[ JAPANESE / ENGLISH ]

Photo_Taiyo Tanida
Special thanks_Dickies Japan

VHSMAG (V)：　You're here in Tokyo with the Boys of Summer crew. How's Tokyo so far?

Jerry Hsu (J)：　It's always great. I was in North Carolina for 10 days before this on a Sci-Fi skate trip.

V：　You quit all your sponsors and started Sci-Fi Fantasy. What was the transition like?

J：　I didn't really have a plan at all. I quit my sponsors because I didn't feel happy with how things were going. I'd been pro since I was 16 and it'd been so many years of just doing that. I wanted to do something else but I didn't know what I wanted to do at all, so I just kind of stopped everything. And Sci-Fi was just a fun project. I had no intention of all of it becoming anything. It took years for it to become what it is now. There were many thresholds I had to cross and if it becomes a real skateboard company, I have to be serious. But yeah, it started as an art project. Something creative and challenging that I had never done before.

V：　You're a very creative person. How do you balance the business side and the things you really want to do?

J：　So the business side is awful for me. I don't like selling things I don't like. I don't like that aspect of it. So I work with people that are very good at it. Having a business, it's strange. You have to make a lot of decisions that are uncomfortable (laughs). But you know, now I have a skateboard team and I want to take care of them. I have people that work for me. It's a lot of responsibility. So I can't just think about myself anymore, you know? It's a positive challenge for me because I need to grow too. It's also very interesting being in the skateboard industry for so long on one side, and now I'm on the other side.

V：　Who is on the team?

J：　Akwasi, Ryan Lay, Corey Glick, Arin Lester, Max Garson, Gabriel Viking from Sweden, Zak Anders from New York, and Joa Field known as Gifted Hater.

V：　What do you look for in a skater?

J：　Well, first I need to like their skating and I need to feel I can connect with their personality. I think a lot of the pros that I've put on, maybe they could be considered kind of like underdogs. I like underdogs. I'm never trying to be number one or anything. I don't think that's a goal of mine. I like to be sort of in a weirder category. So I kind of built the team around that, people that I think are great but maybe the industry overlooks them a little bit.

V：　You said earlier that you can't really think just about yourself anymore since you have a skate company but you do have your photo projects.

J：　I shoot a lot and I work on a lot of different projects at the same time. My focus with that is making books and doing my series. When I feel like the time is right to make a book or show it or something but that stuff takes a long time. I work on that stuff for a very long period of time before I show it to anybody.

V：　You said in your past interviews that you don't really like to reveal things too much. How are you feeling these days and do you have any life philosophies?

J：　I don't really have life philosophies but I guess one thing that I can say is that I try to figure out how to be honest with what you want. That's pretty much it. It can be uncomfortable and the truth can hurt sometimes (laughs). It's not always what you expect but I just try to work hard and be honest. Those are important traits, to figuring out what you need as a human being, you know?

V：　Anything you're working on right now? You said you were on a skate trip before you came here.

J：　Yeah, we went on tour because we're filming a video. So I think by the end of the year we will wrap it up. And then I have a new book that I'm working on about living in LA for the last 10 years. Those are my main focuses and also just trying to skate more. My body's been through a lot, so it's hard to skate as much as I want. Just try to be healthy and skate pretty much because skating actually makes me happier than anything out of all the things that I do. So I do need to kind of get back there.

Jerry Hsu
@internetfamous @sci.fi.fantasy

Born 1981 in San Jose, California. He'd been a professional skater all his life and currently working with Sci-Fi Fantasy. His part in Bag of Suck (2006) is still legendary.