Former pro street skater Tommy Guerrero follows his musical wanderlust
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Story — Chris Galvin
Images — Julie Schuchard
“The song tells you what it wants,” confides Tommy Guerrero explaining his songwriting process. In the background, The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” blares from the house speakers inside Thee Parkside, a gritty, neighborhood dive bar and live music venue located in the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco. Sitting under a heat lamp, Guerrero is slouched with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black pea coat, a black scarf wrapped around his neck. He’s wearing black-rimmed glasses alongside his signature goatee. He’s a long way from his old school days in the classic ’80s Bones Brigade skateboard videos. Some might say he’s a maverick. Personally, I’d consider him as a man of many talents and a true non-conformist. He’s very subdued, laid-back and blends into his immediate surroundings. You might not even notice this former pro street skater and well-respected musician sitting next to you at the bar.
Born and raised right here in San Francisco, Guerrero spent his formative years traversing the globe launching off jump ramps, ollie-ing over concrete benches and bombing steep hills while spending hours in his basement perfected his bass guitar and playing in various punk bands around the Bay Area. In 1983, he won his first street skateboarding contest. And, naturally, he was one of the first skateboarders to turn pro on May 5th, 1985. He's also credited alongside Mark Gonzales as being one of the first few skateboarders to have perfected the ollie as a trick. From there, he went on to star in the influential Bones Brigade videos including the 1987 classic "The Search for Animal Chin" with such legendary skaters as Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Lane Mountain, Mike McGill and Rodney Mullen. In 1995, Guerrero officially retired from professional skateboarding.
Since his retirement, Guerrero has become a well-respected musician having released over 10 albums on various indie labels like Galaxia, Quannum, Mo' Wax and more. He's collaborated with like-minded musicians Money Mark, Lyrics Born, Jack Johnson and Prefuse 73, just to name a few. His music has appeared on shows like "Queer as Folk" and "Sex and the City" and he's a close friend with artist/surfer Thomas Campbell and well-respected graffiti/street artist Barry McGee (aka Twist). He's also the co-founder of Real Skateboarding and 40s Clothing alongside fellow skater Jim Thiebaud. His latest album release, Lifeboats and Follies is an eclectic mix of soul, jazz, hip-hop beats and Latin jazz.
Coming from an entire family of musicians, Guerrero himself has creatively come full circle and he's returned to his artistic roots.
When did you start skateboarding?
I started skating in 1975 when I was nine. Holy shit! I lived on 17th Ave in the Inner Sunset District (in San Francisco) and I grew up on a hill (it was in both of the Powell videos) and that's where I learned how to skate. A friend of mine gave me a board and he introduced me to skateboarding. It was a Black Knight with clay wheels. And that was it. I was hooked.
In the latest issue of Surfer's Journal there's an article about Tony Alva. In it, he mentions that he started skateboarding because he wanted to take his surfing to the streets. Was it the same for you?
No, no. There's a huge myth that I surf. I can't even swim. I grew up here in San Francisco and I would skateboard down to the beach all the time. But I never learned how to swim. My mother never learned how to swim. I tried, but I didn't know anyone with a pool. Plus, this is San Francisco and the weather is either between 50 or 70 tops and you're not looking to jump into the ocean. Nope, I can't swim or surf. I know that I would probably enjoy it and it looks super fun. It's so frightening because the power of the ocean is intimidating. I could never paddle out now because I would piss my wetsuit.
Skating for me just worked. My brother and I were alone a lot because our mother worked. Skateboarding was my companion and my friend. It was "me." All my life going to school I always felt like an outcast, and I pretty much was, and skateboarding was everything to me. It saved me.
When did you know that you wanted to be a pro skater?
I knew at a pretty young age. All I ever did was skate and play music. So it became apparent at an early age. I did a report when I was really young on Skateboarder Magazine. It didn't dawn on me until later in life after my mom showed it to me. I said in my school report that I wanted to be a professional skateboarder when I got older. I don't even remember it. But my mom showed it to me and I said, "Wow, that's strange." So I was totally conscience of it in the moment at the time. When I finally did go pro, of all the people that kind of convinced me to go pro, it was Lee Cole (who owns Skates on Haight & Skateboard City). Back then there was no such thing as a pro street skater. I skated vert and freestyle all the time. I entered vert and freestyle contests all the time, so for us it wasn't about a specific style of medium. It was all just skating. To be a pro street skater was something totally new and Lee talked to me one day and he said "Why not?" And I thought to myself, "Sure, why not." At that point I had gone through the circuit and won all of the amateur contests and turning pro was the next logical step. On May 5, 1985, I turned pro…strictly a street pro.
So how did you hook up with Stacey Peralta?
The day before the second street style contest in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, everybody was session-ing at Joe Lopes' ramp and I was there skating and I slammed pretty hard. So my friend and I went and picked up some beers and sat on the roof and were watching everyone skate. Stacy came up to me and said he liked the way I skated. I looked over my shoulder to see whom he was talking to and he was talking to me. It was Stacy Peralta. I had met Stacy before in the '70s at a big contest at Fort Mason in San Francisco and I was able to do a lot of 360s and he had said something to me then too, but he didn't remember. So this was the second time we had a meeting like this. Stacy had spoken to my brother Tony about me too. "He's interested in you riding for Powell," he said. My brother used to give me a lot of grief and shit, so I thought he was messing with me but he wasn't. And that was it. It was around 1983-84 when I get involved with Powell.
So, in 1985, you turned pro and that was a really big year for skateboarding. Was it a whirlwind at the time?
The first year I was pro I entered all of the contests and I didn't have a board. It took a year before I had my own board. That would never happen now. All you need to do now is show up and you have your name on a board. Once my board came out we started to do a lot of traveling across the States and in Europe, all summer long. The first tour of the States we used George Powell's old Country Squire station wagon with a jump ramp on the top and a PVC slide bar on the tail of the trunk. We drove all over doing demos in the South in 100+ degree weather. We would pull this 100 lb jump ramp off the top and we'd launch ourselves around and I'm surprised I'm even still alive. So, yeah, it was a whirlwind because I would be gone all summer long and then sporadically throughout the year for contest and events. I was never home.
You're considered to be a pioneer of street skating. How do you feel about that?
There was a whole bunch of us street skating back then. There was a series of hills in the Sunset called the 9th Ave Run and it was about a mile and a half to two miles long. We would do this everyday all day. We'd take the bus up to 9th and Irving and we'd stop at the local skate shop, Cal Precision, and there was just a bunch of us that did it all the time. I don't know how I became the one, maybe because I stuck with it. I guess because everyone is decent at something. What it really was is that the rest of the world doesn't have hills like San Francisco and this is my environment. This is what I know. It's the polar opposite of kids with ramps in their backyards just killing vert. San Francisco was my skate park. So, once it happened, and people saw me ollie-ing over bushes and stuff, going down hills. Very few people were doing that at the time. So I think it really had an impact on people's perception of skateboarding. Once the ollie came into play, it changed the game. Especially street skating because once you crack up a curb you no longer worry about the curb and it just changes the way you skate. So I think that left an impression on people.
It's so amazing how adaptable skateboarding is. People put up barriers all the time to prevent skaters from riding walls or benches and skaters just adapt to it and learn to ride with those obstacles.
Yeah, skaters are repurposing objects from their initial intentions and reason for being; you can transcend that stuff.
It wouldn't be right if I didn't ask you about the Bones Brigade.
Have you heard about the documentary that Stacy's doing?
It's a full-blown documentary about Bones Brigade and it's just like "DogTown and ZBoys." I'm going down in a week for a full week of interviews of the whole team and then other skaters that were influential at the time. Stacey has about 30-50 people earmarked for interviews for the documentary, hours of archival footage, photos. [Back in the day] people would send random photos of me skating in Europe and all over the world, so I sent him a ton of those photos. Stuff people have never seen. I think that the film is supposed to come out in the summer since it's on the fast track.
Are you guys going to have a reunion and do something special for the documentary?
We all just got back together in Los Angles about a month-and-a-half back to meet about the project. The whole team was there. I'm sure we'll do something special for the premier.
How did you get into making music?
It's genetic. My father has three brothers and they were all musicians in San Francisco. My father played every instrument. My grandfather was a jazz guitarist and a violinist. My grandmother was a singer. They had huge bands with full orchestras. I never meet them because they died before I was born, but I've seen photos. My brother Tony and I grew up with my mom because my dad split when we were young. So we didn't grow up with that side of the family at all. He and I didn't know the history of the family until much later in our life. It's truly genetic. I picked up an instrument around the age of 12, my brother and I at the same time. My mom was totally tolerant because she knew [that music] was in our blood and she let us make tons of noise with it in the garage. It's a couple of things. It's skateboarding and the DIY ethic goes hand in hand. When punk rock came to the West Coast, the Ramones played a free show down at SF City Hall. My brother and I cut school because our mom told us we couldn't go, and went down to City Hall. I was maybe 11 years old and I was totally fucking blown away and that changed my world 100%. And then the Sex Pistols playing Winterland and seeing it on the news and I was thinking to myself that I wanted some of that. It was the same thing with skateboarding. It was all about "Fuck You!", independence and do it yourself. And my brother and I started playing in punk bands along with Bryce Kanights. All the bands were skaters and they were from the East Bay like Walnut Creek and Concord and we became friends with these guys from skateboarding skate-parks down in the South Bay. We formed a few different bands and it was all about skating and music. Everybody was in a band and it was all about the music. Tony Alva, Steve Olson and Dwayne Peters were all musicians. Dwayne would come up here to San Francisco and he and my brother were in a band together. Steve Olson played in a band with my brother. It was a natural progression. To me, they're one in the same.
In skateboarding, you tend to spend hours, days, evens weeks working to refine a trick. Was that the same thing for you and music?
Completely. Fortunately, I started at a very young age and I had a lot of time on my hands and I had a sense of focus. I'd be in our basement for eight hours a day playing my bass. My mom was amazed. I would skate all day and then spend all night playing my bass. That was it for me. Sometimes you are called for certain things and sometimes I think I'm a conduit for something else. I don't mean that as speaking religiously or spiritually. I'm just fortunate enough to have a muse.
The music you're playing early on was punk and then cut to 1998 and you're releasing beats on Mo' Wax.
It was more of a progression up to that point. From punk, I started playing heavy metal listening to RUSH and trying to be Giddy Lee and Lemy. It was a natural progression. What was different from most of my friends was I really got into hip-hop. In 1983, when graffiti and the hip-hop culture started coming to the West Coast I was really intrigued and it reminded me of punk rock and DIY. These guys were getting out on the street creating beats and sonic collages and using whatever they had. It was the ends justifying the means. That's when I really got into hip-hop. Then, in 1990, I bought a sampler and it was just a beast, and I still have it because I have like 300 disks of samples still.
You probably get such a nice signature sound from it too?
Yeah, it's super crunchy. And its technological limitations make you super creative and that's what I really liked about it and that's why I like to use a four-track. So, around 1990, I really got into making beats. I had a roommate at the time and he was a rapper. So I'd make beats for him and then a bunch of other guys and what happened was that it just didn't work out making all these beats for rappers. So, I had all of these beats and sampled stuff and a fusion of things. I'd hear melodies and I always hear melodies in my head and so I'd just start playing these melodies over these beats because they needed a voice. I wasn't a rapper and that's how they came to be. I made a video called "40s" and it was a clothing company that I had out of Deluxe a long time ago. I shot the video and edited by somebody and then I did all the music. Thomas Campbell, the artist knew Andy Holmes over at Mo' Wax. He had heard the track and my music and was interested in releasing it. And then it never really occurred to me to release that music in that style because I didn't know if it was viable. The closest thing I heard was Booker T or maybe some Grant Green. In my world, it's more hip-hop with funk soul, which is hip-hop funk, but it's all derived from the same thing. The approach is a little bit different. When Mo' Wax approached me about doing an album for them, I said ok. Then, something happened with the label and the record got put on the back burner with Mo' Wax. So Thomas said to me that we should just put it out ourselves on Galaxia. We went half-and-half because I didn't want them to lose money and we made some CDs. And then the album somehow got over to Japan. [Mo' Wax label head] James Lavelle was over in Japan and heard the album. He came back to America and asked Andy why they hadn't put out the record. And everyone said, "I don't know" because somebody slept on it. That re-instigated my signing with Mo' Wax and that's how "A Little Bit of Somethin'" came about. And then "Loose Grooves & Bastard Blues" came out in 1998, but I had so much of that material from then.
The "A Little Bit of Somethin'" album was such a perfect fit for Mo' Wax too. It fits nicely with DJ Shadow, Money Mark and UNKLE, etc.
I love Mo' Wax. When Money Mark put out the "Push the Button" double album that was it for me. It gave me validity because it was similar to what I was doing and I had no idea who he was. I still love that record and I listen to it all the time. It's such a great album. I wish Mo' Wax had never hooked up with Beggars Banquet and A&M and James Lavelle was so young when he did that and it all went downhill from there. Mo' Wax was such a good thing. Beggars didn't understand that it was the whole that mattered and not just the music. It was the music as well as the packaging.
Mo' Wax was definitely ahead of its time with all of the great box sets and packaging.
It was great. James was coming from a hip-hop background. It was all about aesthetic, audible, philosophy, culture coming out of hip-hop culture of graffiti and turntablism. And Beggars didn't get it. They were saying it wasn't cost affective. I wish James Lavelle could get it back because there was nothing else like it. Ever.
How did you and Money Mark first get connected? Was it through Mo' Wax?
He was in San Francisco once and I saw him at a restaurant. I think he was playing in town and that's how we connected. And then, also, he was in SFO a lot and we were aware that we were both on the same label and it just came together organically. And then we were on the same label in Japan and we'd be in Japan playing together and then finally, we just became friends. I'm a fan. I'd always ask him to come up and play together and he'd always be down. He's such a rad dude and a unique individual.
So, let's back up a bit. What was the first instrument you started playing?
My mom bought me a cheap guitar and then my brother was playing the drums. For some reason, my brother wanted to move to playing guitar and then I moved into playing bass. For me, that's my main instrument and I feel comfortable and I play guitar. And everybody plays fucking guitar. To me, the bass was more natural because that's what I grew up playing.
How did you learn how to write songs or was that all in your head?
Good question. When we were in bands, we'd write lots of songs at the same time. If you go back to [former skate punk band] Free Beer and there's a song called "Pings in Space." I'm going off on bass trying to be Giddy Lee. If you listen to the track, at least four to five parts of the song, and since then I'll listen to music and figure out the parts. It's also an emotional thing for me about what the song needs. It's more about dynamics versus the change. It really depends on the feel and the needs of the song. People tend to write changes and a chorus because that's what you're supposed to do. A perfect example of this is if you listen to the biggest song of the '90s: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The song has the same riff all the way through but it's all dynamics.
It's just natural instinct?
Yeah, it's just there. (Laughs) To be perfectly honest, I don't listen to my stuff, I just let it sit and let it come out. Unless I have to relearn it and then I have to learn it on the spot because I just make it on the spot. So when I have a show I have to have my friends tell me how the songs go. When it's time to make a new record I go back and listen to it and ask myself how the fuck I did that. Honestly, it's so daunting and it's like starting with an empty notebook and having to fill it with drawings for a story. It's really hard.
It sounds like you have a vast library of tracks and music to pull from. When it's time to make another record do you just pull to make another album? What's your process?
No, I try to change the approach on every record. On this last record [Lifeboats & Follies], I approached it with two aspects. One: Nothing was written on the guitar. Two: I wasn't trying to write songs; it was all about the journey and not the destination. Too often, people write these soul-less tunes and they're just going through the motions. I'm not a great songwriter so I wasn't trying to write songs. It was more of an emotional and visual journey and evoking something out of people. It's music that you could play in your car and go off into another place with it. There's a John Coltrane song called "Ole" and that song just takes you somewhere and that's what I want my music to do too. Especially on this latest record, I want it to be about the moment and the mood.
Then what was the process for "writing the song?"
I started with a foundation of percussion and bass. Then the song tells you what it wants. And you can listen to the track and you know what it needs and what it is missing. The beauty of being able to edit the music is that you can arrange after you have all this information as you seem fit and you don't have to worry about the form of the function prior. So you can be much more productive. There are moments when you can arrange the track. I hate throwing everything in the pot and then having to pull back. I've been doing this for so long and with my style, there's a specific way of doing things.
Do you spend a lot of time digging in the crates for records?
Yeah, I go to Amoeba Records and I dig through their dollar bins. There are gems in there. You just have to be patient to find that one sound or sample and it can trigger a new sound. And you think, what a beautiful sound or tone and that could be the catalyst of the tune.
Once you find that sound, do you sample it and build off of that?
Exactly, it could be a couple of notes and then build from there. And then pull that tone out and then the song changes and it's no longer needed. It's all about that catalyst especially when you are making a record. I really love collage-ing things together and it's so fun and more interesting. Everything that I sample, I pitch it on the turntable.
Essentially, you have this organic "writing" process and then you take the songs into the studio and they really come to fruition?
Exactly. We bring them to life. I always record with effects and stuff like that at home. I'm not about changing things in the mix to get it right. Sometimes I want a different texture or tone and we'll just send it through maybe a bass amp or guitar amp or another instrument. It's fun. It's really fun.
Is there a special instrument in your arsenal that you always refer to?
It always changes. On the new record, I played some really simple upright bass and detuned the bass to D because the strings are super tight and, unless you play the upright, your fingers get blisters. For me, there are always new elements that I like to bring into it. It's about my style: it's just crappy enough that it is different enough. It's unique because I don't know enough.
Do you think that your sound is a reflection of your surroundings?
I'm not conscious of it. You are a product of your environment and it just comes out. It's always that "California vibe, laid-back, smoking weed" and it's just not true. I don't smoke weed, I haven't smoked in over 20 years, I don't surf, and I don't hang out in the sun. I don't do any of that stuff. It's probably more influences. So when you listen to one of my songs you can hear elements of dub to jazz to bossa nova and I love to fuck-up genres. It's kind of like everything.
The earlier stuff you produced on Mo' Wax and Galaxia has an organic feel but also this certain beat, that classic beat. As I was listening to Lifeboat, it had that same organic feel but it was a little bit different.
I've sort of figured out how to make things work better and let things be in a song. When you have a good beat you can just listen to the beat. But when you add percussion to it and get that motion and movement, it's unreal. And then you add a bassline to it: fucking forget it. It's more minimal.
Everyone is so worried about throwing in the kitchen sink on songs and it's more about going back to the basics, don't you agree?
To me, it's all about "less is more." People forget the power of simplicity and how simple it can be. We're bombarded with so much information and we're numbing our sense. When I gravitate towards music, it's the simpler stuff I love because it's so beautiful.
I've noticed this renaissance of "going back to the basics." A perfect example of that is the resurgence of vinyl and the record player.
Yeah, when you are listening to the music, you want to read the booklet and see whom the players are. It's not about the process; it's about the ritual of listening to records. I've been moving so I finally set up my turntable and got out my vinyl and put it on and started listening. I put the album cover right in front of the turntable: "Now Playing." And I'm by myself. It's a ritual. It's beautiful and rituals are going out the window like the dodo. It's crazy.
A few friends and I started a record club. Each time, we have a theme. We'd play a tune and nobody was allowed to talk, you'd just listen. Then, you'd play the tune again and talk about it. It's really interesting and social.
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