brands because they decided each needed some sort of cute marketing gimmick and image. éS had a solid vibe and Emerica didn’t—they had Chris Senn, Reynolds, Shao, me, etc.
Not until the mansion and Baker …
Yeah, just before all those guys moved to the mansion in Hollywood, Emerica started getting rid of the Drehobls, Shaos, Senns—they just shit on all those dudes.
Donny …
Barley! I went on a tour with Donny once. I fucking love that dude.
So Emerica was coming into the brand identity we knew until Stay Gold, before people started leaving.
Yeah, and it felt like they only wanted dudes who jumped down huge rails and shit. Greco, Reynolds, Heath, Ellington … Tosh Townend.
He was the hot new jumper back then.
Dude, he feeble grinded El Toro when he was 14! So Emerica started to take the weird lumpy ball of clay they were during the “Yellow” era and shape it into something. And what they were shaping it into was, “Let’s just copy what Baker is doing!”
And you don’t fit that aesthetic.
I definitely don’t. I didn’t skate with those dudes. I didn’t fit in, but I liked that I didn’t fit in. I don’t wanna fucking fit in. Who wants to be a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing?
Plus, you had two Emerica shoes that were selling and eventually became classics.
There was this weird period where the Emerica TM at the time disappeared. I don’t know what happened, but he disappeared for a while and Ronnie Creager had just been let go from éS under the worst darkman. Typical industry shit that they handle in a horrible way because nobody there has a fucking sack. Nobody has any maturity or class, so they just shit on people.
I worked there for eight years. I know how they treat people. I’ve seen it happen so many times with my own eyes. That place is the absolute worst.
Right? I’d been friends with Ronnie for a long time and he gets let go and I’m just like, “Dude, that sucks. You and Eric are the best dudes on that team! That’s shocking.”
I’m pissed about that, and I wasn’t hearing from anyone for months. I wasn’t getting any shoes—nothing. And what happened to Ronnie felt identical to what was happening to me. I remember telling him “Dude, they’re gonna do it to me too. They’re gonna fucking kick me off, I know it.”
I was also busy running enjoi, so when I ran out of shoes and wasn’t hearing form anyone, I finally just went to Payless to get some some plain black shoes—no logos or anything. I got these weird plain Reebok shoes they had. I called them “janitor shoes.”
You rocked them for a bit in videos, they were black and kinda shiny.
Yeah. That’s exactly what I was skating in. I remember being like, “It can’t have a fucking logo on it.” Then I see these brown adidas for $18 at an outlet. There were only two pairs left so I got ‘em.” And they were so fucking good to skate in. And the more you skated them, the better they looked. I kept Super Glue-ing them—repairing them. I’m not thinking it’s a big deal because I’m not talking to anybody at adidas and Sole Tech was ignoring me.
I guess I could’ve called somebody at Sole Tech. I just didn’t because I thought I was about to get kicked off. I was waiting for the god damned axe to drop.
Then I went on an enjoi tour to the East Coast and I’m skating these $18 adidas at a demo—I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t have any shoes. I don’t ride for adidas. They don’t even have a skate team. And there was a Sole Tech rep at the demo who called them and ratted me out. I didn’t find out until months later, but it turns out they thought that adidas was starting a skate program and that I was gonna skate for adidas. I still had some months left on my current Emerica contract, so they called up adidas and were like:
“Hey, have you guys been sending shoes to Marc Johnson?”
They were like, “No. We don’t know who that is.”
“Are you guys starting a skate program?”
“No. We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A buddy of mine named Mike who left Dwindle got a design job at adidas and told me all this. He didn’t have anything to do with skate at all and calls me up and goes, “Hey, some guys at Sole Tech were just calling here. I heard your name mentioned so I asked what happened.”
They’re like, “This shoe company called here asking all these questions about this dude and we don’t know who he is.”
He said that after they found out that adidas wasn’t sponsoring me and didn’t have a skate program, they asked, “Hey, would you wanna buy this dude from us?”
You know how sports teams trade players? They tried to trade me to adidas for money.
The poor girl on the other end. She has no concept of what the hell is going on. She’s got this dickhead from another shoe company trying to sell her a fucking skateboarder. Like, would you wanna buy him from us?”
Jesus Christ. And right when Sole Tech realized they couldn’t sell me to adidas, suddenly they called me in for a meeting all pissed off like, “We saw that clip and you were wearing adidas.”
I’m like, “Yeah, no one was sending me shoes and you saw one fucking clip of me or whatever it was.”
Phasing me out and then blaming me. You fucking choke somebody so they don’t have anymore air and when they start to struggle and fight back, you fucking call them crazy. We’re gonna cut your air off until you desperately start flailing, grasping for something and then we’re just gonna point at you and go, “Look. That motherfucker’s crazy.”
I had two pro shoes out. Wouldn’t somebody in the fucking company, once every month or even every quarter, call me and be like, “Hey, you’re out there doing a bunch of shit for us right now, the shoes are doing great, how are things? Is there anything we can do for you?”
Instead, its like, “Let’s cut this dude off and the second he fucking does something we can blame him and get rid of him.”
“We’ve got an out.” Straight up gaslighting. They do it all the time.
Yeah. We have an excuse to point the fucking finger at him and say, “Look what he did!” It’s fucking cowardice. There are too many ball-less, soulless, nut sack-licking weasels who have nothing to offer in this industry. They know who they are and I’m not gonna answer to that shit.
They could’ve at least hit you up before trying to trade you to adidas.
Dude, its not my fucking job to call the goddamned skateboard company every week like, “Hey, what’s going on this week, guys? Any updates? Am I still doing a good job? Got any new people on the team? Cut anybody off? Is there a Team Manager? Is there not a Team Manager?”
I know my fucking job and that’s not it. I remember finally, I did get a box of shoes once from Mark Waters, but it was too late by then.
“Somebody hurry and get this guy some shoes! He’s skating $18 adidas at demos on the East Coast.” I’m laughing because even though your story is five years I got my job there; it’s the same deal now with the same people acting the same way.
That’s what I’m saying. If you work with people and they’re not growing and evolving and learning and changing, you’re gonna encounter the same fucking problems day in and day out, month after month, year after year.
Unless somebody has a come-to-Jesus moment or goes to South America and does ayahuasca and opens their third eye and comes back like, “Oh my God! I better sack the fuck up and start acting like a fucking responsible human being!” Its just same fucking people with the same goddamn idiosyncrasies and problems and they’re gonna make your life that much more difficult because they’re just working in skateboarding because it’s fucking easy, and they don’t have to do shit—just have to drink a beer and fucking bro down.