Nicky Guerrero. No 1 Soul Brother:
November 21, 2007 @ 10:25 AM
Nicky Guerrero is a living icon of European skateboarding; in fact his history reads like a who’s who of ramp skating down the decades. For skateboarders of a certain age he will be forever synonymous with the first flushes of European skateboarding talent being recognised and supported from the mighty USA- the Euro Bones Brigade. For skaters of later generations he became not only an ambassador for Copenhagen, Europe’s strongest vert scene, but also for Alis skateboards, the imprint which brought through so much Danish talent in recent years. Nicky Guerrero is the closest thing we have to European skateboarding royalty. Kingpin had Copenhagen’s own Kingpin, Mr Albert Hatchwell Nielsen of Alis, spend an hour with Nicky to see where it all lies today.
“I love skateboarding; that’s why I have been doing it for 30 years .”
Those are his first words when I meet with Nicky Guerrero in his flat in Copenhagen.
Its a 3 room affair with 2 living rooms, one bedroom and a huge cellar, where some of Nicky’s old proboards from G&S , Powell and Alis are hanging on the walls.
There is an old G&S poster from 1987 in a wooden frame: it features Billy Ruff ,Chris Miller, Neil Blender, Danny Webster and Nicky. The adjoining room is full of vinyl records, at least 2000 in wooden boxes on one wall. There are 3 record players, 2 mixers on a big black office table. On a message board there old concert tickets from Dead Kennedys, MDC, BadBrains, Bad religion, The Police, Stiff Little fingers, Metallica, Björk, Grandmaster Flash, Beastie Boys.
So: if not skating, maybe music would have been Nicky’s thing?
“Yeah; music has always been a big part of my life- I have early memories of my dad and his pals playing guitar, and when I was 7, I was playing piano. Later in school I made mixtapes I started collecting records in 79, but it was in 75 I got my first vinyl record- I just wanted it for the nice cover.”
What was on the cover ?
“A Yellow Submarine!”
So already then you had a good eyes for nice graphics?
“ To me, music , art and skateboarding are all connected: all three are a form of expression. Music for the ears, art for the eyes and skateboarding is for my mind and body- and all three combined gives me a kick out of life.”
Speaking of kicking:name three experiences in the past 30 years with your board under your arm that really kicked you.
“Only three? Well to name a few, it would be the summer camps in Sweden from 1983-85, where I saw Neil Blender , Billy Ruff , Claus Grabke, Rodney Mullen, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, and Tony Hawk…”
We came and and people were like ‘this guy has invented a new trick, it´s crazy …’
“Ha! We saw it later that day- it was Mcgill that was doing McTwists…the year after, I saw Tony doing the first ever 720. Those experiences were groundbreaking and such eye openers to me to see the flow and possibilities in vert skating.
Before that my only source of inspiration had been magazine pictures, but now I got to see it live in front of my own eyes.”
“The next big kick would be when I turned pro for G&S (January ‘87-Ed). It was a dream come true when I saw my first pro board at the G&S warehouse in San Diego, meeting and skating with my other teammates- Ken Fillion, Chris Miller, Neil Blender. Going to my First NSA pro contest in Atlanta Georgia. Traveling back and forth from the States and Europe. That whole year was crazy. It was the beginning of my main pro career- from ‘87 to ’93.”
“And if I can only mention three experiences to you, the third one would be when we built Wonderland (world famous indoor bowl complex on this issue’s cover- Ed).
It was the crazy summer of ‘98, I drove around Europe with Rune Glifberg, and we picked Tom Penny and Justin “Pasty” Ashby up out side Bordeaux, we went to three contests and ended up in Christiania, and started building Wonderland. With you, Albert, and a lot of the skaters from Copenhagen. I got sponsored by Alis. I was so stoked at the time that Rune Glifberg had kept the skateboard flame burning, and now he was my new inspiration. Those were the best times of my life”
If you were a European skateboarder at any point in the last 20 years, then it is unlikely your life was not somehow affected by Nicky Guerrero. He took a standing ovation from the entire audience at the CPH pro event at the end of his run and waved sheepishly back, the elder statesman of European skateboarding and an inspiration to us all.
God bless you all your days, Nicky.
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