New Matt Hensley Interview

[banksandledges]

http://theridechannel.com/features/2015/01/matt-hensley-interview-2015

[Dirtymac]

Awesome read. Awesome guy. Thanks for posting this.

[Stanley Spadowski]

I've always been inspired by Hensley. Great interview.

"If you've ever ridden a skateboard and had a good time on it, you never lose that."

[heritage]

I've always been inspired by Hensley.

Likewise. In many different ways. Huge influence.

[frontsideindy]

Awesome read. Awesome guy. Thanks for posting this.

amen.

[LastTry]

Story time!

I used to live near the old Carlsbad skatepark, the crappy one that's by the police station. I'd go there every day after work from 6-9, skate with the locals and try not to get a $150 ticket for not wearing a helmet.

One night I was skating the "bowl" when I looked up and saw that Matt Hensley was rolling into the park. To me, Hensley, Hawk and Hosoi were my biggest influences while growing up (I'm old). And being from NY i never really got to see any pros outside of demos or signings.

My run was over and Matt dropped in and did the most perfect backside ollie north that I've ever seen. Popped above coping, power, speed, casual and fluid. It was beautiful.

He popped out of the bowl, skated back to his car and drove away.

I can die happy knowing that I got to witness one of the greatest skateboarders of all time do one of his signature tricks. Made my day, month, year.

[whaaaaat]

Good read.  I found this part from Ride Channel interesting:

"Initially, a portion of Matt's interview was slated for inclusion in a feature on how pros "retired," "

Sounds a lot like what Muckmouth did...

[slickazballz]

The more stories I read about Mike Ternaskey the more he strikes me as an enormous douche bag.

[Willie]

The more stories I read about Mike Ternaskey the more he strikes me as an enormous douche bag.

It's weird. The whole Svengali angle seems creepy but everyone personally involved with him seems to have loved that dude.

[Badmeaningood]

Story time!

I used to live near the old Carlsbad skatepark, the crappy one that's by the police station. I'd go there every day after work from 6-9, skate with the locals and try not to get a $150 ticket for not wearing a helmet.

One night I was skating the "bowl" when I looked up and saw that Matt Hensley was rolling into the park. To me, Hensley, Hawk and Hosoi were my biggest influences while growing up (I'm old). And being from NY i never really got to see any pros outside of demos or signings.

My run was over and Matt dropped in and did the most perfect backside ollie north that I've ever seen. Popped above coping, power, speed, casual and fluid. It was beautiful.

He popped out of the bowl, skated back to his car and drove away.

I can die happy knowing that I got to witness one of the greatest skateboarders of all time do one of his signature tricks. Made my day, month, year.

Sounds incredible. I would have melted. Gotta pick you up on one point though: if you're "old" you shouldn't really be referring to said tricks as ollie norths

[slickazballz]

Expand Quote

The more stories I read about Mike Ternaskey the more he strikes me as an enormous douche bag.

[close]

It's weird. The whole Svengali angle seems creepy but everyone personally involved with him seems to have loved that dude.

Well, other than all the Girl guys who left Plan B.  I get the impression that he played a huge part in Carroll and Howard's departure from the World umbrella.

[Fenzadill]

Great interview.  Never had Hensley pegged as an addict.

I met him once after a Flogging Molly show that happened to be next to the bar I was at with some friends, one of whom sorta knew him.  We talked about skating for like a half hour and he was the coolest, and it was really hard not to suck his weiner the whole time (in a metaphorical sense).

[rothdigga]

Since we're all going to get mushy and sentimental about Hensley here....
There was a demo in 1991 at Hot Skates in Orange that I went to.  I'm not exaggerating when I say this...greatest demo of all time.  I had just got sponsored the year before for Santa Cruz and rolled up with some homies so I wasn't just a random little kid, but I was still young enough to be fully in awe of all the main dudes. 
The guys I remember at the demo was insane.  Gonz, JLee, Rudy, Guy, Hensley, Ron Chatman as well as a ton of guys on the come up like Bertino, Jordan Richter and others.  It wasn't really a specific companies demo mind you, just random amazing guys there. 
Jordan vibed me out so hard there because I had just got on Santa Cruz and he just quit for Blind a few months prior.  Ha. 

I was skating this very small quarterpipe that was at a slant.  So the left side was about 2.5ft and the right side was about 1ft, no deck so you could skate it like a ledge on the other side as well. 
Anyways we're skating it and everyone is lined up doing whatever and Hensley just rides by and does the most perfect 540 Ollie I will ever see in my entire life...on that little quarterpipe.  My brain fucking exploded.

Also, someone had a picnic table angled off of a jump ramp, so basically a big jump ramp to down ledge (1991...way before that stuff existed).  Gonz did a massive stale lipslide down it and also did front 270 to back lip down it.  He's a miracle worker. 

[metsuri]

Expand Quote

Story time!

I used to live near the old Carlsbad skatepark, the crappy one that's by the police station. I'd go there every day after work from 6-9, skate with the locals and try not to get a $150 ticket for not wearing a helmet.

One night I was skating the "bowl" when I looked up and saw that Matt Hensley was rolling into the park. To me, Hensley, Hawk and Hosoi were my biggest influences while growing up (I'm old). And being from NY i never really got to see any pros outside of demos or signings.

My run was over and Matt dropped in and did the most perfect backside ollie north that I've ever seen. Popped above coping, power, speed, casual and fluid. It was beautiful.

He popped out of the bowl, skated back to his car and drove away.

I can die happy knowing that I got to witness one of the greatest skateboarders of all time do one of his signature tricks. Made my day, month, year.

[close]

Sounds incredible. I would have melted. Gotta pick you up on one point though: if you're "old" you shouldn't really be referring to said tricks as ollie norths

Haha I was just about to write that. No but seriously, Hensley was my number one guy back in the day, I would have been psyched as hell too.

[TheDraught]

this is so sick. Wonder if anybody can do one of these with a kickflip by now. Or has it been done?

[floop]

Since we're all going to get mushy and sentimental about Hensley here....
There was a demo in 1991 at Hot Skates in Orange that I went to.  I'm not exaggerating when I say this...greatest demo of all time.  I had just got sponsored the year before for Santa Cruz and rolled up with some homies so I wasn't just a random little kid, but I was still young enough to be fully in awe of all the main dudes. 
The guys I remember at the demo was insane.  Gonz, JLee, Rudy, Guy, Hensley, Ron Chatman as well as a ton of guys on the come up like Bertino, Jordan Richter and others.  It wasn't really a specific companies demo mind you, just random amazing guys there. 
Jordan vibed me out so hard there because I had just got on Santa Cruz and he just quit for Blind a few months prior.  Ha. 

I was skating this very small quarterpipe that was at a slant.  So the left side was about 2.5ft and the right side was about 1ft, no deck so you could skate it like a ledge on the other side as well. 
Anyways we're skating it and everyone is lined up doing whatever and Hensley just rides by and does the most perfect 540 Ollie I will ever see in my entire life...on that little quarterpipe.  My brain fucking exploded.

Also, someone had a picnic table angled off of a jump ramp, so basically a big jump ramp to down ledge (1991...way before that stuff existed).  Gonz did a massive stale lipslide down it and also did front 270 to back lip down it.  He's a miracle worker. 

i remember Hot Skates.  that's where i got the first board i ever paid for.  my mom drove me there. 


anyway..  i didn't know he sold his bar.  never went but was thinking of making a pilgrimage one of these days.  wasn't there a lot of skate memorabilia on the walls?    bummed i never got to go.   had this fantasy of going down there and seeing the man behind the bar

[QUIT SINNIN]

It's pretty funny looking back as a 12-14 year old, when I only knew Hensley through Black Label/Flogging Molly. I knew he was a legend, but had no idea what that really entailed. This was before YouTube so I never saw or knew of any of his early H-Street parts, and even if we had, I'm not sure we would have had enough perspective to understand the gravity of his skating for the time.

We were hyped on Hensley simply because he was in Flogging Molly. Like he was a Flogging Molly member who happened to skate. We only knew his Label Kills part, which is mostly just him cruising around, but were so hyped on the fact he was in the band we learned all those tricks.

Thanks to him I still have tailblocks on lock.

[colin]

The more stories I read about Mike Ternaskey the more he strikes me as an enormous douche bag.

Some of the wording was a little confusing, but I don't think that was his sentiment:

"He was always there for me, always on the phone to me. He didn't act like I did it right and made him some money and when that was done, he moved onto the next hottest dude. He never did that. He called and always wanted to know how I was doing. He bought me a pool table to practice on. He was always so sweet to me."