6.2.2007 It's that time of year again... when corporate america invades LA in an attempt to cash in on the Xtreme sports disciplines aka the XGames. Basically that means I'm lurking harder than usual and looking for the open bars and fancy hors'devors. Somehow stumbled onto the rooftop of The Standard hotel in downtown LA and saw your boy Chris Cole. He was just there with his wife minding his own business... no one was noticing him. This was supposed to be an Xgames party and no one noticed last year's winner of the street contest, Chris Fucking Cole? This was the eve of the 2007 men's street finals and with little effort I transformed into fanboy and hit up Mr. Cole for a quick interview.
CHRIS COLE: How do you like that phone? (pointing at my crappy Samsung Blackjack)
SGV: Shit sucks, can't hold a battery charge worth shit. Get an iPhone.
CHRIS COLE: actually, I did.
SGV: You like it?
CHRIS COLE: Yeah, it's cool.
SGV: Before we go on, I must ask if you use a Mac or a PC?
CHRIS COLE: Mac
SGV: Good. Because if you would have answered PC this interview might have ended.
CHRIS COLE: I'm pretty Mac'd out. I'll buy anything they put out like a sucker.
SGV: This party has a full open bar and I notice you're not drinking anything... are you on the wagon?
CHRIS COLE: The funny thing is that I just finished a beer before you came up to me.
SGV: Can you speak on the whole transition your persona took when you peaced out of Alphanumeric and Dwindle, and got on the Jaime Thomas program? Some people were not feeling your change up.
CHRIS COLE: It's like a gradual progression. It's growing up and becoming who you actually turn out to be. That's for everybody I think. If you were just DOWN since day one, chances are you never let anything in. You never wanted to change, so you never experience other things. Being down since day one isn't always the coolest thing. I always liked rock music, but people thought I was Hip Hop because of the stuff I wore. I was just a young kid... that's about it.
SGV: I heard you're a huge fan of Guitar Hero
CHRIS COLE: You wanna know what's funny? I'm a huge fan of GH and my good friend Marcus does some of the guitar work for the game, but I'm actually horrible at the game. I'm horrible, I'd rather play it on a real guitar. The best I can do is play the game on medium mode.
SGV: Trying to describe your style is really hard for me. Just because you have tight pants doesn't mean you can't do tech tricks. How would you describe your own style?
CHRIS COLE: Anytime you try to describe your own style you're actually describing something that you'd like your style to be. And I think I'd like my style to be viewed as a Skate Rat.
SGV: Skate Rat?
CHRIS COLE: Yeah, that's like a blue collar skater to me... I like that. Skate Rats are cool.
SGV: Because of the way a lot of little skate rats view you, they might think you're only into skaters that jump down mountains and wear slip on vans. What skaters out there are you stoked on that some people might be surprised you're into?
CHRIS COLE: Wow, that's a hard question. (half a minute passes) I gotta go thru a list. I just thought of 10, but I wanna narrow it down to the perfect answer. Ok, Peter Smolik... I love Peter Smolik. Uh... Muska too. But then again, who doesn't like Muska? Oh, Mean Gene... he's the dude who built the Xgames course. And I can't forget Nate Sherwood. I'm learning how to do those weird 360 pressure flip thingys that he does.
SGV: You don't need to really skate contests to be legit and stay relevant to the fans. Do you enter contests just because you really love skating that much?
CHRIS COLE: I hadn't done contests for quite sometime and somebody told me that because I skate at demos so often that I might as well enter a BEST TRICK contest. It's almost the same. After he told me that It made sense to me to skate in contests... the pressure is almost the same.
SGV: I think people didn't expect it from you because you've been sorta typecast as this super hessian dude.
CHRIS COLE: The way I've always wanted my video parts to be is something that's pretty heavy and something that people can expect to be really fast paced. But when I'm actually out there skateboarding, there's a whole lot of ledges and manual pads that I skate. I try to get as techy as I possibly can. I'm not sure if I have the patience to film a tech part. But this next video part (Fallen) and the next one I'm trying to get more techy with it.
SGV: Have you seen that recent cover of The Skateboard Mag where Koston is doing the switch over crooks? From your perspective, does it look like there is any end in sight as far as skateboarding innovation aka new tricks?
CHRIS COLE: You know what? Everytime Koston does something, it's usually new and its shocking. I mean you're always gonna have the gnar-lers that are doing the biggest thing you've ever seen in your damn life. And now you've got people thinking; why not try a switch over crooks on a rail? No one was thinking of trying that, and he (Koston) did it... he pulled it. That's pretty amazing if you ask me. Hmmm... Matt Bennett makes up some crazy shit. He does these nollie backside 180 to bennett grind... like with the rail in front of him. Yeah, he's cool.
 SGV: So tell me what it's like to be under Jamie Thomas' s wing?
CHRIS COLE: He's a good friend and he's always been sort of an advisor for me. I guess now that I'm older I don't get stars in my eyes for stupid shit. When I was younger I would get enticed by dumb shit. Like for instance; you don't need to get a sponsor for everything that you want. I'll see some guys out there with like 10 or 12 sponsors... getting sponsored for shit they don't even need. It's like you're sponsored by a skate shop, yet you already get all that shit for free... like what's the point? I don't need all that shit. And not having those sponsors makes the sponsors you have that much more special. Otherwise it's just some endorsement deal with SO-AND SO company. Jaime has always been really good at telling you stuff like that. He'll say: It might be better if you thought about it like this... He gives you the freedom to make your own choice, but hes always been really good about giving me advise and he's never led me astray on some bullshit. It's pretty cool. I often forget, now that I've toured with him and hung out with him for so long, that he IS Jaime Thomas. Sometimes I'll introduce my friends to Jaime and the whole time we're hanging out they'll be really weird around Jaime. I don't realize till afterwards that they're still thinking that HE'S the Jaime Thomas.
SGV: He deserves it.
CHRIS COLE: Hell yeah he does... he commands it.
SGV: So everyone knows that Jaime is hardcore Christian... Am I allowed to ask you about your religious beliefs?
CHRIS COLE: As far as Jaime goes he wont preach... only if you ask him about it. Even then he might not want to talk about it. You have to actually want to know about it in order for Jaime to start talking about it, but he'll never force his beliefs on anybody. Like James Brockman has an upside down cross for his graphic on ZERO... so yeah, Jaime is a pretty open mined dude. As far as me, I believe in God and I believe in Jesus but I haven't conformed to one of the branches of Christianity yet. So a non-denominational Christian church would probably be the best place for me to go. That way I don't have to conform to the beliefs of one church.
SGV: So you don't have to wake up early every Sunday?
CHRIS COLE: Well I was raised Presbyterian and I found out later on that the Presbyterian beliefs aren't exactly what I believe. And it's not just based on the bible... that whole branch is totally (Chris says something undeciferable, but it didn't sound like a good thing). So yeah, a non- denominational church would be the most legit for me.
SGV: I know religion is a very touchy subject. Didn't mean to put you on the spot.
CHRIS COLE: It's such a personal thing. It means a lot to a lot of people. And it's something that's between you and your belief. So to have someone tell you that you're not a legit one because you don't believe in this or that is like looking at the bible and seeing all this cool stuff and you find one thing in there that you don't agree with and you can the whole thing. C'mon... that's not legit.
SGV: You've got all the legit sponsors, pro model shoes... why do you still skate so hard? What drives you to keep pushing your skating?
CHRIS COLE: It might sound corny to say, but I skate for the fans... the dudes who wanna see me skate. I wanna get them psyched. I wanna come out with new video parts and I wanna be psyched too. I get so many messages from people saying how excited they are for my next video part and I never want to let them down. I always wanna have something good for them. That's really what it's about. And with Fallen and Zero, they always have amazing product and I wanna make sure to have good shit for them to buy. Because that stuff's really expensive for a kid. I remember when I was a kid Christian Hosoi hammerheads were the shit. I never had one but damn they were the shits. 
SGV: Hosoi hammerheads? You're not that old, are you?
CHRIS COLE: I'm pretty old actually.
SGV: You're not over 30, are you?
CHRIS COLE: No, I'm 25. But I started skating a really long time ago, and Christian Hosoi was my favorite skater growing up. I used to watch SK8 TV on Nickelodeon.
SGV: Oh right... I remember that. With Skatemaster Tate. I remember Lance would show you how to drill holes in your board to make the nose bigger or how to grip a board or something like that.
CHRIS COLE: And that one dude that was in Scream. The host of the show.
SGV: Right... he played Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movie, right? I remember he didn't know shit about skating.
CHRIS COLE: He had a fake name on that show too... what was it?
SGV: So do you remember Police Academy 4? The one where they had the Bones Brigade cameo and someone launches over the cop car?
CHRIS COLE: Yeah. I used to watch Gleaming The Cube just for the skateboarding.
SGV: Wow.
CHRIS COLE: The whole movie was about how his mother got killed... that's it.
SGV: That's the one where he lives in the underground fullpipe, right?
CHRIS COLE: Actually that's where his homeboy lived. It was a bombshelter that was shaped like a small fullpipe.
SGV: That was the shit. I always wanted that.
CHRIS COLE: Me too. You and everyone else.
SGV: All I've ever really wanted my whole life was a backyard mini ramp. I remember begging my dad for it so many times. Do you got that?
CHRIS COLE: I was the same way, and now I've got a mini ramp in my garage. It's 3 1/2 feet high and its so sweet.
SGV: Where did you grow up?
CHRIS COLE: I was born in North Carolina and grew up in Pensylvania where I still live.
SGV: North Cacalaka? Isn't that where Petey Pablo is from?
CHRIS COLE: Actually Petey Pablo is from the same town I was born in, Statesville.
SGV: So do you wave your shirt like a hellicopter?
CHRIS COLE: Yeah. That song is awesome.
SGV: Are you on Myspace?
CHRIS COLE: Yeah. I actually got a lot of fake profiles out there made from random people.
SGV: So there are fake Chris Cole profiles out there? How many do you think there are?
CHRIS COLE: Last time I counted there were 28 of them. I wanted to add them all to my top friends, but then I thought about it and realized it was weird.
SGV: Inviting the stalkers?
CHRIS COLE: More or less. One of the fake profiles of me had all the top friends as porn stars and shit. So I hit up the profile and let him know that I'm married and have a kid and I don't mind the fake profile, but could he please take down the porn stars. I never did get a reply back from him.
SGV: Last question. Is Hot Wax a real thing?
CHRIS COLE: It's a real skate crew, but not a band. We're not talented enough to be a band. But Dave Navarro is here tonite. Maybe I can ask him to join Hot Wax and we can be a legit band. That would be tight.
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