Harrison Woolgar ‘HEADZ’ Interview

Last summer Harrison Woolgar premiered his full length Brighton scene video ‘HEADZ‘, an article about the making of which featured in both the print and online pages of this publication. With this year offering up a glut of surprisingly not pisswet days with which to skate and film, he is back with the first of a series of shorter, bitesize HEADZ features, this first of which is titled ‘AREU4R3AL’ and was the point of departure for the below discussion with Jono Coote. Find out about the workers, lurkers and soundscapes which made up Harrison’s filming experience, watch the video at the very bottom of these words, and keep an eye out for more from the ever-productive Sussex crew sooner rather than later. The Sussex onslaught continues…

Interview by: Jono Coote

Photography by: Luke George

Videography by: Harrison Woolgar

It is 10am on a Monday morning and me and Harrison Woolgar are staring at each other, mugs of coffee in hands, across the pixelated void otherwise known as the internet. Neither of us are quite awake, me due to having spent the weekend helping to build a miniramp, Harrison due to his having spent his weekend skating by day, DJing by night. His love for music matches his love for skating, something reflected in the eclectic songs which made up the soundtrack to his previous video, Headz. Despite the seeming disparity in genre they were chosen with the utmost care and offer up to the viewer further exploration once the video has finished; case in point, after rewatching that project prior to this interview, I’d spent the morning with ‘Deep Blue Sea’ by obscure 60s folk rock artist Art Lown – if perhaps owing a certain debt to Harvest-era Neil Young, nonetheless in a charming rather than wholly derivative way – embedded in my grey matter. It is this level of dedication to every detail of this project that got us so excited when he mentioned this new one, and the news that he is planning on treating us to regular short edits all summer should have your ears perked, eyes peeled and stoke receptors at full alert. Read on to find out more about his most recent project, which you can watch below, and stay tuned…

How did this video project come about? It’s a lot shorter than Headz, that being about 35 minutes long. How do you find the process of creating these smaller clips versus a full length in terms of pros and cons? 

These ones I wanted to make a lot shorter, so this one is 8 and a half minutes. Whilst the weather is good I want to make as many as possible. I’ll have breaks during the winter, no one wants to go out filming when it’s really harsh, but whilst the weather’s good we might as well make the most of it. Keep it fresh, keep the attention of young brains; you know how they can switch off quite quickly, get put off if it’s 15 minutes long. It’s a lot easier to fill a timeline, too. And these shorter ones mean that I can just keep them going, let people know that we’re still making edits and stuff. This one was really fun to work on, there was no pressure as we didn’t have a physical premiere so there was no, “Fuck, we have to make this deadline.” It was just nice and easy. I want to release a few a year, then maybe work on another full length in the future. It’s a lot of time, effort and dedication to work on a full length but also really fun, putting all that time into thinking of the spots, trick selection, everyone’s music, that’s part of the adventure. With a shorter video you can be a bit easy, as long as the skating is good you can film what you want, go where you want and it doesn’t matter as much.

Definitely, a bit looser and more relaxed. Who’s in this one?

Apart from Diggs and Evan Johnson, because they have their own projects going on right now, pretty much everyone from the first Headz video. Albie Edmonds, Michael Tarry, Cal Dawson, Vlad Kalynin. Albie’s killed it in this one. It’s a mix, there’s no real parts. Well, Vlad has a little intro part, then there’s the main bulk of the edit which is all mixed footage.

Rewatching Headz, I remembered how many weird, semi-spots – if you can call them spots – featured. How far out did you venture for this one, or was it strictly the Brighton area?

Most of it is Brighton, though there are a few spots along the South Coast. There are a couple of London clips in there as well, because we’re working on something with Evan and he’s pretty over filming in Brighton. Vlad got some clips in Norwich, but apart from that we’ve mainly stayed in Brighton for this one.

I mean once you get into the deep London estate spots, they’re as rough as Brighton spots.

Yeah for sure, I definitely want to skate the more interesting parts of London, not just perfect marble ledges. No diss there though.

We don’t need to see Canada Water anymore.

I want a spot that makes more sounds. We need more spots with good sounds, rough spots or drains, things like that.

60s and 70s brick bank spots, they look cool and they sound cool. Sound is obviously something you place great importance in, and Headz had an eclectic soundtrack. Being a massive crate digger, how did you go about finding music for this edit and were there any tracks in particular that brought on a lightbulb “I have to use that” moment when you heard them?

So there’s two tracks in this one. The intro track Vlad skates to is some 60s psych instrumental – this trippy organ and guitar… I don’t know how to explain it, but it sounds really good. I found that when Rough Mike, who’s a scratch DJ, did a live show in a record shop in London and filmed the whole set. Me and Al Hodgson are really big fans of his mixes. In that mix they played that song, I thought it was sick so I Shazamed it and stole it. His moniker is Rival Self. The second track is an old Somalian track from a compilation called ‘Sweet as Broken Dates’. It’s a really nice track, it’s quite slow with a really nice lady’s voice singing. I found that years ago, then stumbled across it again recently and it really worked.

These days I guess that stuff is a little easier to find, as you’ve got Instagram accounts for labels like Awesome Tapes From Africa sharing information on these artists, but I know you and Al are dedicated record hunters as well.

Anything that Awesome Tapes From Africa or Analog Africa put out is really good. But yeah, I’m really into music and I listen to a lot of stuff. It makes it hard to finally settle on a track. A couple of times for this edit I put a song in, thought it worked, then found something else instead. But once it finally works, I know. I feel like if you can do the least editing as possible to a song, if the track almost edits itself, it’s going to work. If you’re chopping things too much, dragging the clip too long to make it work in time with the beat, it’s too much. Nearly everything in this edit is on time to a beat, even when the clips stop or start. You’ll know when you see the edit, a lot of tricks land with the music. 

Have you or Al ever considered making a video with a full Sussex soundtrack?

I don’t know, but it’s a good concept. Just people from Sussex… I mean there’s a really good music scene in Brighton, a lot of people making music, but not necessarily stuff you’d use for a skate video. I’d love to use my homie’s music for edits, but other people would just be like, “What is this?” I still appreciate and respect a lot of their music, but it wouldn’t work in a skate video. But, if you found the right person, for sure. I’ll try and make it possible for you.

For Headz you sourced some vintage super 8 film of Brighton to use in the intro. Did you stumble across any other gems from the past over the course of making this video?

I’ve actually got my Dad to thank for that. He’s a proper old geezer, he showed me this old footage he found; “Look at this old footage I’ve found, it’s fucking brilliant, you’ve got to use it.” And it was sick. The whole video was over half an hour long, there are a lot of good bits I didn’t use. I don’t know if it was too corny for an intro, but some people liked it.

I like having such a strong context in terms of place so immediately in a video. Though Brighton spots speak for themselves, they have such a unique aesthetic.

I really care about the scene down here, I love how Brighton footage is represented. I didn’t want people to think there would be loads of footage abroad, or in London. We wanted to keep it raw and close to home – this is our city. We’re really trying to push it down here. But I didn’t use any B-roll in this one, I’ve been a bit lazy with that. There are a few architecture B-roll shots I filmed myself, but that’s it. It’s a lot of effort to get decent B-roll. I know a lot of people like using super 8, but it takes a lot of time and care and it’s really expensive to get the film developed. I’m still sticking to my ways at the moment. I do love the way it looks, but it can be a bit overused.

Brighton has a strong history of DIY spots, with the tree quarter being possibly the most stress-inducing yet. Are there any new spots on the horizon, or footage of any in this new video?

We do actually. Albie’s got an insane gap to back tail at this little DIY quarter he made in Lewes with Ben and Diggs English and Gully Marsh. It was skated in Debris, this whippy quarter they’ve built against this barrier. Even skating the quarter alone is tricky, it’s really whippy, but he aired out to back tail on the next barrier. There’s a funny clip in there with him arguing with this dude who was trying to kick us out. You’ve been to that spot – it’s an absolute wasteland, right? All the hoardings have caved in now, there’s shit everywhere, and there’s a guy trying to kick us out from this crusty barrier… why?! What is your problem? I don’t think it’s really worth the argument, it looks shit. He was really rude, too. We were trying to be nice, obviously Albie is really nice so I was letting him do the sweet talking, and he was telling us to fuck off and stuff. I was showing the clip to Tom Pickard recently and he couldn’t watch it, it was stressing him out.

I was going to ask about encounters with lurkers. The Level is not only home to Brighton’s biggest skatepark, it is also the city’s nitty epicentre. Do you find the surrounding chaos when skating there beneficial for when you hit the actual streets? And were there any other memorable encounters beyond The Level’s confines when filming for this project?

Yeah, Brighton is full of characters. You’ve kind of just got to embrace it or it’ll drive you insane. Nearly every day you’ll come across some twat, you can’t let it get to you. There’s this spot where I wallied a double set which is outside a block of flats, so you get two tries before people are sticking their heads out the window and shouting at you. One time this woman came out of the flats and parked her car in the landing, you’ve got people on the floors above shouting abuse at you, it’s a lot to deal with. Some people love it and really respect it, you can have a good chat, but most of the time it’s people giving you shit.

Me and Mikey Joyce were talking about that the other day. Now we’re both in Bristol where people are generally stoked on skating, it’s a shock to the system going back to Essex or Sussex.

When we went on that Gibraltar trip we didn’t know what was going on because everyone was so nice. I don’t think much goes on in Gibraltar, and they were just super stoked on skating. We’d be skating these spots and people would be sticking their heads out of windows or staring at us from a distance, and we’re so conditioned that we’d be ready for them to not be stoked on it, but they’d come out of their houses and ask if they could sit and watch us, or have a go on our boards. Everyone was so welcoming, it was a really nice experience. At some spots it felt like the whole street was watching and cheering. Gibraltar’s got it going on. Back here you’ll be skating a curb in the middle of nowhere and someone will go past and shout, “You’re ruining it!”

You said you’re already filming for the next video, right? With these being shorter, having you mostly been going out with spots in mind or just roaming the streets to see what happens?

Yeah, we finished it and went out filming the next day. People were asking if they could squeeze in a clip last minute for this one, and I told them we’d just use it for the next one, I’m just going to keep going. The original concept was having seasonal edits, but with the winter one the weather was so mild we kept getting clips of people in t-shirts and shorts. And these days I do go out with a plan, because for a while we were rolling the dice and it can be a little… not draining, but you want to prioritise your time. Especially in the winter, when there isn’t much daylight. I’ve been telling the guys that, if we can have a spot and a trick in mind, that’s ideal. If you’re just lurking around Brighton you end up just going to the same spots, and it’s hard to think of things that aren’t NBDs. I want to keep it fresh with that. And that’s tough, only the hard tricks are left now. It can be tricky down here, so we have been venturing out along the South Coast a bit.

You need one of those charts that they have in homicide shows, loads of photos of different spots and trick lists and criss crossing lines joining them together.

That’s Al. He’s got this spot map. Well, I think he has a spot map for us, and then his own private stash. Spots all around the South Coast, photos of every one, he’s really good for that. He’ll go out cleaning and bondoing spots, he showed me and Michael Tarry how to bondo recently and I want to get more into that.

In your Headz write up you mentioned the various incredible filmers who have graced Brighton over the past few years, but I wondered what filmers from outside of West Sussex influence you or get you hyped to go out and film?

I may have said before, but Zach Chamberlin, a San Francisco-based filmer. There’s also a new video from Lottery, also from SF, that’s really good. I really like Stephane “Feugs” Feugas from Bordeaux, he films a lot of the Magenta stuff. Also Andrea Dupre, he’s the best guy ever. He’s the best filmer and the best skater, he could film everyone’s clips that he’s filming. Kevin Delgroso, I love the Grains videos. They’ve got really good soundtracks, and the spots look insane; these untouched, ghetto-looking spots. Grates and drains, the VX sounds so good with that stuff. Or a crusty ledge, you’ll get a great noise out of a VX with that.

Anything else you want to add?

Naaa… I don’t think so. Just shout out to all the homies. You did good. 

Even when you think that everything that can be done in Brighton has been, another scene video comes out and you see a raft of tricks you didn’t expect.

Al asked where a spot was in this video, and it was round the corner from where we live. I’m glad I had one in the bag. But it’s good, having the South East getting a bit more recognition. It deserves it, there’s a lot of good skaters down here. In nearly every Vague or Companion or Grey recently, there’s been a local photo. That’s the aim – get at least one in every issue.