Lennie Burmeister

June 01, 2007 @ 4:32 PM

Born in Liebenau, Germany in 1979.
Grew up on a farm.
Started skateboarding in 1988.
Has a Skatepark in a barn.
Pushed switch skateboarding in Germany into the new millennium—ten years early.
Resides in Berlin, Germany.
Runs a skateshop with a bunch of good friends.
Is a positive human being, and always fun to have around.
Is best summed up in one word:
Amazing.
And if that’s not enough for you, here’s 2.621 more.

How’s life?
Life? Oh, you know, it’s got its highs and lows. Right now it’s pretty good I guess. I’m still having a lot of fun skateboarding, our shop—Search & Destroy in Berlin—is finally exactly the way we want it to be. It’s going good with Arne (Krüger), Jan (Kliewer), Till (Kemner), and Matze (Bachert) the situation has stabilized, and we see the usual suspects here on a daily basis.

The shop started with a different crew, right? That was Dimitri Stathis, you, and some other dude?
Dimitri and myself started the shop together with someone who already had another skateshop, but there were some differences in what we wanted the shop to represent, what we wanted it to feel like. At some point, we just stopped working for him, and when he bailed out we got back together with the guy who owns the room the shop is located in.

Stale Fish..

Hey, wait—this is your interview, not a Credit To The Nation, right? Let’s talk about your life then. Now, I know you’ve been skateboarding for way over a decade, and you’ve been skating for Popular skateboards forever…
…Yeah, well, Popular…Hm.

Huh? So the rumours are true, and by the time this hits the stands, you’ll be riding Radio Skateboards?
Probably, yes, unless something crazy happens. If you ask me who I’d love to support, and where my heart’s at, the answer is Radio, definitely.

Right on. Next thing I know, you’re an actor, and you’ve had roles in at least two bigger productions.
I co-starred in three movies, had supporting roles in some more, and did a bunch of short movies. It’s been less acting in the last six months though, because we had a lot to do with the shop, and we rebuilt an old cinema in the middle of Berlin, which is half cinema, and half club right now. The seats are gone, they only come in when movies are shown—couches and such, it’s really nice. You can go to the bar and have a drink, and you can still watch the movie. The rest of the time, it’s a club with parties and all that. And I’ve been skating a lot, too. We’ve done a lot of filming in the past few months. Mark Nickels is in Berlin right now, and he’s working on a project that contains parts from Jan Kliewer, Michael Mackrodt, myself, guys from Paris—Soy Panday, and Vivien Feil—and some folks from New York. We filmed a lot for that, should be really good.

New York, Paris, Berlin—that’s a nice axis.
That’s what I think.

So, there goes the last year. Let’s go a little further back, then. Does your old Skatepark still exist?
Of course! The park at my parent’s place is still alive and kicking, still skateable. We had our summerparty again in 2006, with tons of guests, and a really, really good live performance by a beatboxing crew called “Four Example”…That’s four heads, and if you see them live, you tend to forget that they’re doing everything with their mouths. Pretty amazing. Close your eyes, and you immediately think there’s someone with a turntable. We’ve never had a summerparty where all the guests stood in front of the stage at the same time before. It was really good. And, yeah, we set up the skatepark as well. I filmed some stuff there as well. I guess the footy will end up in Hello 21.

For those who don’t know, let’s break down the story of your personal Skatepark really quick.
Okay, I was lucky enough to grow up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, there isn’t even a curb. However, there’s room—and barns. My parents didn’t really need one of those, so I started putting ramps in it as soon as I picked up skateboarding. When I was 13, we built a huge Miniramp and made the street area a little bigger. It’s small, you have to get a little used to it, but it’s actually a pretty good ride—and there’s virtually no other indoor skateboarding facility between Hannover and Bremen. To this day, whenever the weather is bad, cold, or whatever, tons of people go there. And I’m quite proud of it, too, because the park has seen its share of talent grow up. We built the park in 1992, and right now it’s the third or fourth generation skating it. Paco Elles, Tjark Thielker, Carsten Beneker…It’s astounding when you realize that there’s a whole bunch of good kids coming up, just because you gave them a place to go to.

Nocomply

1992 was when the first ramps were set up?
Not really, we built the mini and enlargened the streetcourse in 1992. From that point on, you can call it a skatehall. Or at least, that’s what I do. Before that we had a quarter and a kicker, or whatever. But 1992 was when things really started to gain weight in there.

It’s 2007, the official 15 years party is on!
Yeah!

So, 15 years of existence, does that make it Germany’s oldest existing Skatepark/Miniramp?
I don’t know. Might be, would be interesting to find out! To all the people reading this—I can’t tell. One thing is for sure though, the Miniramp is an old lady. It rides like that, too (laughs).

The park really put its stamp on your skateboarding, didn’t it?
Certainly. The big advantage is the fact that I could always build what I wanted to skate—that made learning new stuff even more fun, and easier, too, I guess.

No set of stairs though…
What? I had a set of five! With a ledge, too!

Whooot!
(Laughs) They’re gone today.

You were the first with a wallride next to a pyramid/curbcut thingy…
Right, we built that one right after the Lausanne Grand Prix, where they had something like that on the course. Had it, like, a week later.

From in the middle of nowhere it took you to Hannover and Wiesbaden, but you ended up in Berlin. From the fields to the big city. Natural progression? Sick of clean air?
I’d say it was a logical step. I certainly wanted to experience new and other stuff, and there weren’t that many perspectives and opportunities for me out in the countryside. To do something like acting probably wouldn’t have happened in Wietzen. Earning some money with skateboarding? I don’t think so either. I travelled a lot through Germany, too, so I had an idea about what I liked, and what wasn’t for me. Berlin is unique, especially for Germany, it really appealed to me. The way it looks and feels, there’s a different flair to it in every corner, the history of it, all of it builds up to a really amazing city. And, of course, there are tons of very good skaters and skatespots. There are so many opportunities. A lot of my friends from back in the rural days have moved to Berlin as well, and they all earn their money by doing stuff they love. Not one of them has a job just to have a job—they all found stuff that they’re really into. Now, how big are your chances of doing that in smaller cities, or even on the countryside? It takes a city like Berlin for you to say: “I’d like to do something in this direction,” and actually finding your spot and succeeding. It’s a privilege.

All of this aside, is Berlin a city that gives you the feeling of having arrived somewhere, where you can imagine becoming an old man? Or are there spots on the globe where you could imagine setting up shop for a while?
I’ll definitely go somewhere else at some point I think. I feel like I have to spend a few years abroad. I’ve travelled a lot in my life, and I’ve seen a bunch of places where I feel like they’d be worth it to spend some more time there. Travelling makes you hungry for more, too. And I don’t think that I’m too keen on being an old man in a huge city. I have this little dream of a flat-sharing community with a few friends at my parents place, because that is a beautiful place to be old at. Full circle, so to speak. Shred a then 52-year old Miniramp, still with the same ol’ plywood on it.

And a 24-foot tranny.
Right! That might just make it easier for the wheelchair artists. But seriously, I sometimes have nightmares of someone tearing down the barn. Or I arrive at home, and some folks have halfway torn down the mini. Horror. I mean, I could understand if my father said he’d like to built a theatre in there. Then the ramps would have to go, I guess, it’s his barn after all.

Your skateboarding has always been a little different. Nowadays people don’t even know anymore that the skateboarding world once dubbed you “The Switch Guy”, and “Switchmeister”. To this day, your skateboarding is so creative, that onlookers can’t help but go: “Where did that come from?” Where does it come from? What’s your motivation, your inspiration? What is skateboarding for you?
My biggest motivation is probably imagining something, then trying and actually making it a reality. Skateboarding comes easiest to me when it’s stuff that just pops to my mind. Like, heartfelt. “Whoa, I gotta try this!” That’s when it usually works, too. Competitions are the absolute opposite of this. “Gotta do a trick at this ramp now. Going to the obstacle I’d like to skate now would cost too much time. Clock is ticking.” All that doesn’t work for me. Same goes for faster, higher, further—that’s a phase you go through when you’re 18 or 19, and I’m just over that. Well, okay, every once in a while I have to go mosh myself down something huge. It never really leaves you. Handrails and huge gaps provide that little extra-bit of sweet adrenaline. But seriously, what’s better than a perfect nosegrind, feeling your truck raping some concrete edge? That’s something I can fill complete days with—just 5-0s and nosegrinds, sometimes those are enough motivation for me.

You can’t really stick to one spot all day though, now can you? You’re more of a real streetskater, you’re an explorer.
I had to be. Back where I grew up, there was nothing to explore—except maybe nature, and the stuff we built ourselves. So today I’m exploring every backyard I can find, no question. I find great pleasure in skating stuff that’s deemed unskateable by others, too.

This pressurized situation, like contests—does that strike you doing demos as well, or is that different?
It’s different. Definitely. I can choose what I want to skate, when, and how I want to skate it. I can communicate more—with the audience as well as with the other riders. All that is way better. I hate being judged, and being compared to others. Who’s better? Skateboarding is not about that. If I see someone pulling a maybe not-so-difficult trick, that’s difficult for that person nevertheless, it makes me just as happy as seeing Mr. Supertalent do something completely impossible. Skateboarding is pure emotion.

What’s up with that roof?
The roof is a really personal affair. It’s located in Berlin-Kreuzberg, right behind my old flat. Every time I stepped in the stairway, the roof in the backyard caught my view—exactly how you see it in the picture. I’ve lived there for four years, and pretty much every single day I thought: “This is doable.” At the same time, I was just too lazy to actually do it—for four years straight. So much stuff went down in that house…tons of my friends moved there, we had the craziest parties. The building that I run-up on? A friend of mine moved in there and made it an inofficial gallery, with exhibitions and all that. The house shook for a while, but eventually the landlord kicked us all out, when he noticed that something big was building up there. The spot, and the thought about the spot remained though. Plus, I still knew a lot of the people living there, so I could just go there and do it, and at some point, we just did it. I met with Basile and climbed up there. I didn’t want any additional wood or anything, I didn’t want to make it any easier, it had to be skated just the way it was, even though it was bad…soft tarpaper on the run up, aluminium landing—I didn’t even know whether it would withstand—no real exit to roll away, it was just completely sketchy. But the photo is a perfect souvenir. It reminds me of everything that went down in that house. And it reminds me of that very day, of course. There was quite an audience. My neighbour—she complained when we had parties, but we were cool with her anyway—was hanging out of her window, going: “You can do it Lennie!” Cheering for me. It was really cool. And it had to be done. I would have been mad for the rest of my life, if I hadn’t at least tried it.

Was that the longest time you thought about one single trick?
Probably. Usually, if I think about something, it might take a while, but it has to be at least tried at some point. But four years… (Laughs) Berlin is extreme like that. Everything I see, every idea I have, I just have to do it. Berlin has seen a lot already, and that means you can’t just go to your everyday spot and just do whatever—you have to come up with stuff. And if you’re not a friend of this higher, faster, further thingy, you better use your imagination. At the end of the day, it’s a really important, creative process as well—searching stuff. It multiplies your opportunities!

Anything else we haven’t talked about?
I don’t know. Oh yeah, I need to get rid of one thing. As a skateboarder, I always felt like I wasn’t as accepted by the broad public, as I would have liked to be accepted. It made me wonder what there is to skateboarding, that should make people realize that acceptance is overdue. Like, is there one thing that really sets skateboarding apart from every other sport, or lifestyle, or whatever there is? And guess what: There is one. Skateboarding is the most complex individual sport there is. Think about what you can do with that board: there is an infinite amount of possibilities. Infinite, as in: never ending. No other sport/movement/whatever has that—and I mean it, there is nothing else that bears so much potential. You can also add image, expression, and a message to it, but that’s just the icing on the cake, because the possibilities of combined tricks are already literally endless. The only thing remotely close to it is martial arts, where you can develop your own style. But you won’t include ledges and handrails, your surroundings in there. Your environment multiplies your possibilities by millions. I really do believe that skateboarding is the most complex thing there is. More possibilities than BMX, or whatever.

Well, you might just be damn right.
And that’s something, right? Taking part in something that impressive?

Indeed. And once the rest of the world has seen this light, we might just be able to win prizemoney purses as big as the golfers have.
Maybe. But that’s not even necessary. At least, we can say…Uhm…Kiss my ass.

Lennie skates for Radio Skateboards, Cleptomanicx, Nike SB, Search & Destroy, and via Jefferson Distribution Thunder Trucks and Spitfire Wheels.

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