I have just recently came into contact with Garett and I have realized a couple of things, he’s a genuinely nice person, he’s passionate about skating, and he’s one of those Canadians that is pushing rolling and making it exciting by trying to promote our scene. Ohh also from what I hear, he gets laid alot more than me, good for him. This interview couldn’t have turned out any better. He’s an amazing guy just to talk to and has a lot of important things to say, so listen to one of the Canadian’s on the forefront of our scene helping us push boundaries. Also it’s cool to know when I rock the new Carlos wheels from Undercover (Which I hope everyone picks up to support Undercover and Garett) he will get a “Boner”.
What is your full name?
Garett James MacGillivray
When did you start skating?
I believe it was back in 1996/1997, I was in grade 9 and had to choose between a skateboard or K2, Fatty’s, I paid for them with my flyer route money, thank god I chose the fatty’s hahaha.
Where are you from?
I’m from Sherwood Park Alberta, a suburban area about 5-10 minutes outside of Edmonton.
What is the Scene like in Edmonton? Have you seen it change or progress in any way?
The scene has changed so much through out my time. When I started there was a crew of people who rode for a local shop called United Cycle. A lot of them where sponsored and would go do demo’s ect (this was in Rollerbladings early years). Then the shop dropped a lot of them because like today they started abusing the sponsorships, not really doin much for the shop but leaching free product. Anyways, once a few of the people where kicked they started up a “crew” (hahaha I laugh at the “crew” years, it’s like we thought we where gang bangers or a B-Boy crew). This crew was called Ununited. And it had quite a few hardcore rollerbladers in it, who could really throw down and helped push the Edmonton scene to get better at skating. Anyways, the crew kind of started picking up “drinkers” and rowdy guys I guess you could call it. They kind of got elitist, and claimed they where cooler than everyone you know the typical “we party harder, we fuck more girls” shit you kind of brag about when your really young and dumb I guess hahaha. I was still friends with a lot of them, okay, then one year almost all of them just quite, some claiming that Rollerblading was gay, and drinking and partying was where it was at. I thought that was a pretty weak ass reason, I still fuckin drink and party just as hard, I didn’t quite for it though. And a good friend of mine, (probly the best in our scene) kept skating for a while, eventually he fell victim to drug addiction, and kind of just stopped. So that basically left me, my buddy Jack Phavone, Mark MacLNE, Ryan Rouxe, and Chris Angelius. 5 fuckig guys out of like the entire city. We kept on going, then some grom’s started poppin up, that was cool, they’re still around and just graduating haha. Danny Theps from Lethbridge (part owner of Gangstore) moved here with his gf, and he rips it with us all of the time, basically we have adopted him as an Edmontonian haha. And that leaves us here at this point.
How did you receive the nickname “Blader”?
I started hanging out with a crew of guys when I was about 17, I had been good buddies with one of them when I was like 10, then we just kind of stopped chillin. Anyways I think I met him for some weed or somthing, and we just started hanging out. He was a really good skateboarder and had seen me at the skatepark all the time, so when he’d tell his other friends where he was or what he had been doing he’d just call me Blader, like “Yeah dude, just hangin out with Blader.”. So I guess that added some mystery to myself, because girls in that group where all pumped to meet me, and the nickname just stuck. And it spread, through out my town, big time. Everyone I met, just knew me as Blader, they where all really pumped about it too, people I had never met had just heard of this “Blader” guy and would be like “Oh shit! Your that Blader guy! Why do they call you Blader?” (some assumed it was cause I did a lot of blades lol, my buddy would usually step in and say it’s cause I rip it on my blades). Hahaha, and now close to 6-7 years later, my name is still Blader, it feels wierd to me to be called Garett. It’s like thats no longer my name. It’s cool, I like it. May get it tatoo’d on to me because it symbolizes such a big part of my life.
What is your association with KinRol, and what is KinRol’s overall goal?
I started up Kin with my good friend Mark McElhinney like right after highschool. We wanted a company here in Canada to help give Canadian rollers their own identity. Like spark some more industry up north. So it didn’t seem like Canada was just imitating the States, just to promote our country’s scene more, and get people juiced on skating in Canada.
Is it hard to keep KinRol financially supported with Canada having such a small industry?
Yes, very hard. Everyone really digs our clothing, but you run into issues when you make too much of one thing, and flood the market. Or just selling to shops (making small runs of shit increases the cost of the shirts) so to keep them comparable to big names like Mindgame ect. we had to make like 2-4$ profit of like each shirt. Basically we where always breaking even rather than making profit. We never cared though, I just loved designing my own clothing and gettin people juiced.
Any new designs coming out any time soon?
A couple years back Todd from SOL invested into the company, this was after Mark Wintenburg from Truspin Inline (a shop that had been based out of Calgary) who we had sold clothing through, had basically ripped us off over 1.5 g’s. That was like a fucking years worth of profit and work for us. This guy was a fuckin idiot. Lied about anything to make himself seem cool, and people knew this too, Shawn Unwin just told me a storey about he told them one day in the shop he used to be apart of a “gang” called Young Drangons, and one day him and his friend killed a jogger, just to be hard, and dumped his corpse in a river. They just acted interested, then a fucking random girl walks by the shop and this guys like “Yeah I fucked that girl, then her mom came upstairs and brought us breakfast in bed.” Pffffffft HAHAHA thats just to give you an idea of how big of a clown faggot this guy was. So yeah back to the main point, we leave this guy with like all of our shit, and he sells out of all of it, then keeps the money and goes out of business, (he ripped off a few other companies as well). So we were basically fucked. Then Todd swooped in on his silver steed and was totally down with getting Kin back on track. And if you have ever met Todd you know he is one of the most genuine guys, and is really really down with Rollerblading and promoting it to its’ fullest potential. He invested and we did our website and pumped out a few new hoodies and tee shirts (some of the nicest ones we’ve made to date). People loved em. Okay so that brings me up to now and this hardcore slump that hit our industry. Within this year it would have been extremely hard to pump out some new shit, alot of peoples attitudes where down, people where feelin a bit bad about the state rolling is in. So we decided to do a marketing scheme involving some company hibernation and a big project the SOL boys will be working on for Kin. FYI Joey and Mason represent Kin, so does Shaun Unwin, and Richie. So look out for this major project along with some hardcore Kin marketing to smack everyone back in the face sometime in the comming year. It’s fucking exciting.
What happened to the KinRol frames, and why haven’t you tried to re-release them?
The Kin frames where pretty gnarly. Pure solid UHMW and basically where a huge hit and got us a lot of attention. The situation was that my partner had to hand make each pair out of a solid block of uhmw. This is extremely time consuming, and I think to create one set it took him close to 3 hours of work. Factor in the amount the UHMW cost in the first place, and the amount we would sell them to shops for and basically he was working for free. So he didn’t want to continue. We had emails from like Australia and the UK for these frames. People wanted them so badly. I still have a pair on my 01 remz, they lasted so fuckin long it was insane. Basically I would love to rerelease them, but I would need more money to back it up. I have some changes I’d like to make to the design to lighten them up, and I’d like to get a faster and more efficient way to create them in order to pump them out for the demand. Until then though, they won’t be available.
The Kin frame had alot of similarities to the 50/50 cores in the basic structure. Did you see and recognition for that?
No, I didn’t. Who knows what the deal with that is, it’s a totally different frame, with an aluminum skeleton and totally different plastic and construction. The only similarities where the freestyle set up and the groove within the groove wich I had not seen on any other freestyle frames untill ours. I don’t really care at all to receave any recognition for it personally (Shaun Unwin and Mark McElhinney where the ones who accually designed the Kin frame). The fifty/50’s seem like really gnarly frames, I’d like to try a pair.
What is the Gong Show? And are you associated with it in any way?
Hell yeah dude. Gong Show was my idea to get people to come to Edmonton to party and skate. This year was the 4th annual Kin event, and that past 2 years it just happened to be called the gong show, because all of these rollerbladers are like best friends you see once a year, then we get together and it turns into a shit storm, especially when alcohol and bars are involved. So it’s going to stay the “Gong Show” cause it best represents what happens.
How did you get involved with undercover wheels and creating the designs for their wheels?
I kind of lucked out. Richie went pro for USD and Undercover, and they all work under Powerslide. They mentioned they needed a new web guy and he mentioned me. So I started working on the Undercover page and Ricardo just asked me if I wanted to take a crack at the Carlos wheel. I was like “Fuck yeah man, Carlos is awsome, and one of my fav pro’s.” So I basically knew what he would like, being the bad ass banger he was, I figured a severed head and graveyards would be fuckin gnarly. And yeah he REALLY loved it. I was really pumped to see a design of mine on a wheel. That type of work was a pipedream for me since I was 14.
Do you have any other project lined up with undercover, besides the Ricardo Lino wheel design (which was not used) and the Carlos Pianowski wheel?
At this point no I don’t, Richie mentioned to me that I could help him with his wheel. I’d love to do that. Richie’s my boy.
Is it exciting to know that kids are going to be rolling on something you created?
You bet man, gives me a boner hahaha.
You have currently been asked to help assist with the USD website, what exactly is your job? And will there be anything new and exciting on it, or any ideas you may have for it?
I will be creating the entire site, graphically and making it all work.
Can we have a date for when that site will be up?
Hard to say, there are some issues with the team that need to be worked out. And you also have to factor in getting all of the product shots and descriptions as well as rider info in on time.
While on the topic of USD, I know Richie Eisler got signed to their pro team do you think this helps Canada get some recognition within the industry, and do you think Richie is the best man to represent us?
Oh yeah, I think it’s fucking great! And Richie is like the perfect pro for any company man. So many pros get lazy and just don’t provide feedback on products ect. Richie gets involved. And in an industry that is pretty unprofessional Richie really changes that and brings his truth and honest opinions to the table. That stuff companies respect and cherish. If I could pick anyone that deserves it the most in Canada it’s definatly Richie, the guys just so fucking good, and down to earth. Yeah you’ll meet totally amazing rippers, but do they have a good head on their shoulders? Are they full of themselves? Are they good people and reliable? That’s stuff major companies really need to consider when sponsoring a pro.
I hear your working on the Kizer site as well? Any information you can share on that project?
Yeah I’m also doing the Kizer site, basically Mattius from Powerslide wants me to be the main web guy for these companies, and hire me on to provide weekly/monthly updates to the sites. It’s a dream come true, something I told myself I always wanted to do, stars aligned and I just got hooked up. Like I said earlier they really respect professionalism, and I also bring that to the table with my work. It’s time to grow up and be serious you know?
Do you have any information about Better than Baseball?
Yeah when it comes out…. BUY IT! Honestly, it’s amazing. It will be sold in bulk orders through our site www.kinrolco.com mainly for shops. We will be like the distribution site for them. So tell your local shops to order them when they come out! This video is even better than Cirque De SOL, its a video about these guy’s love for skating, about how much fun they have doing it, and about all of their friends. A real big change from the video fad’s of people acting hard and trying to be thuggish and mad at everything with a constant point to prove. There is no point here, the point is that rollerblading is fuckin fun, and you should try it. I have a friend of my gf’s from New York here in Edmonton right now, he skated hardcore untill 01/02, I showed him Clip 3, then Better than Baseball, and he got soooooooo juiced to start back up thanks to BTB, he thinks that video is the shit. I’m giving him my copy so he can show people in NY. Theres something about the SOL videos, they capture something that has never been captured in any skate video. And I think thats why they are just so fucking entertaining and good. I LOVE IT AND I LOVE THOSE GUYS!
How do you feel about the Carolina hurricanes, and their cup robbing ways?
HAHAHHAHA!!! I think it was probly the best for Edmonton, after all of those riots on whyte ave, if we had won, I think our city would have imploded!!!! HAHAHA but yeah the Carolina Goalie is from my home town (Kam Ward) so basically Edmonton won! Haha, yeah it sucked pretty bad, mainly because I know our fans care 1000 x more about hockey than the average Carolina resident. So that was the harshest thing.
Shout outs?
Yeah, shout out to Richie for gettin me involved in Powerslide, the SOL boys for promoting Western Canada and Canada in general in such a great way, my Girl Bunz for being pumped for me and rollerblading, Outaline, Dekalz, D-Structure and Roll East for supporting Kin Rol and selling our gear, Shaun Unwin for being the nicest man on the planet and reminding me of how kind the human spirit can be hahaha it’s a great thing, everyone who’s my friend, without the influence of all of these people collectively who knows how I would have turned out, all of the flakey people that quite rollerblading honestly thank you for leaving we will be much better off with out you, and last but not least thanks to the guys who created boots with wheels on the base. Keep on keepin on everyone, roc kin roll !
***Link to Flickr for pictures HERE***
-Nick.D
