Kevin Rodrigues interview 2018//SOLO mag

[shit_for_brains]

Sounds like him and Duffel had a really romantic Parisian summer

[Swithflip]

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It's so wild that dudes like Wes Kremer get their dicks sucked for not having an Instagram, but Kevin Rodrigues says he's anti-social media and becomes public enemy #1.

[close]

I mean Wes Kremer is a SOTY and has released more footage in his career than 80% of the pros of his generation while K-Rod has released less footage than 80% of the ams/pros of his generation.

Thats why I love Slap.

[art hellman]

bummed and psyched for all involved

[silhouette]

I heard the Polar situation had more to do with more elementary stuff, ie. going out on missions with the 'right' photographer to shoot photos for ads than just social media presence. Kevin jumped on the Hockey thing because he's a Dill fan (and vice versa - Dill's mind was blown by Kevin's part in the Polar video), but he is clearly overwhelmed by all the attention he's getting and just wants to skate around his neighborhood with a pack of 15-year-olds.

funny thing is he's completely over interviews as well yet decided to give this piece for Solo one last chance because Benjamin (who basically saw Kevin grow up) was the one conducting it. but the print version originally omitted the 'no' in the pull quote 'I offered him no more pro board and [no] more money' which conveyed a message completely different from what he was trying to get accross. he was so bummed or so I heard.

dude could have all the filmers he could possibly want in Paris, he's just super hard on his own clips and how he's presented to the world in general so he doesn't let much happen, he just wants to be able to skate and do his thing without having to feel the weight of the world, too much pressure. and that I can back, it should be possible to be a professional skateboarder working with the people you want to work with all the while holding onto your name and image, it's a fine line but the original idea behind working your ideal job is to do what makes you happy isn't it ?

Pontus is rad. maybe he's demanding but he knows what works and in order to make it happen as a leader you have to be demanding. nothing but respect for both.

[Salad farmer]

[dirty ol man]

fucking with this pic heavy. the grill marks are perfect lol!

[Atiba Applebum]

Sounds like him and Duffel had a really romantic Parisian summer

Gaul Me By Your Name

[REGS]

the print version originally omitted the 'no' in the pull quote 'I offered him no more pro board and [no] more money' which conveyed a message completely different from what he was trying to get across. he was so bummed or so I heard.

Yeah I was so fucking confused when I read the original quote in print. Didn't make any sense. I questioned whether it was a translation issue but Solo has been so good with translations since they swapped to English. He must have been fucking bummed to read that.

[thot juice]

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hate the term but this is artsy fartsy skateboarding. the kids are gonna be emo. what they have going on is unique, i'm sure pontus is wild obsessive and overwhelming.

fucking supreme. how can they reckon with the fact that none of their riders really rock any of the kook ass shit you see them selling in the shop? how does kevin rodrigues represent their image whatsoever? like olson for example, any interview his outlook in life is antithetical to what supreme is.

it baffles me!

[close]

olson not on supreme, he said so in some interview (9Club?)

i assume anytime i see anyone in wacky pants they are supreme pants though, and i see a lot of wacky pants on strobogram

[close]

I'm pretty sure that was his Bunt interview. He mentioned he always gets lumped in with the Supreme cool kids but hes never gotten a box or anything.

maybe having a full part in cherry & swoosh and shit why stupid kids lump them together for no reason

[thot juice]

It's so wild that dudes like Wes Kremer get their dicks sucked for not having an Instagram, but Kevin Rodrigues says he's anti-social media and becomes public enemy #1.

kevin also had one that seemed pretty natural & unforced not unlike all the blobys hard to believe it was that big of a deal

[Pappy Jones]

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It isn't that hard to post shit. It's really part of your job.

[close]

The job is to skate, regardless of the majority of the industry being so into social media. Not being apart of that is kinda sick, which to me makes footage from guys like Kevin Rodrigues and Jake Johnson standout more.

[close]

the job really isn't just to skate. if that were the case, there'd be no reason for companies to hook people up. a pro's job is to skate well and to promote the company that promotes them.

when pontus pays for kevin to skate in different countries, while meticulously filming and editing his skating, it's pretty shitty that he's "not into" posting a few pictures online

[close]

These are called artistic or creative differences. A bunch of people here hate when clips going straight to Instagram. When you see legit enders (such as the Le Dome front-blunt) becoming a throwaway insta clip, I respect pros who have a backlash against it.

At the end of the day, his job is to skate well enough to create a buzz that makes it worthwhile to have him on a team as a professional. If Pontus thinks that's only possible if he posts on Instagram, that is fine, but there are other sponsors who don't. Palace, arguably the most popular skate brand right now, had a guy who didn't have Instagram til recently (Rory Milanes), Vincent Alvarez doesn't use it, Wes Kremer, etc.

This seems like a rather harsh assumption. Pontus spent years filming I like it here.. and poured so much time into editing it, held premieres around the world, produced DVDs, and who had the last part? Kevin. Now he and the team have spent at least the last year filming another video but this time in HD. I'd argue he believes more in the full length video than most companies out there these days. But of course he holds an Instagram presence with Polar too because it's 2018...
I follow the blobys aka Kev's friends on Instagram and they're always posting little edits of each other skating but I almost never see Kevin in those anymore. Respect to Kevin for doing what he wants but there's more to this than his lack of social media presence. He said himself that he's generally not productive.

[DannyDee]

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It isn't that hard to post shit. It's really part of your job.

[close]

The job is to skate, regardless of the majority of the industry being so into social media. Not being apart of that is kinda sick, which to me makes footage from guys like Kevin Rodrigues and Jake Johnson standout more.

[close]

the job really isn't just to skate. if that were the case, there'd be no reason for companies to hook people up. a pro's job is to skate well and to promote the company that promotes them.

when pontus pays for kevin to skate in different countries, while meticulously filming and editing his skating, it's pretty shitty that he's "not into" posting a few pictures online

[close]

These are called artistic or creative differences. A bunch of people here hate when clips going straight to Instagram. When you see legit enders (such as the Le Dome front-blunt) becoming a throwaway insta clip, I respect pros who have a backlash against it.

At the end of the day, his job is to skate well enough to create a buzz that makes it worthwhile to have him on a team as a professional. If Pontus thinks that's only possible if he posts on Instagram, that is fine, but there are other sponsors who don't. Palace, arguably the most popular skate brand right now, had a guy who didn't have Instagram til recently (Rory Milanes), Vincent Alvarez doesn't use it, Wes Kremer, etc.

[close]

This seems like a rather harsh assumption. Pontus spent years filming I like it here.. and poured so much time into editing it, held premieres around the world, produced DVDs, and who had the last part? Kevin. Now he and the team have spent at least the last year filming another video but this time in HD. I'd argue he believes more in the full length video than most companies out there these days. But of course he holds an Instagram presence with Polar too because it's 2018...
I follow the blobys aka Kev's friends on Instagram and they're always posting little edits of each other skating but I almost never see Kevin in those anymore. Respect to Kevin for doing what he wants but there's more to this than his lack of social media presence. He said himself that he's generally not productive.

I'm saying he could view that as a requirement of the job. Obviously, he doesn't think its the only thing that matters, but that it is important and something he doesn't want to compromise on.

[juuhnuuh]

To be fair I think Kevin's skating really doesn't shock that much anymore when you "preview" tricks on Instagram. A big part of the problem with the Polar video was that it kept getting pushed back and because of that a lot of the tricks became "normalized" through IG.

Polar is Pontus' vision and he wants to do things his way and show them the way he wants to see them.
Kevin has a strong vision of his own which for instance involves him skating around the area he grew up in. I think it is Nick Jensen who said that he felt most comfortable and natural skating the city that shaped him as a skater instead of going somewhere new to skate somewhere you would have never skated if not for that tour.

Also let's be fair, filming with a good filmer and a photographer whose photos you really like does matter. The way we document things is at least as important as that we document things and that is something Kevin probably learned from Pontus.   

[Hercules Rockefeller]

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Sounds like him and Duffel had a really romantic Parisian summer

[close]

Gaul Me By Your Name

ho lee shit. amazing.

[asakusa75]

There’s something to be said for the enigmatic Julien/Pops/Ryan Hickey less-is-more vibe. Granted there’s also a fine line between that and lazy.

Ryan Hickey is a good one. Always loved his skating...and I think I only saw a handful of clips/photos.

[Turtle Boy]

There’s something to be said for the enigmatic Julien/Pops/Ryan Hickey less-is-more vibe. Granted there’s also a fine line between that and lazy.

[thot juice]

[ungzilla]

and now the lazy kid on the left is pro

[the canadian suit]

Has anybody else put out an interview exclusively composed of lifestyle photos? What the fuck? Were there skate photos in the magazine?

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Has anybody else put out an interview exclusively composed of lifestyle photos? What the fuck? Were there skate photos in the magazine?

solo has some of my favourite photos usually. i guess that was too much pressure for kevin though, you cant expect him to deliver stuff like that, non?

[streetsoup]

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Has anybody else put out an interview exclusively composed of lifestyle photos? What the fuck? Were there skate photos in the magazine?

[close]

solo has some of my favourite photos usually. i guess that was too much pressure for kevin though, you cant expect him to deliver stuff like that, non?

But photos wouldn't represent his skating the way he would like, and he cant be having none of that.

[shannamal]

"Converse is working on a full length for a year now, I think, and they want me in the video. So far, I don’t have anything, at least nothing that I find interesting enough I’m afraid… I had two serious injuries this year, so I wasted a lot of time."

He's had a full year, and hasn't gotten a single clip? I can't remember the last footage I saw of him.  That ugly colorway for Cons maybe? The counter argument of not having social media (Wes) is that they're in the traditional skate media enough that they don't need to.

[The Ghost of Lenny Kirk]

pay him millions

[VCR]

Anybody commenting on his lack of footage recently, did you even read the interview?

Two injuries in the last year

[Mongoloid]

Sounds like him and Duffel had a really romantic Parisian summer

I feel romantic feelings for you over this comment.

[Lloyd Braun]

I'm not a huge fan of this guy, but I can sympathize to an extent. A lot of pros complain about the pressures of skating at a certain level,  which I can see being kinda lame to some degree. But id rather be in that boat than working shitty jobs 40-60 hours a week (although I love my current job). At the end of the day your getting paid to do what you love, yeah maybe you gotta film a trick or shoot an ad when your not feeling it but at a normal job I'd venture to say you have a lot more shit to do your not feeling 5-6 days a week, and depending on your position it's probably a lot more stressful than trying a hard ass trick.

[SOTY]

I'm not a huge fan of this guy, but I can sympathize to an extent. A lot of pros complain about the pressures of skating at a certain level,  which I can see being kinda lame to some degree. But id rather be in that boat than working shitty jobs 40-60 hours a week (although I love my current job). At the end of the day your getting paid to do what you love, yeah maybe you gotta film a trick or shoot an ad when your not feeling it but at a normal job I'd venture to say you have a lot more shit to do your not feeling 5-6 days a week, and depending on your position it's probably a lot more stressful than trying a hard ass trick.

So to a certain extent you're saying Kevin is poosy to some degree?

[ralf_]

Breaking News: French guy afflicted with ennui

xD

[nickedcoterie]

It isn't that hard to post shit. It's really part of your job.

I agree. What else he needs to do?

[se7en3two]

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It isn't that hard to post shit. It's really part of your job.

[close]

I agree. What else he needs to do?

Most of you guys are fans, but... I personally thank him; for choosing NOT to clog up feeds with more wallies and early grabs.