Rio O’Byrne – Issue 39 Interview

We upload Rio O’Byrne’s interview from Issue 39 after the release of his Vague Part. See the photos and watch the video evidence in his ‘Vague Part’ and the new Forecast video ‘Good Luck Out There’. Check all of this below! Get a physical copy of Issue 39 and back issues of Vague here.

Introduction & Interview by: Jono Coote

Photography by: James Collins 

“She was blind in one eye because she’d had laser eye surgery go wrong. The doctor said she could sue them for loads of money, but if she didn’t she could get free botox for life. She chose the free botox.” I am sat in Mannions, a bastion of old London in the backstreets of Tottenham, with Rio O’Byrne and his dad Mick, as Rio tells of the perils of internet dating in Harlow (“She actually lived right next to the skatepark.”) Mick is berating him for dismissing the charms of the daughters of the Three Swords but that gets slightly lost in the general din as we are sat in one of the best Irish pubs in the city on a Saturday night, it is someone’s 60th birthday celebrations, Mick has somehow found himself the recipient of free drinks and things are all starting to get a little hazy.

Planning a skate trip in the soggy depths of British springtime is a decision usually born of equal parts optimism and desperation. With our original skate plans scuppered by the weather and by injury, we had spent a day half-heartedly rain dodging in North London before doing the only sensible thing and heading for the pub. From a shared love of London’s concrete playgrounds (as well as from multiple drinks) emerged the words you find below. It’s also worth noting that, despite the weather and despite his broken hand, we weren’t at Downside DIY long before Rio grabbed his dad’s board with his good hand and spent the rest of the day skating. The true definition of a skate rat is one who doesn’t let mangled metacarpals or crackhead poo skatestoppers interrupt the session. Big up Rio and Mick, see you for another pint at Mannions soon.

Even though you’re on the road quite a bit these days, I still think of you as a Cantelocal. How important was that park and the scene there to how your skating developed?

Yeah I’d skate Cantelowes, Clissold Park and then Victoria Park when that got built. I actually started skating Hackney Bumps a bit first when I was 5 or 6, before it was done up like it is now, because I used to live with Mick in that estate. That’s where I learned to carve, then when I got better I started going to Cantelowes and I’d see Salar Kooshki and Zizi there. I started skating with those two when I was really young. Filippo Baronello has moved away now, but he was there from when I was about 8 until when I was maybe 14 when he moved and those sessions were the best. He’s a fully all terrain skater, he’d be shredding the bowl then you’d see a video of him in Italy crooked grinding a ten stair rail. The same with Salar, he’d be doing six foot airs over the hip then he’d go skate the street bit and do a fat frontside flip. People like Kev McKeon and Aaron Sweeney would be skating there all the time and that inspired me to be there, it was savage every time you’d go. I’d be there with my pads, trying to learn tricks by watching them.

I asked Kev if he had any questions for you, and he said, “Ask him if he’s stopped doing everything to tail.” A certain militancy about how tricks are done must have shaped how you were skating, right?

Yeah, definitely. I’d watch them skate, then I’d do a stinker of a trick and they’d tell me I had to learn it differently. But even just watching them skate, and with them being so friendly to me, it helped a lot. You see the standard of skating that young, you think, “Shit, I need to get on that sort of level.” Seeing Kev slamming, eating shit, it inspires you to try all those tricks.

And then I suppose you had Playstation to skate in the winter months, when it still had the vert ramp, right? 

Yeah, it still had the vert ramp. I was going every weekend with my dad, it was sick. Again, I’d be really young, seeing people like Awadh Mohammed and Kyron Davis on the come up. Jesse Thomas and Alex Griffiths would be there. It would be me, Alex and Niall Gilroy. The three of us would go there, fully padded up, and they’d let us skate when they closed in between sessions. Before Nike came in, it was a really good, good skatepark. 

It was a different vibe there then… even if coming across that bridge from Westbourne Park was fucking sketchy. We got the train up from Hastings once when we were about 16, tried to skate the banks in the estate next to the station and got knives pulled on us.

Yeah, I used to try and skate them and everyone would tell me not to – or, if you went to film, go during the day or you’d definitely get your camera nicked. Even now, I work at Bay and I’ll have kids run into the park saying they’ve all had their phones taken. It’s the maddest area, you’ve got these mad rich people and then the estates right next to that, so it’s bound to happen around there. It’s West London, init.

And Mick didn’t skate before you did, right?

Naa, Mick started skating with me. He was 41, he was bringing me to parks and after a while didn’t just want to sit on the sidelines. He doesn’t mind getting hurt, so he thought fuck it. For starting at 41, having never skated, the level he’s at is fucking impressive. Slashing the cradle at Cantelowes? No one touches that. It was sick growing up skating with him and having him progress with me. He’s my dad, it’s cool.

Mick: All three of us – me, Rio and his brother – got skateboards. My friend Simon gave me this plain deck, I didn’t know where to get trucks so I went to Blue Moon near Marble Arch and he sold me bloody Fracture Trucks… he saw me coming. As a kid I could always stand on a board and tick tack on my friend’s boards, I could do a little bit. I learned to drop in at Cantelowes on that little thing behind the bowl. Rio was there, tiny, acting like he could catch me but he definitely couldn’t have caught me. Then I went into the bowl, and I loved that. 

I never really watched skate videos when I started, until I was already quite a bit into skating. I’d just see people do something cool at the park. You’re watching your friends skate and all getting tricks off each other. You can see it when you go to certain parks, the locals all doing the same tricks. I’d be moving around loads of different parks, because Mick would be driving me to all these skateparks all the time. I got to watch different people with different styles because of that, which helped a lot. I’d live with my mum on the weekdays, she’d take me to school and that, and on the weekends I’d go skate with Mick. They were both squatters throughout the 80s. She told me that, when she first moved here from Sicily, she was in 24 different squats. I guess life was different then. Both my parents are pretty rad, they were heavily into the rave scene and they both always pushed me to be as creative as possible because they’ve both come from that kind of life. When I was young my mum would only speak to me in Italian, so my first language is actually Italian, though I always had both because of Mick. Mick, come here! I was telling Jono about how you and Georgia squatted, and you’ve never pushed against me pursuing skateboarding and creative paths like some parents would; “You’re just skating, wasting your life.”

Mick: You threw away your soccer career!

You would go to all the events, too.

Yeah, from when I was about 7. My dad would be skating and chatting to all the older skaters and I’d be there, in my phase where I was in my knee pads. Then I got older, and I had to free up the movement. I wasn’t going because I wanted to win, I got to go and see all these people I never usually got to skate with in one place. Back then it was mainly jams as well, you’d do a trick and you’d get a prize. Even if you were shit, they’d see your level and be like, “He’s earned that Etnies hat.” I’d go away with a bag full of Vans keychains, stoked.

What’s the weirdest prize you’ve ever won?

Off the top of my head, probably these foam stickers that you were meant to put on your board as grips, for grab tricks. I remember looking at these things, after putting them on my board, wondering how they were meant to help me skate in any way. 

Mick: Jussi Korhonen uses them though.

There you go! I didn’t use them, I tried but I thought they were strange.

So at some point in all this, you got sponsored by Three Amigos Skate Shop and Moonshine Skateboards. 

Yeah, Three Amigos is the OG hook up. I love that shop. They sponsor all the up and coming groms and the locals. Kev and Salar both skated for them. Pete, the owner, asked me at Clissold if I wanted to skate for them. He gave me two t-shirts and some stickers and after that I was on for ages. While I was skating for them I got on Moonshine Skateboards, when I was maybe 9 or 10. Chris Hudson was doing the distro, I was good friends with him and Jesse and they hooked me up. I’d go to those Blockless Combat events and they had the vert at Playstation, which I was skating twice a week at one point. Garry Bullit hyped me up to do an axle stall drop in, gave me a board for it, and after that I was just really into vert. Then, when I was 12 or 13, I got a proper drop in phobia. I was at Ramp City in Blackpool, I put my board over, went to drop in and just dropped straight to a knee slide. I kept going up and it kept happening, I just couldn’t drop in. So, for the comp, I had to roll in.

Mick: For 6 months, you only rolled in.

I’d put my board over, and just get anxious. I’d put my feet on and just get jelly legs. If I pumped up to a trick, though, that was fine. I don’t know, the height or something just got to me. It went away, but I just started to love bowl skating way more. Vert is sick when there’s a session on, but it’s hard to get a good vert session going consistently in the UK. Now it’s actually building up, but back then vert seemed to be dying out. Then Moonshine sacked off the UK side of things and went to just being USA-based, which is when The Hated came about. I know Kev and Marcus from Cantelowes, I love them both, they’re my Gs. They were tagging The Hated for ages. They made this sick company out of it, screen printing clothes and boards. We went on a couple of trips, filmed some tricks, they really put their time into it and it was a sick company. They were my family. They paid for trips, were out filming, they were everything a skate company should be. In the end, they were just focusing on other things. Marcus was tattooing, Kev moved to Barca, they’re still doing it a bit but I thought it was time to move on.

And then Forecast came about?

Last year I went to Deaner Day for the first time and met Tidy Mike and all those boys from Bristol. The next day I went to Dean Lane for the Sunday sesh and Tidy said he’d sort me out boards if I wanted. It worked out good, I fucking love Forecast. Tidy films transition skating so well. Him and Chin came over to Barca earlier this year. I’d been staying on my brother’s couch all winter, because fuck the London winter, and he’d just gone away for a few days which worked out perfectly for them to come and sleep on the couch. 

Having spent so much time out there, would you ever be tempted to move out there full time? 

Mate, I’m keen. Maybe not permanently, but I want to have a base out there. It’s a different way of living in comparison to London. I’m kind of sick of London; especially the age I’m at, I want to use it to the best of my ability. I don’t want to be paying this amount of money to live in a shed here when I can be over there. I’m going on Tuesday and I’m going to see where it gets me. In the past year or two I’ve been skating more street, and Barcelona is obviously street galore. The level of skating you see out there is crazy. Any spot you go to, there’ll be a skater there shutting it down. Especially for me, I’m just trying to crook this ledge and people are trying a switch crook fakie tre out or whatever. 

Recently you went to Tunisia to skate the new Make Life Skate Life park, how was that?

That was amazing. I went there with Rianne Evans and Amy Ram, at the end of the build. There were 15 volunteers that MLSL brought over and they were all safe as fuck. The Tunisian skate scene is fucking sick. The skatepark they had before was made of those metal ramps you can move around, they all had the craziest styles from learning to skate these weird spots. Riding these boards that were basically destroyed, doing switch ollie fakie manuals. The spots around there were minimal. It’s sick what MLSL are doing, all their parks look lush and the finish on the Tunisian one was banging. A couple of guys who work for Betong Skateparks do stuff with them, so you know they’re good. There were people from Spain, Belgium, Theo and Ali from the UK, Nina who worked on the Taghazout Skatepark in Morocco. Everyone in Tunisia speaks French, so there were a few language gaps. The food there is Mediterranean, with a sort of Moroccan twist and so many boiled eggs. I think I had boiled eggs every single day of the trip.

I flew there straight from Barcelona, ended the trip by going to the club in Tunisia and getting smashed, caught tonsillitis… mate. My flight was back to Barcelona and was two hours after everyone else’s flight to London, so I had to get a taxi on my own to the airport, then fly to Rome, then fly from Rome to Barca, all with tonsillitis. I could feel I had a fucked temperature and was just trying to get through it all. At Tunisia they had let me through just carrying my board, but in Rome Airport it was a different story. I had to snap my board, and I had this tonsillitis so I had to try four times – in the middle of security in a busy as fuck airport. I snapped the board, went through security, it went through the scanner and they told me it was too sharp so they’d have to keep it unless I could take the trucks off. I didn’t have a tool so I ended up giving my set up to them. Fuck Rome Airport. I got to Barcelona, with no skateboard, after two flights, fucked. Then I flew from there to London two days later. It was not the one.

Now you’re travelling a bit more, where do you really want to visit?

Cali is on my list, but in Europe I really want to visit Germany and skate those DIY spots. Everyone keeps telling me, if you like transition skating you need to go to Germany. 

Minus Ramps are great. They built a park under a bridge in Heidelberg, even though it’s a skatepark it feels well Burnside-y. Belgium has loads of good transition stuff that Concrete Dreams have built as well.

Belgium, Germany, it’s all on my list. It’s pretty cheap to get around and, because I’ve got an Irish passport, I can fuck off for as long as I want really. Oh was this pint for me? Sorry Mick, I thought it was for that guy you were chatting to.

So now you’re filming a Vague part.

Yeah, I’ve been filming with Luke Croon, my buddy from Dublin. He came over to Barcelona in January and was filming all the Irish boys out there. We were filming stuff then, so when Reece asked if I wanted to film a part for Vague I hit him up. He lives in South London, so it’s perfect. Filming with Tidy is a bit more difficult as he’s in Bristol, so having someone nearby is so good. I’ve only really started going out properly to film street skating in the past year, before that I was just skating and not really thinking about it. Now I’ve started watching all the videos and I love it, it hypes me up so much when Luke hits me up to say he’s got the camera and we should go on a sesh.

Mick: He told me he’s moving to Barcelona to reinvent himself as a street skater. What weird fucking shit is that? The king of flatground ollies, this guy.

(laughs) Listen, I just want to do a bit of street skating, and I thought what better place to do it than Barcelona? It’s just different, it’s cool going to skate a spot that’s not been built for any reason to do with skating and work out how to hit it in a weird way. I’ve never been a stair skater though. Ollieing stairs is fine, but trying tricks down them is terrifying. I don’t know how to do it, how to fall. People that skate stairs all the time know how to fall. 

This is probably a good point to talk about why your hand is in a cast right now.

Frontside 50-50s! I’ve broken three metacarpals and my index, middle and ring finger. Going from spot to spot, I saw a spot and thought I’d get a quick clip, something I could bang out. It was a quick footed frontside 50-50, drop down, then pop back onto another 50-50. On the second one I was going mad fast, caught it on the wrong side of the pinch and ate it. Luckily I got my left hand down; it broke, but if I hadn’t got it down my face would be in bits. I still shaved off my eyebrow a bit. But I’ll be good as new in six weeks. 

Anything you’d like to finish with? Who’s coming up at Cantelowes right now?

You know what, I skate Stockwell so much now I don’t even know. There’s a kid coming up at Bay who’s so good though, this ginger kid called Arthur, the style on him! He does indy airs properly. Every time I go he’s trying a different trick. Stockwell is my favourite park at the moment, though. It’s the best in London.