Gabriel Summers – Issue 41 Interview

With Gabriel Summers’ amazing new ‘GABBERS’ part dropping we thought it would be rude not to upload his Vague, Issue 41 interview put together in two parts courtesy of Josh Sabini! Enjoy the goat’s words below then rewatch his memorable new part.

Introduction & Interview by: Josh Sabini

Photography by: Jim Craven, Sem Rubio, Zander Takemoto, Sarah Meurle, Sam Ashley & Reece Leung

Portrait by: Jim Craven

This interview was done in two parts and that feels fitting for the times that I caught him, in between his two new parts. The first interview was done in mid-May, days after the release of his No White Flag Zero part, in the hours before he left Melbourne for his European summer. The second interview was done mid-September while in Copenhagen, filming for his new adidas part with Tor Ström. In those few months a lot has changed in the life of Gabriel Summers. In our first interview I caught in one of the best moods I’d ever caught him in, excited that the part was out and for the next few months of sun. In our second he is in a time of change, being essentially homeless after saying an abrupt goodbye to Melbourne, the city which he has called home for the better part of the last fifteen years.

By now, I would hope that you have watched No White Flag, the heart-warming follow up to his 2022 Dedication part. You can see how in those two years how his approach to skateboarding has changed, getting cleaner and more refined, skating exactly how he wants to. Swapping out California and Barcelona for London and Copenhagen and continued to unleash an onslaught on his former home base of Melbourne; unlocking new spots that have just been seen as “what if’s” on the way. Now Melbourne isn’t where he calls home, his focus is set on Copenhagen, and I can’t even imagine the spots that he is going to unlock there.

Okay, let’s start here. What was the biggest “My War” you had while filming the part?

Everything is a “My War”, everything is hard. To the normal person everything would be the biggest “My War”. I’d say the back tail on the three block out ledge at No Piss Plaza. It was always windy, the wind never went the right way, the ledge decides to stick as soon as there is sun and also if it gets too cold. There is only an hour’s window where you can try it in the afternoon. It just sucked. But I am glad I did it. I’m glad I got it out of the way.

I’m glad you did it too. That ledge sucks.

Yeah, fuck that place. I say “fuck that place” but my last two parts have had tricks there. So, maybe don’t fuck that place.

The acid drop and heelflip crook was my favourite clip in the part. What is the story behind acid dropping down an 11 stair before heelflip crooked grinding down a 13 stair hubba?

I tried the heelflip crook another time, but I wasn’t very invested because I was going on a trip the next day. I grinded a couple and gave up. I was throwing down to do that, and it wasn’t really working. I don’t know if you can notice it when you watch my footage, but I’m kind of shit at throwing down. The day we went back I was at Waterloo warming up and Zoolz and I were joking about that Brandon Biebel acid drop he did there off a ledge in a demo. It’s so funny, his hands are stuck by his side. When we went to the hubba, Squish, Zoolz and I were talking about Squish’s ollie over the rail then the noseblunt. I was like fuck, that’s such a good way to skate it, but I couldn’t just do another ollie over the rail or ollie down the stairs, I didn’t want to step on his toes doing the same shit. I thought about the Brandon Biebel clip and was like fuck, it would be pretty funny to acid drop an 11 stair. I remember looking at it and being like, “I don’t even know if I can do this”. There’s heaps of run up, so I just pushed really fast and it worked out.

It made the heelflip crook so much more fun and easier to try because I would just be laughing the whole time. It put me in a good mood to try the trick for hours. Laughing kind of conquers fear. It really became more fun doing it that way. I love that clip, it’s funny. I love when skateboarding and comedy get mixed together, especially when it is serious.

Do you think that’s the biggest acid drop you’ve ever done?

That I’ve landed, yeah. I remember I tried to do it down that 15 stair in Sydney, Harrington. I was hungover and I got worked. I had no business trying that. When I was a kid, I was the power box king. I was acid dropping off everything. Do you know Jub, the guy who was on Black Label? I used to love Jubbing. Black Label’s Blackout was one of the first videos I owned and that explains a lot of my influence, from Ben Gilley to Jub. Yeah, I love Jub, he’s great.

How did skating to Dido come up? It seemed like such a choice out of left field but worked so well.

Alright, so!

Oh, you’ve been waiting for someone to ask you this.

I just want people to know that it was all me that chose that song. Originally I wanted to skate to Sinead O’Connor, but because she passed away recently it was nearly impossible to get rights to use her song. Right at the last minute when I was wrapping up filming for the part Thrasher said they couldn’t get it, so it was back to the drawing board. I wanted to skate to another Dido song, but I ended up on ‘White Flag’ and I’m glad I did. Tom Cuthbertson skating to ‘Thank You’ back in the day in Play was amazing. I’ve always really liked that part, especially with him being from Tasmania too. I thought using Dido was so risky, especially back in those days, and he pulled it off. I thought Tim Dunn doing that was cool. Sometimes you have to take risks.

It’s fucked though too, because I think about the lyrics to the skating. It’s almost lame that I think that, but the message is I won’t give up. I was thinking about it after I’d already picked it and I was like, ‘Fuck, this seems like it’s about me trying really hard’ but it wasn’t on purpose at all. I really do love that music. I love skating to female artists, I used Pat Benatar for my Shake Junt part. Nelly Morville skating to Lana Del Rey in her latest Limosine part was genius. That is one of my favourite parts.

Also if you don’t have good music, a song that works and makes you feel something, you don’t have shit. You feel so much when you watch that Nelly part and I watch it so much. That is always the number one thing; whenever I put effort into a part, I want to have a song that I am hyped on. I am so thankful to Cole Mathews at Thrasher for believing in that song and paying for it because I can’t imagine it was cheap. It is going to go down as my favourite part of mine just because of the song.

Do you have anything else you want to say about your awesome part?

It has been a really nice couple of days getting the feedback from it. It’s nice that people have felt the amount of effort I put into it. It is also nice. It was an enjoyable part to film. I can honestly say that I actually wanted to film all that stuff. I had a fun time filming it, I am happy people like it, and I hope that it inspires people to do something similar.

Man, you could be Jub for someone.

I know! Imagine that. Even better, I could be Ben Gilley. Imagine that! That could be life changing.

Interview 2:

Hey, thanks for doing another interview. What are you up to now? 

I’m in Copenhagen, I’ve been here for a few weeks. I’m filming an adidas part with Tor Ström and he lives here, so I’m basing myself here. It has been weird, my life has changed so much in such a small amount of time since my part came out, breaking up with my girlfriend, not having a place to live. Four months ago it felt like I was so certain on what I was doing, and it has just done a complete backflip. It hasn’t been in a negative way to a degree and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. It is nice to be included in a lot of stuff now.

Yeah, it’s crazy you have to move to the other side of the world to even be thought about being in the mix.

I think it’s one of those things where they were happy about me just doing my own thing and now they’ve realised I can actually hang out, go on trips and be a normal person. I get it, it must be draining as a team manager taking a chance on someone you don’t know. Everything is so different, but different in a good way.

It seems like you’re doing the best you can be considering the circumstances.

I’m just happy that going through the break up I wasn’t landlocked in Melbourne and just dwelling on it, I was straight on a plane and out of there. It wasn’t a messy break up but it was still a break up, so it’s nice to not be around it.

It was highlighted in the No White Flag part, but over the last three or so years you’ve swapped out going regularly to San Diego and Barcelona for cities like London and Copenhagen. What inspired you to make that change?

I don’t think I consciously thought about it, it was more just I was at a point in my skateboarding after I finished my Dedication part where I didn’t want to keep doing what I was doing. I was going through a lot of mental struggles, wondering what was next, I wasn’t enjoying the process. A lot of it was about the people I was around and the staleness I felt from going to the same places. At that time I started going through therapy and working out my shit. In doing that, I realised what I actually wanted in life. I feel like being a person you get stuck in a groove of doing these things you think you want but you don’t know if you do really want. Going to therapy and then getting on certain medications opened my mind to what I want and who I am as a person. Before I used to suffer from a lot of imposter syndrome, I constantly thought everyone was better than me and I didn’t deserve to be around certain people. Dealing with those underlying problems helped me to realise there is a place for me in skateboarding where I could be comfortable in, I just needed to be around the right people.

I came to Copenhagen because of Copenhagen Pro in 2022, I met a bunch of nice people, and  realised that the European skate industry is so much more mellow and nicer than everywhere else in the world. I am so happy to be around it. It gave me a second wind; I started enjoying skateboarding a lot more because I was enjoying my day-to-day life. Don’t get me wrong, I still freak out and have meltdowns, but as soon as the skateboarding’s done I’m enjoying life because it’s what I want to do. Before I would finish skating and think, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this. It makes it a lot easier to wake up every day and want to do it. Also, I think I leaned into what I am as a skateboarder. I was self-conscious of being a handrail skater and I’ve accepted that the way I skate is the way I skate.

It’s cool too that you’ve been able to skate handrails in cities that haven’t really been skated like that.

I was always self-conscious about how I skated. I enjoy how I skate. I like scaring myself, that’s what skateboarding is to me to a degree, why would I hide from it? Don’t get me wrong in saying all this, I’m not hating on San Diego. San Diego is great, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for San Diego. I grew up with most of my skating being in a city, not getting into a car all day and I just do what I do what I want to do every day. I feel like I’m a lot more comfortable in those situations. I also like to be alone sometimes, and it is hard to be alone when you need to be in a car all day.

I think the European cities are more like what you’re used to from living in Melbourne and Sydney.   

Yeah, also everyone is enjoyable to hang out with. I feel like when you’re enjoying the people you’re hanging out with it makes everything else a lot easier.

How was becoming best friends with Nikolai Piombo?

So good, he is the funniest human of all time. He is so fucking good at skating too. As soon as we met each other we got along. He’s hilarious, he doesn’t take anything too seriously, he has a good sense of humour, he’s just really fun to hang out with.

He skates so much and it’s motivating seeing it. We are completely different skateboarders, but we have this mutual respect for how we skate. I roomed with him for ages, I felt like we were on the road together for two months and there wasn’t one bad moment that whole time. It was pretty funny tricking everyone into thinking I was a stoner too.

What’s next for you?

I think I’ll probably move to Europe. I have this project for the rest of the year and then I’m going to go to Vietnam, then go back to Tasmania and work out what I am going to do from there. I’m not really thinking about it just yet. I’m just homeless with a travel budget. 

Gabriel Summer’s new ‘GABBERS’ Part