Posted: September 4, 2008

COREY DUFFEL
Photos: Burnett

I've known Corey since he was fourteen years old. He was a youngster just getting on Think Skateboards long before the Walnut Creek area was known as Duffel Land. I've interviewed him plenty of times though out his carreer from the days of turning pro, to the 'black out' period, to being accepted back and regaining sponsors. All the time, Corey never stopped ripping with pure dedication. The kid never has a shortage of photos or video clips and has always been down for Thrasher, so when the opportunity came up for yet another web interview, I decided to let you the readers ask the questions. The following is an interview I conducted at his home in Walnut Creek with your questions. —Schmitty

What got Corey started in skateboarding, and what were the first tricks he learned? —Marcus Menefee
I got into skating from a friend on the street. I was in 4th grade and I was sick of playing sports. I started using their boards. I learned pop shove-its and ollies first, ’cause shove-its you don’t have to do so much—just shoot your board out and it’s pretty easy. My mom got me a board for my 10th birthday and I kept with it.

If you weren’t getting paid as a professional, would you still jump off and onto crazy shit like you do? —Justin Kittel
I wasn't getting paid that well when I first was doing it; I wasn't getting paid at all as an am. That's when I jumped on the biggest shit I've ever done. I think I'd still do it. I like going fast and going big. Obviously the paycheck is nice. Who doesn't like free cheddar for having fun? I would definitely be doing it regardless. I love skating and I’m not that good at anything else. The whole point of skating is progression, and it's only fun when you're going bigger and going onto crazier things.

When can we expect to see a new part? What video will it be in?
Split’s coming out with a video on Halloween called Demons In The Attic. It's gonna be the promo video with me, Nuge, Sean Eaton, Terell, JT Aultz, and a couple other guys. I kind of have a fucked up back—we'll see how it goes, I got kind of cut short from filming.


No one ever accused Corey of not havin' some pop.

What music have you been listening to lately?
My friends’ band, The Soda Pop Kids from Oregon. A bunch of ’60s psychedelic garage bands. Roky Erickson I’m always a fan of. Small Faces, Ground Shakers, Tommy James, and Master's Apprentices.

Seriously, what happened to Matt Allen? Was he straight up fired or what? Does he still skate? —Thomas Warren Luxon
Yeah, he pretty much got fired. Beagle—yes, Josh Beagle, the Foundation TM—he kind of just booted Matt out of nowhere. Supposedly Beagle didn’t even work at Foundation at the time. I was pretty bummed that he got kicked off the team, ’cause we spent a lot of time together and he was a good skater. I don't know what he's doing now, but I recently saw a photo in the mag that said sequence: Matt Allen, so I don’t know if it's the same guy and he's become a photographer or what. I haven't talked to him in like five months.

Any truth to the rumors of you and Kyle Berard heckling Sheckler at the Dew tour in Baltimore? "You heard Caine Gayle fucked his mom,” or some shit? —Daniel Carte
First off, I've never done the Dew tour. I’ve never been to Baltimore. Maybe Kyle did, but I don’t even think Kyle does the Dew tour. I think he's just in the backyard pool or on mini-ramps with Peterson somewhere. I heard the rumors you speak of, too, but rumors usually carry more weight than facts. I’m down for Sheckler, he's a cool dude.


Front board, duh.

You’re known for going down big shit (that gap in Feed The Need was fucking huge). What goes through your mind before you try anything big? And what goes through your mind once you’re in “Holy shit hang time” mode? —Masio Surmaj
Holy shit hang time? Yeah, “Fuck man, holy shit hang time, dude!” I'm just in the air flying. You ever see the Simpson’s episode where Homer tries to jump the gorge? I guess I feel like that: "I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna make it." Seriously, I kind of just go for it—go fast and test the boundaries. Obviously, you're terrified before you go and try something big. You're not in the air for more than half a second, so there's not really that much hang time.

Do you see yourself moving out of Duffel land? Are there still spots there to be found?

There's like a million things I still want to skate out here. There's a lot of gnarly shit. I like the suburbs. I like coming home from tour and being in a quiet residential neighborhood. I live at the end of a cul-de-sac where I can leave my car unlocked. I like the whole vibe to it, so I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. I just got a real nice place out here, so I’d be foolish to leave. I'm definitely down for the suburbs. SF and Oakland are only 30-minutes away.

What do you think of fabricated street parks? 

Well shit, I wish I had one. Maybe I’d be good like P. Rod and be able to do nollie heel crooks. They’re cool. I don’t really care when people film on that kind of stuff. You start filming video parts on fake boxes and putting coping on things—to me personally, that’s kind of wack. I think you should go find things in the wild. If it’s not in the wild, I don’t really care to watch it on footage. Well, that’s not totally true. When Thrasher puts clips on the net from the Berrics, I always watch it and like it. I just watched the Tyler Surrey one the other day. That dude’s good. I just wish I had one; I think it’s cool for a training facility. That explains why the Fallen video’s so good—those guys have a place to practice all day long. Tum Yeto, if you want to build us one, I’m backing it.

Have you ever drank alcohol or done drugs? —Morgan Wright

No, I ain’t into booze. I grew up in a family where there were bad drug problems and bad alcoholism, so I wasn’t into it. Right now, I’m just trying to skate. I figure there’s plenty of time later in life to have some brews and bbq on my porch. Smoking cigarettes is stupid and a waste of money; an anti-investment. Drugs? Sure, I like pain killers; who doesn’t like that stuff? But really if you’re trying to skate, leave that stuff to rock stars. If you want to party, go for it, but it’s not my cup of tea.



Growing up, do you think avoiding the party scene has given you a better perspective, or do you feel like you missed out on stuff? —Michael Lao

When I watch movies like Super Bad, I say, “Wow I missed out.” No, I go on tours with my homies and that’s like a big party. It’s given me a good perspective, ’cause I see my good friends drinking and acting like retards and I have to take care of them. I don’t want to be in that situation; it’s not how I want to be. But if Super Bad really happens, then yeah, I missed out.

Do you think you'll ever wear baggy pants?

No. Maybe if I got really fat. I like tight jeans. I think I’ll keep ’em. I wear plaid shorts when I do yard work, and I wear other things besides tight pants. If I got fat, I’d probably wear Ben Davis or Dickies ’cause that’s what all cool fat people do.


Do you get to ride the bus for free since your picture is on it? That would be rad if MUNI hooked it up. —George Galvez

Fuck yeah, I wish I could. If I got free rides, I’d be stoked. But no, MUNI hasn’t hooked me up. BART, if you’re reading this, hook it up!



Ramones or Dead Boys? —Andrew from Czech Repub.

I kind of like the Dead Boys better ’cause I like Stiv Bators more than Joey Ramone. He did Lords of the New Church, which I like. I’ll go with the Dead Boys. The Ramones are great, but after a while it all sounds the same.

Top 5 records? —Isabel from Ecuador
I’ll go with five 7-inches I like a lot. First one is the Shivers, good power pop from Milwaukee. Next is Disco Zombies, post punk shit from the UK. Then Private Dicks, She Said Go: ’79 from Bristol the UK. The Fast Cars, probably one of my all time favorite bands. The “Kings of Power Pop” is what they go by. And Ice and The Iced—I skated to this song in the 88 video. Those are just 45’s. Top 5 albums, I got too much shit to go through.

What happened between you and Baker filmer Beagle at the Maloof cup? There's a photo of you getting beat up.
I got sucker-punched, or yanked off a stage really, while signing autographs. He hit me once and his friends took a photo. He has a problem ’cause I called him a phony, but Josh Beagle is the only Beagle in my mind. I wouldn’t say I got beat up, just sucker-punched and hair pulled. But the whole thing is apparently dropped; I’m not trying to talk shit on him. We have mutual friends. A lot of my good friends are friends with him, and some of his friends are friends with me… It’s just water under the bridge now.



What did you think of Bust or Bail?
It was very surreal. As I watched it, I didn’t really think anything of it. Then when I went home later I was with the Toy Machine team discussing the rawness that just went down. It really hit me how gnarly skating has become. Back three down a 16? Sheckler was really good. The backside flip and back lip fakie were nuts. He did everything easily. Everything was insane. Watching the dude neck dance was fucked. He should have died, and people just laugh. To me, skating is just too gnarly now and I can’t really get into these contests. People become flying carcasses jus to make a few bucks, and make it harder on themselves for their next video part. I know I won’t hardflip a 16, and I sure wouldn’t want to do a bigger one now.

Why didn't you skate in it?
I’m not into getting buck-wild in front of that many people, almost having another guy land on me while I’m on the ground from a previous attempt. I don’t want to risk hurting myself in a contest. If I wanna skate that set or rail, I’ll go back on my own time and get it filmed and have it in my video part. But the main reason is this: Over a month ago, I was skating the X-Games, and I fell…resulting in a pinched sciatic nerve and two broken vertebrates in my lower back. So like I said, a contest is not worth it.

Who do you think should get SOTY this year? —Ben Sullivan

Fuck, who’s been killing it? Have you seen that new Silas interview? Holy shit! That might be your best bet. That Smith grind photo—I don’t know where the fuck he’s going with that. I’m saying Silas, he’s killing it.