Jasper Pegg – Issue 23 Interview

To coincide with Jasper Pegg’s ‘LAVENGRO‘ part release we’ve uploaded his Issue 23 interview from the mag. Guy Jones interviewed Drug Store’s stylish fella with photos shot by productive man Danny Jackson. Find out more about Jasper’s friendship with Danny, Berlin nightclub hacks, Norwich spots, growing up in Sheringham, his early influences and Drug Store. If you’re craving more from ‘LAVENGRO’ you can watch the intro montage and read an interview with filmer Danny Jackson alongside Sam Avery on all things Norwich, the newly located Drug Store,’ LAVENGRO’ and more. View all of this here.

Purchase the ‘LAVENGRO’ DVD and Zine here!

Introduction & Interview by: Guy Jones

Photography & Videography by: Danny Jackson

Since Jasper Pegg’s stylish output first came on to my radar a few years back, I knew that I’d have his parts on repeat; the spot choices to trick execution at each is always incredible. It could be one of the most famous Parisian spots and he’ll have left his mark in a way not many others could (I think we all dropped whatever we were holding when we first saw the switch gap to tailslide on that riverside bank). His latest offering in Danny Jackson’s new flick ‘LAVENGRO’ focuses more on home turf, seeing laughably rough spots get a seeing to with Jasper’s unique approach. It also may be that any trick I’d like to do myself he has already done, on cobbles and switch. Thanks to Jasper for being in these pages and his creative partner in crime Danny Jackson for all the photos, it means a lot lads. 

Firstly congratulations on your incoming baba! How are you feeling about becoming a parent? I feel it’s definitely going to be one of the steeziest lil ones going! 

Alright Guy, thank you! I’m incredibly excited about becoming a parent. I feel quite anxious too about the lead up to the birth but that’s completely natural and to be expected. Polly will be an amazing mumma to the steezy lil baba.

You’ve just finished another video project with Danny Jackson (who also took these photos). You’ve obviously no stranger to each other. Do you remember how you initially met and how it has progressed to your current friendship? Or do you both actually hate each other but understand you work well together for videos so just have to hack it? 

Haha, yeah we chill together outside of skating. We like the same kind of music and our girlfriends are old friends too. They have actually just moved into a place around the corner from us. I think the first time that I met Danny was through a mutual friend, Dean Khalil, at the old indoor park in Great Yarmouth. He had moved to Norwich for art school and would get lifts to the park in the back of my friend’s van. He was wearing a pair of Cons Pappalardo’s (when they had only just come out) which gave him instant approval, haha. I think we first started filming together a couple of years after that. We filmed an online part together around 2013/14 called ‘Autumn’ and since then he’s made four full length videos. I really like filming and taking photos with Danny. He is quiet, incredibly patient, encouraging and has a really strong vision of what he wants to do.

Do you have any good stories from any of these projects prior you’d like to share? I’m sure you, Danny and Harley must have seen a lot! 

There are too many good stories to mention and I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus. I’ll give you a couple of segments. We had a pretty hectic last night in Berlin on a trip with Charlie (Munro), Jordan (Thackeray) and all the boys. We kept getting refused entry from clubs so we all swapped clothes down a side street and somehow managed to get in. Nicky Howells was also on that trip and later said the trip was more like a stag do than a skate trip. Another time me and Harley went to the after party for the Vans ‘Propeller’ video. We were staying with a friend in Hackney but we’d lost him during the night and couldn’t get hold of him. Luckily he had given me a spare key so we headed back to his place, which took fucking ages. When we finally got there we opened the first door, walked up the stairs onto the landing and there was another door which we didn’t have a key for. We were there for about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to open the door. I think one of us even suggested kicking the door in. Harley then fell into the door and it opened. The whole time we had been trying to open it the wrong way.

Something I love about your output is that you’ve left your mark on iconic international spots but also have so much new footage in Norwich, have you not run out of spots yet? How hard is it to find something new to skate? I’m sure wallride and ride on enthusiasts must be pretty pissed off that you didn’t leave any for them!

Ah, thanks for the kind words! Well for the previous parts that I’ve filmed with Danny I’ve always relied heavily on getting the majority of footage in London, Paris and on other trips aboard with a few Norwich clips in the mix, whereas with the most recent video it’s filmed entirely in Norwich. Some of the spots here are crusty and can take a bit of work but I kind of enjoy that aspect of skating. Skating on the whole is pretty loose and open at the moment, which makes it slightly easier to find new spots or reinterpret the classic spots. As for any other wallride enthusiast, there is always the double door wallride at the law courts banks.

Would it be fair to say that having Drug Store in the city helped revitalize the scene after HOAX shut down and have you ever met the current owner of HOAX Ed Sheeran? 

Yeah definitely! Although Drug Store was called Drift (before Sam Avery took over) which did exist at the same time as Hoax. There was another shop called Revolutions too. It’s crazy to think there were three shops in Norwich where you could buy skateboards! I did actually get on Hoax towards the end. Maybe l could have been mates with Eddie and T Swift. But yeah, Drug Store has been dedicated to supporting the scene for well over ten years now and they also have some really exciting stuff in the works. Shout out Sam, Lynne and India! Unfortunately, I have never met Ed Sheeran.

You’re actually from more of a seaside town, Sheringham, what was that like? Nik Taylor and Chewy are obviously big skate celebs from a similar area, did you catch glimpses of them when you were growing up and getting more familiar with the wooden plank of joy? 

Yeah, I grew up in Sheringham. It’s just your average kind of small seaside town but for some strange reason it had a really strong skate scene, even way before I started skating. The town had a vert ramp which was cut down to a mini ramp by the time I started skating, but the flat bottom remained the same size so fuck knows how that worked, haha. Next to the ramp was a tiny undercover area where we built boxes and flat bars. At one point it seemed like all the kids in the town got into skating. Nik Taylor was from Sheringham but had moved to London by the time I had started skating. He would often come back to visit family with various skaters. I remember Mark Channer turning up to the undercover spot and doing flip back lips on a box that my grandad had built for me and my friends which we had covered with Emerica stencils, haha. Nik was always really encouraging towards the younger skaters. He once gave me a New Deal t-shirt because he heard that I had learnt to drop in. My (now) friend Si Holbrook moved to Sheringham (I think from Hermosa Beach) and he knew Greg King and Chewy, so they would often come stay with him. There were also a few times when the council would close the high street and set up ramps and skate obstacles for events/comps. Chewy posted his first published photo on Instagram a while back, which was a kickflip on a steep and almost unskateable bank (apparently designed by Nik Taylor on a beer mat), that was at one of those jams.

What are the people from there like, any wacky locals? 

Yeah, there are a fair few odd characters but no more than anywhere else. One story that stands out is when I first started skating and we had a little crew, everyone was obviously hyped on getting new product and were discovering new brands. This one kid had just gotten a pair of DC plugs and they had DCSHOECOUSA embossed around the heel. He was so stoked on them and was like “Yeah, I got some of these new shoes. They are called Deshucoza”. He thought DCSHOECOUSA was pronounced as one word, haha.

Could you please give us some recommendations? This can be any form of stimulus be it an album, film, meal or venue.

Err, I’d recommend listening to the Adam Buxton podcast and Lucy Gooch’s Rain’s Break EP (Polly’s sister, Iggy has been backing her on 6 music). If you ever come to Norwich go to Yard for good pasta. Oh and read ‘Just Kids’ by Patti Smith.

What else would you like our darling readers to know? 

I just want to say thanks to Sam at Drug Store for supporting the scene and everything he does, James Fuller for being the best, Dom Henry and everyone at Keen for sending me Hockey boards and product and Jerome Campbell for sorting me out with Cons. I’d also like to shout out the new generation of skaters in Norwich, especially Marlin and Wilf. Oh shit, and a massive thanks to Danny Jackson.

‘LAVENGRO‘ – Jasper Pegg – Drug Store