Jono Coote sat down with top bloke Jake Martinelli to talk about the new full length video Rugged Raw 3 which he released recently. Have a read below and then appreciate the full video! You can buy Rugged Raw 3 on DVD here and most definitely purchase Josh Cox’s first ever pro board for Clown Skateboards here! Big congrats Josh!
It’s probably safe at this point to call Jake Martinelli’s Rugged Raw series a London institution. Following on from that, it’s probably equally safe to say that his videos offer the ideal street level antidote to the Big Smoke’s relentless process of gentrification – it’s rumoured that even the slightest glimpse of Set Roy pushing full pelt down the street, bottle of cheap cider clutched in paw, is enough to turn yuppies to stone like he was some drunken bearded man-Medusa. With Jake starting to drip feed the video to the web, we caught up with him to find out more about the new video, the switch to HD, skater wish lists for the next video and lino printing amongst other things. Have a read below and anticipate a couple of parts from the video – it won’t bring back Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre or the Grosvenor Pub in Stockwell, but it should put a smile on your face and remind you to take some time out of your day to go skate a slab of marble that some prick of a developer has paid over the odds for to tart up his luxury housing block. Then go post a shit in the post to Southwark Council, and the dangleberries to Lambeth Council while you’re at it.
Introduction & Interview: Jono Coote
Videography: Jake Martinelli
Last time I interviewed you was just before the premiere of Rugged Raw 2, and plenty has changed since then; people moving abroad, moving back, having kids etc., and also a new generation of London based shredders. Can we expect many new faces in this one, a youth safely schooled in the intricacies of it always being 17:45 somewhere in the world?
Yeah it was mad to think that was five years ago now, time’s flown by. There are a few new faces who I’ve filmed a couple of bits with but, in terms of full parts, Jak Pietryga is a new face who hasn’t featured in the previous videos. I was stoked that he was keen to film a part for it, I’ve always been a fan of Jak. I was planning to film a full part with Nuno Miguel de Barros da Silva but he fucked his knee on the second day of a trip to San Fran at 3rd and Army, tore his ACL and was on crutches the whole trip which sucked for him. We didn’t manage to film much more after he healed up, by that point my VX had kind of popped its cloggs. Two people I always wanted to film full parts with were Caradog and Guy Jones, but there’s always the next video I guess!
I’ll see Guy this weekend, I’ll tell him to shape up and get his shit together for the next one… talking of which, did you ever expect to make Rugged Raw a trilogy, skateboarding’s answer to The Godfather, or did the latest installment come about more organically? And what can we expect in the way of multiple cash in sequels, will that make it skateboarding’s answer to Leprechaun? If so, I call dibs on a cameo in the ‘Leprechaun in the Hood’ installment.
Please do, we all need more Guy footage! I always loved Josh Stewart’s Static videos, how they were a series and all followed a similar format, VX and 16mm. I did want all three Rugged Raws to follow suit, as in film both VX and Super 8, but Super 8 got expensive so I didn’t shoot any for this and instead replaced it with Hi 8. Now I’ve got a HD camera I thought about naming the videos something different, but I think I’ll continue the Rugged Raw series and call the next one Rugged Raw 4K haha.
You could go fully tekkers and make Rugged Red Raw? Back to the VX business, after an online premiere hosted by Hot Box Skateshop, the physical equivalent took place at Signature Brewery; have Holsten Pils been phoning you in a jealous rage at regular intervals ever since?
Red, if you’re reading this I’ll take a camera please! That was my one thought about keeping the Rugged Raw series but filming it in HD – does it lose the name credibility – but I’m a bit older now and try not to over think and worry as much. The Hot Box one was also physical, it was a rad night. I got absolutely fucked, threw up and my missus had to get me home in a cab at about half 10. If you haven’t been to the shop, it’s incredible – skate shop, bar and music venue all in one. Shout out Hot Box for hosting us! The Signature Brewery was rad too, I was blown away as I always am by the support and how many people come to watch a video of the good times me and my friends have. Holsten have gone a bit cold now, I think they might be jealous.
Maybe they will forgive you, even bring in an official sponsorship, if you start making Holsten based lino prints and sending them to head office? On the subject of which, how did your interest in lino printing evolve?
That’s a good idea, I might have to get on that. The lino prints started with inspiration from Dylan Goldberger from New York, his work is insane and he does a lot of wood carvings. That got me really inspired to get on it, then I started following other artists and got more and more interested in it. I had a knee operation in November of last year, my missus got me a lino kit for Christmas and I had nothing to do but submerge myself in carving and printing them. I became obsessed for a while to the point I couldn’t stop thinking about them, some nights I couldn’t sleep. It almost gave me the same feeling as shooting Super 8 or taking photos on film, you don’t fully know what it’s going to come out like until you’re finished and it’s printed – it’s quite exciting.
Thematically, outside of skateboarding these prints tend towards the musical, from Bad Brains to the Wu-Tang Clan. What has been getting you stoked musically recently? Do you find yourself working to the bands whose image you are cutting, or is it nice to mix it up and can you be found carving 36 Chambers prints whilst listening to John Denver?
Yeah I definitely find myself listening to the music of the prints I’m carving when I first start, but there have also been times when I’ve been carving a Johnny Cash lino and listening to Slayer or Heltah Skeltah or something like that. King Diamond has been getting me stoked recently; I say recently but that’s probably a year long obsession now.
Haha I love Johnny Cash, but his back catalogue definitely isn’t strictly bangers – I can’t imagine it lasting a whole lino cutting process without going down some weird gospel side paths. Going back to the video, despite filming across the city and further afield, I think it’s safe to say that Rugged Raw is closely associated with the Eastern fringes of London – having travelled widely across the length and breadth of Babylon, if you had to choose a favourite borough that wasn’t East to film in, where would it be?
Haha yeah, it definitely didn’t last a whole lino.
I really enjoyed filming bits at Hammersmith and Fulham. I like how the spots look and feel there, there’s a good variety that isn’t too rinsed.
Yeah I never really explored there when I was in London, except maybe a couple of spots just across the river from Clapham Junction. The Boroughs episode filmed there was dope! To finish up, here’s a question kind of like the sort you might read being posed to a boyband in a teen music magazine, except weirder and drunker because I thought of it when I was drunk; if each skater who has a part in the video was forced into a bizarre, hypothetical situation whereby they were kidnapped by a deranged chef running one of those overpriced pairing nights, and they had to each be accompanied by a different meal and alcoholic drink, who would be paired with what?
It’s funny you say that, because the animations are kinda like that in a way. George got everyone down to a t with them, thanks again George!
Right, I’d say:
- Gocke, some kind of cured meat platter with a bottle of champagne ready to pop if someone lands a trick.
- Josh, some alphabet spaghetti as he loves to correct my spelling errors and obviously Holsten to drink.
- Myself and Dave, Five Guys burgers, drinks-wise I’ll take a Shipyard and Dave some kind of sour IPA.
- Set Roy, the gnarliest steak and chips with White Ace.
- Harry, some noodles with some kind of alcoholic bubble tea if that could be a thing?
- Joe, anything weed infused with a Holsten.
- Jak and Tommy, joint in SF with an alcoholic frostino if that could exist, or a tall boy of any sort if not.
Rugged Raw 3 – Filmed by: Jake Martinelli
Filmed + Edited by: Jake Martinelli
Animations by: George Coffey
