Alex Hallford – Issue 20 Interview

With Welcome Skate Store lensman Josh Hallett unearthing some characteristically mind-blowing footage of Lovenskate transition wizard Alex Hallford, we’ve uploaded his interview with Jono Coote from way back in issue 20 of the mag for your viewing pleasure. Read on for some insights into vert contests, van life and more, then make sure to watch the footage – which, serendipitously, corresponds closely with the below photos.

Introduction & Interview by Jono Coote

Photography by James Griffiths & Reece Leung

Alex Hallford is at first glance – rolling out of his van in the morning, pyjama clad, hair sticking out in all directions and steaming cuppa in hand – an unlikely Olympian. But, then, if the Olympics wants skateboarding’s cultural cache, it is going to have to get used to skateboarders; an undoubtedly athletic, but in no way traditionally ‘sporty’, breed. All doubts will be blasted from your mind anyway once he steps on to a board. Al is one of that rare breed of truly magical skateboarders who can blow you away whilst still in cruise control, let alone once he switches on for the day. A truly natural style married to a deep trick bag and the ability to make the most intimidating of vert ramps look like your local four foot mini makes every session with him an education in skateboarding’s potential, while the flow which is taking him to the deepest, darkest corners of the bowl you rarely touch is something which leaks into other areas of his life. For those that don’t know, Al’s Instagram handle ‘Siddhallford’ is a reference to the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha, an ambitious attempt to join Eastern and Western trains of philosophical thought which sees the protagonist’s search for Nirvana eventually bring him to a river; a motif for perpetual momentum, the ‘flow’ which underpins the eternal momentum of our universe. Alex’s dedication to immersing himself in this flow is probably best summed up by the title of Lovenskate’s last video, Don’t Worry Gordo, The Universe Will Get Us There. A direct quote from one of the many chapters in the book which could make up Al’s and Jordan Thackeray’s travel adventures/mishaps, the comment makes a surprising amount of sense when applied to the trajectory of his life this far. Read on to find out plenty more about the man with some of the snazziest jumpers in UK skateboarding.

Let’s start at the beginning – what got you started skating and how did you end up as a vert sprog? Did I also imagine some kind of sponsorship from Fracture Skateboards very early on?

I got into skating because I went to my local miniramp on rollerblades and saw someone on a skateboard. I thought, “That looks bloody amazing,” and that was it; skateboarding, skateboarding, skateboarding. And naa, Enuff was my first sponsor, I think through competing at Boardmasters. Martin hooked it up, he was the team manager at Enuff and I think we must have met him there. Back in the vert ramp days, when the crazy vert ramp was on the beach and Andy Scott was doing flip eggplants.

I feel like there were more vert ramps and vert events in the UK back then, but I might be wrong…

Yeah there were a lot more events going on, and more vert ramps too. The vert scene was popping, even London had Baysixty6!

So did anyone else we’d know skate for Enuff at the time?

It was more a kids’ entry level brand, they’re still doing it now. For entry level stuff it’s not bad, better than your Argos boards and that. Chip rode for them, I remember him, he was really lovely. Sam Bosworth rode for them early on. 

Power vert spawn team!

Yeah I got into vert early on, because Derby Storm had a vert ramp 20 minutes from where I lived in Nottingham. Storm was a crazy park. I was young at the time, but it was a sick place, it felt really rogue…another world. I don’t know exactly how long it was about for, but I remember showing up one day and the doors were locked. That was it, it never opened again.

Then you got on Unabomber, the post Up The Rebels incarnation. How did that come about and were you aware of the team’s storied history when you joined? Did it ever feel intimidating having something like Headcleaner looming over you?

It was me, Bambi, John Bell, Kelley Dawson, Eric Thomas and Daz – who’s now the SBGB team manager and was the team manager there. I’d seen the older videos but I was probably 10 or 11 when it was all kicking off, I couldn’t have even comprehended all that crazy shit kicking off in the late 90s or early 2000s. It was probably the mid to late 2000s when I started to be aware of stuff.

So when exactly did the Lovenskate connect come about?

I started skating with Ewen Bower and he introduced me to Stu, I can’t remember exactly when but it happened and I haven’t looked back since. Lovenskate is a sick brand, I love Stu and all the stuff they make and do.

And you were the second recipient of a Lovenskate pro board after Lucy Adams. Since then both of your pro boards have featured graphics by James Callahan AKA Barf Comics, what is it about his work that appeals to you? 

I really like his style, all the previous Lovenskate boards he’d designed were awesome and I met him in California when I was out there which was even more awesome. It was great working with him on the designs, I had my kind of idea and sketchy doodles and then there were all the ideas he was excited about. He puts his own twist on it as well; in the one where the giant is picking up Stonehenge and placing the block, in the water it’s reflected as the Great Pyramid. The druids near the giant are the Egyptian characters in the reflection, it’s amazing. James knows what he’s doing… 

I immediately read the title of the most recent Lovenskate video, Don’t Worry Gordo, The Universe Will Get Us There, in your voice – was it a direct quote?

Yeah, that’s one of mine. I think it was in France in maybe 2018, when we were trying to get 1000 miles to somewhere in Spain on a blag with no money… I don’t know, but one of the moments in the wider experience of travelling with Jordan. It’s never dull. Me, Jordan and Jackson were on a lot of the missions for that one, good times.

How long have you and Jackson been filming together for?

We probably met in Nottingham about five years ago, maybe a bit longer, at the time we were skating a lot together. Then he managed to get a camera from work, got into it and it started from there – he took to it quickly. He’s got the patience and vibe for it. When he lived in Nottingham we were hanging out all the time anyway. He made a Nottingham scene video, Friends Section, that was the first thing he started filming for. Neil was finishing Ye Olde Trip, Jackson was filming a bit, there was plenty going on.

And Neil’s video saw you taming a natural loop… which is fucked up. What was the impetus to go for that one then? It seems like the kind of claim you’d make after five hours down the pub?

Haha yeah, pretty much. Stoked! I’d been saying to Neil I’ve wanted to loop and he just thought I was jiving. We needed an ender for my part in his beautiful Nottingham scene vid and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I did a couple in skateparks, small ones, and obviously cradles mean you’re basically going upside down. Seeing Bob Burnquist looping everything at one point, I remember thinking I had to do that one day. It took a couple of visits, I put a hole in my shin the first time and it was getting dark so we had to go back. It was a full on hole in my shin too, I could see my shin bone. But I went back a couple of weeks later and, because I’d sort of learnt it the first time, I was immediately in the motion of running out of it. Within half an hour I had it. It’s funny, me and Neil skated that fullpipe years back and talked about how good it would be to one day do a loop, if we found one that was perfect. Then we ended up coming back to it years later because it was the perfect one. I had little knee pads on, I had to. There was one slam the first time I tried it where I basically looped it and took a knee after looping. I thought I’d shattered my whole life, it was one of the weirdest bails. There were some where I was literally upside down then having to jump around to my feet, kind of doing half a backflip to save my life. Gotta love those adrenaline adventures, especially when they work out. Neil’s video is great, check it out if you haven’t already.

Because when you see those events where people do the loop, they’ve got mattresses out to warm up…

Yeah, I didn’t have that luxury! It’s a different sort of loop too, so a different technique, and way bigger probably. You’re moving sideways through it. To be honest I’d love to try that kind of loop as well if I ever got a chance. Originally when I went to the spot to do my loop, I’d watched a clip of Bob Burnquist doing one and he does a big frontside kickturn then loops. I was trying that initially but that pipe is way smaller, which is why I ended up just rocking in it then going over.

As someone who has generally always been up for contests and jams, do you feel like the UK event circuit has died off in the latter half of the 2010s? I know it feels to me as if the halcyon days of post-comp liver damage are past…

It’s funny, it’s definitely died down a bit. There’s less money I guess… after Netflix started, everyone stopped having to leave the house. They were just more wild back then, weren’t they? I guess a lot of the guys organising those events, Nic Powley and Kev Parrott and people, got a bit older and didn’t want to do it anymore, and no one stepped in to fill their place. It was just way rawer, less phones and stuff, you had to be there to see it. There would obviously be edits afterwards, but they never did it justice. The European comp scene is still sick, it has died down but it’s definitely lasted longer than the UK comp scene, there’s people doing stuff there. There’s always free beer, people are cool with it. 

Team Trouble LAAX is a big one for you lot most years, can you tell us a bit about that one and what’s brought you back year after year?

Yeah that one is pretty fun – it’s one of the newer events that the guys in Laax started doing, I guess we’ve been four or five times now. They keep it pretty real, it’s crazy. An adventure to the Swiss Alps is always welcomed and a ski resort with a skatepark at the facility is pretty insane.

Isn’t it the highest altitude skatepark in Europe or something?

The park at the top of the mountain, that you can only skate in the summer – I think that is. Cedi, who organises the contest, was I think inspired by the old Volcom events where they did a doubles thing; at least that’s what I first thought of. I guess there were no team events really going on so they wanted to do something new. It’s great fun, doing lines with ya boys, seeing the homie do a crazy trick as you’re cutting underneath him. The crashes, the dodges, the doubles, it all happened. Some dudes take it pretty seriously, but it does keep things a little more lighthearted, having all the crew there egging each other on and working together. It’s weird working together, it’s a different vibe. When you actually get your five minutes in the bowl it’s just like the four of you having a session… but fucking going for it.

The follow up from these comp questions is obviously discussing the Olympic team, which you’re on now. Was that through Derby Daz?

Naa, that’s through contest results; me, Jordan, Beckett and Decunha, because we’ve always kind of been up there in the results, as well as travelling through Europe and doing well in events over there as well. It was through Lucy originally, she got me and Jordan in there. Daz got brought in as team manager when we were already established as the team. I mean the Olympic committees that organise all this… showing them a video part of an amazing skater is one thing, but they can’t understand or relate to it in the slightest. But show them a first place result at something like the European Championships and they go, “Okay, they’re worth funding.” Me and Jordan have always gone to contests but we’ve always thought of it as gambling; you could kill yourself, you could win ten grand. Especially when we were a bit younger, we’d try and stick anything regardless of whether our feet were on the board.

A slam is as good as a make…

Hell yeah it is.

I suppose that will have opened up loads of possibilities for you, with things like physio and nutrition?

It’s still early days so we’re not super deep with all that stuff, but there has been some help – I mean Jordan and Beckett, they both got pretty bad injuries in the last year or two, they’ve been to the Team GB injury rehab centre. It’s good to know we have support if we have any serious injuries in the future, though hopefully we don’t touch wood.

A return of UK Champs would be nice…I guess Graystone is the obvious choice, but it would be cool to do it somewhere weird like Boom or The Junkyard.

It would be great to do it somewhere like Junkyard, that would be mental, but there are regulations for how the contest bowls have to be. Not super strict, all the bowls are still different… that’s one of the beautiful things about skating. All swimming pools and football pitches are the same, but every bowl is different, even if they tried to build it identical. If you had three bowls next to each other, with the same design and built by the same people, you’d probably still end up going, “I like the left one best.” Anyway yeah, SBGB…hopefully it’ll all be good. They’re doing a lot of work with communities, trying to create funding for the future of skateboarding in the UK, it’s all popping. Hopefully some good things will be happening for UK skating soon!

Going back a bit from competition to filming questions, you had a part in the Andy Evans video Just in Time and I wanted to ask a bit about filming with Andy, because it looks like such a unique process.

Yeah Andy’s great, it’s always lovely seeing him and his videos are awesome. I was super inspired the first time I saw Heel Toe Magic and This n That, and when I met him and we started filming stuff together that was brilliant. It was great hearing all his ideas for the video as it was going on, hearing what he’d been filming and all the skits, bouncing ideas back and forth. It was always lovely skating down in Brighton or London with him. He’s just done that new documentary with Lucy Adams too, celebrating her and International Women’s Day, which is well worth checking out. Heel Toe Magic is still my favourite British skate video I reckon; if anyone reading this shit hasn’t seen that, get on it! Just in Time was probably my first full length video part. It was hard as he lives halfway across the country and was doing an independent video with very little, if any, funding, but we got together when we could and got a few clips off other people as well. Hopefully I’ll be down south soon for a catch up Andy!

Talking of travel, you’ve been in the van for a long time now – how much time have you spent kitting it out, and how many countries have you been through in it now?

In this van I’ve been around all of the UK now, all through Wales and Cornwall and all around the Highlands, but I haven’t taken it to Europe yet. The old van went through the whole of Europe, pretty much every country. That was more of a DIY camper van whereas this is like a tiny house, I can’t wait to get it over to Europe. I’ve been living in this full time now for a year, since last February. It’s been incredible; you’re parked in the most lovely places to open the door to, even in Nottingham where I’ve still been working I’ll park out by the river or the skatepark. It’s great, you feel so much more connected to nature. Less time is wasted doing stuff you don’t want to be doing, like hoovering or cleaning the bathroom.

I’m planning on building a tiny house next, on a flatbed trailer, so we’ll see how that goes. I bought the trailer, so fingers crossed. This van I bought in July 2019, it was a Network Rail van which finished its service. I bought it off a guy who worked there but it had a partition wall, a workbench, a ton of shit – which meant I got it for a good price due to all the crap in the back. Because we were travelling for the Olympic Qualifiers in Brazil and things like that, I had it for a few months where I was slowly taking everything apart. Then as winter hit and we weren’t travelling as much, I had time and I spent a month or two really going at it, insulating it properly, putting in the ceiling, stuff like that. February the bed went in, I got the two burner hob, and spent about a month living in it while I finished the last of the conversion. So I guess three or four months in total?  

It was fun, but also trying to balance it with the rest of life was hectic. I moved into the van when the first lockdown started. It was weird but the weather was amazing, a beautiful start to van life. Chloe’s been living in the van too for six months, it’s been awesome. Both of us in this space is crazy, but it’s worked. You’re in a small space when it’s raining outside but the feeling of freedom with the house on wheels totally outweighs any bad weather. I loved having a terraced house before, but it is like a vortex. You get home from work, you’re in, the TV goes on. We’ve spent a lot of time visiting farms, eating a lot of organic food and stuff in the last year. Since being back in Nottingham a lot I’ve been trying to focus on that kind of thing, learn some new skills. Van life is never boring.

Obviously eating seasonally, eating organic foods, working with what’s there, would probably do a lot for people’s immune systems.

And it brings it back to local communities as well, we don’t want one corporation controlling the whole of the UK’s food. Local people growing things for the people around them, supporting each other. Living in the van over the last year has allowed us to go back to those roots and connect more with the real people around Nottingham. Supporting those industries through all of this has been a big focus of mine, visiting the butchers and getting my meat from them… Now more than ever I think it’s important. Going to America, I witnessed capitalism decaying before my eyes. It’s way worse than here but we are on the same path if we don’t wise up. Stop going to McDonald’s, KFC and Tesco fools! 

I really feel like reconnecting with local food and local people is so important. I’ve loved visiting the farms, eating all this good stuff. I eat stuff from the supermarket now, all this supposedly fresh fruit and veg, and it either tastes like nothing or you can taste the herbicides and pesticides. People have been conditioned to think that this is fine and normal. The amount of plastic is also gross. I want to pick the food up and touch it, you know? See where it’s come from. It’s strange, we live in a society where they poison us with fast food and it’s all they have been promoting throughout this pandemic. You need a good immune system, good minerals and vitamins going into your body. The government should have been telling us the whole time to eat locally, support those industries, get good minerals and get outside in the sunshine and fresh air.

Which would have simultaneously helped the economy. It’s all so connected.

Init! Having money as our voting tokens, in the last year trying to remember that has really helped me. If I spend even a pound in McDonald’s, that’s a pound to a global conglomerate that doesn’t give a monkey’s about you, me or anything apart from profit.

In a late capitalist society, the most effective form of protest is with your wallet…

Exactly, our money is the most important vote of our lives. No election for any tool in government is anything like as important as our everyday, moment to moment voting with our money. Fuck Sainsbury’s, fuck Tesco, when the financial system does crash they’ll be the first to close their doors – not the local farms, not those people doing things. Act local, think global – at the skatepark in Nottingham, that was a huge mural painted at the end of a row of terraced houses, a woman with a bird on her head and that was the quote next to it. It always stuck with me from when I was young. 

We are witnessing capitalism die in front of us, this fractal banking system is pathetic. I’ve been genuinely scared for the world, for humanity, praying we can start to see some sense. It has helped me get through the last year, through these crazy times; being in the van and being in the present. It’s part of the whole van life, sustainable living. I don’t waste fresh water doing shits, I use barely any power, barely any gas, I’m not running a whole house I don’t need to run. It’s not for everyone, but if I’m contributing to a more sustainable planet then that’s fucking dope. Apart from the diesel I put in the engine, which I can’t avoid and society is forcing me to do.

There’s an old documentary called Food Inc. that’s brilliant. It was made ten years or so ago but it’s very interesting and eye opening regarding the food industry in America, a food industry I fear we are moving closer towards now Brexit and all that shit has happened.  My favourite documentary, that’s lovely and everyone should watch, is called Water: The Great Mystery. It changed my perception of the whole planet more than maybe anything ever. Dr Masaru Emoto’s water research is very profound. He’ll separate these bodies of water, then he’ll thank some, he’ll tell some he hates it, he’ll play death metal, he’ll play Beethoven, all these different things. He then freezes it, he takes photos of the crystals that form afterwards, and they’re always different. It’s stunning. The more love he’s projected at the water, the more beautiful the crystals come out in geometric amazingness. Awesome.  

Reminds me of the title of that Gullwing video, Molecules In Motion. Going back to Jackson’s video, how did the US trip come about? Was that at the same time as the Brazil trip?

So this was earlier in the year, when we found out we were going to the Dew Tour. Me, Sox and Jordan had the idea of going a bit earlier, making a bit more of an adventure of it. I kind of said to them I didn’t want my first American trip to just be a Dew Tour contest so we did the full tour before going to the contest, which was brilliant. Luckily we all survived it, me and Jordan were quite injured before we left – I had a really bad shoulder and couldn’t twist or use my right arm properly, and Jordan’s hip was fucked. For the first two weeks in Oregon we were at all these incredible parks and didn’t feel 110% which was a shame. It was insane though, the skateparks were definitely my favourite thing about America. The nature is amazing too. It was great driving out to the coast from Portland, all the parks that way were brilliant and the drive was gorgeous… we found this beach that was just driftwood, like a forest had just landed on the beach, I’d never seen anything like it. It looked like a tree graveyard on the beach or something.

This is a tenuous connection to the ‘travel’ part of this interview, but your Instagram handle is a reference to the incredible Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha. At the end of a long period of nomadic self reflection and constant rejection of each phase he finds himself in, once Siddhartha finds peace by the river he finds himself come to terms with each of his previous journeys, however seemingly fruitless, as integral to his present self; no one path has led to nirvana, but they have all in some way built a body of experience which follows the natural ‘flow’ and informs his eventual attainment of enlightenment. Which is a long winded way of asking, what would you be doing if skateboarding hadn’t brought you here? How important is letting the universe get you there?

Don’t limit yourself, you know. He could have stuck with the one path, but he found his own way, which is important, but with respect to everyone else doing the same thing. If I hadn’t found skateboarding? I have no idea…I enjoyed playing guitar a lot when I was younger, and I still do, but skateboarding. Without skateboarding I don’t know if I’d have ever read Siddhartha, because I found out about it from a friend who I met through skateboarding.

And once travel opens up again, having already been to so many places, where’s the first place you want to go?

I would like to take the van to southern Spain, I would really love to go to New Zealand, Asia, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about travelling for a while, after going from doing it so much to not at all for a year – it was very grounding, but I had to not think about it. I’ve been in the present moment, if I was sat at home wishing I was in Australia, doing frontside inverts in Bondi Bowl, I’d be a bit bummed out.

Lots of love to everyone taking the time to read this, may we all find our way in these confusing crazy times. Don’t let the man get you down, one person can make a huge difference. Never give up! Namaste.