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Eric Koston - Yeah Right

Words by Retrokid
Photography by Atiba Jefferson

Eric Koston wears a lot of hats. The biggest one says Skater, but the one right next to it says Sneakerhead. There are others, including ones that say Basketball Player, Golfer, Dog Lover—and of course ones that just say éS (Koston is now with Lakai but when the interview was done he was with , éS) his shoe sponsor, or 4Star, the clothing company he co-owns. I was excited and anxious to meet up with Koston. I’ve been following skateboarding for awhile, and to me and to a lot of people, Eric Koston is the Michael Jordan of skateboarding. Just like Jordan, Koston guards his private life (and, like MJ, Koston loves to golf as well). But when Koston is keyed in, he is just like MJ: a consummate professional who dominates his sport, and makes everything look graceful and easy. He’s got X-Games gold medals, Skateboarder of the Year awards, sick-ass video parts, a successful sneaker and a clothing line—anything and everything we all think about when we talk about sports icons. Koston doesn’t do many interviews, but when he does he pulls no punches; nothing is taboo, nothing off limits. I was fortunate enough to be invited over to chat about skating and sneakers, and to check out Koston’s sneaker collection. Now I know most people see celebrities and think they don’t REALLY know what’s up with sneakers, but let me assure you, Eric Koston knows his kicks.

ERIC KOSTON THE SKATER: Skateboarders tell you that skateboarding is a lifestyle—Eric Koston will tell you that it’s his life. It started in the early 1980s when he received his first board as a hand-me-down from his brother. That old Mark Gonzales deck inspired hours of fun, and even more hours of practice. Those hours and hours of practice turned into sponsorships (Girl, 4star, Es, Active, Fillmore, Royal, Ogio, etc), and ultimately, dropping out of high school to go pro. “I grew up skating everything, anything we could, but that’s how it was back then,” Koston recalls. Hours turned into days, days into months, months into years, and years into landing and mastering some of the toughest and most unbelievable tricks ever caught on film, all while making everything look easy and smooth. With the amount of time Koston has put into skateboarding, he’s pretty much seen everything that comes and goes, including all the hype over action sports and the rise in popularity of skateboarding as a sport and lifestyle. What does Koston think of all this? “There are people that are buying [our] skateboarding shoes and clothes, but not our hard goods. It’s just the lifestyle they want, and they don’t even skate,” Koston vents. “It’s kind of jacked, I’ll tell you. It’s like ‘Aww, fuck, he’s wearing something I’m wearing.’ And you know he doesn’t skate!” he goes on.

I interject about seeing kids at the mall wearing Independent or Element shirts, and the “skater style” that has been adopted by many today. “Every kid with an Element shirt, spiked hair, fucking big-ass skate shoes, I’ll be honest: it looks fucking terrible,” Koston says. He thinks “skater moms” (the new breed of soccer moms) don’t do much to encourage actual skating. “Get your kid a fucking board, get him to the park, and strap him in some pads and get him skating.” Skate fashion aside, the other thing that bothers Koston is the state of skateboarding competitions today. “I recently watched the televised version of it, and it’s just a bunch of guys doing the same trick, it feels like. They all just kind of shit out a run that just gets by on their sixty seconds; they just stay on the board and it’s boring,” he explains. The format works for many of the X-Games type events, but the nature of street skateboarding is somewhat different. “Look at the X-Games, they’re like emulating almost real street, and it’s more laid back,” Koston says. The new format in the street competition is having a jam session and rather than doing a timed run; it’s just a free flow session, much like skating with your buddies. “So it’s not like what you can pull off in sixty seconds, it’s what you can do if you have a chance to try a couple times, and if you have that flexibility, gnarly shit goes down,” he continues.

Apparently, it took X-Games ten years to spawn the skateboarding street event. “Actually they did it the one before [this last competition], but they also had the park one, too, and that was like the worst! A fucking bowl with a pyramid in the middle of it, and it just turned out shitty on TV, as far as product for television. It sucked.” Mountain Dew currently sponsors its own Dew Action Sports Tour, and invited Koston to compete. Although his instincts told him to skip it, he thought he’d give it a shot. He arrived to find an arena that could fit nearly twenty thousand people, but only saw about 200 faces in the stands. “It just looks pathetic. I don’t want to be a part of that shit. I don’t want to support it; I don’t want to validate it by showing up,” he says. According to Koston, the tour featured a really bad course, as if they went back in time. “It left a bad fucking taste in my mouth and I was like, I’m not coming back to one of these, I don’t care what you guys do, leave me out, don’t email me, don’t call me.” Even with all its big name sponsors, Gravity Games no longer holds any appeal for Eric. “You get all these crazy sponsors and the purses, they raise like $1000 a year, and I’m like, come on man, it’s like fucked up because you know they’re ripping you off.” Despite the underground nature of skateboarding, these days, we’re seeing skate shoes and skateboards in more commercial areas. You see them at the malls—PacSun, Zumiez, Journeys, and so forth. But if you’re a skater, you’re supposed to look the other way and keep to scrounging, because that’s the lifestyle you’ve chosen, right? “It’s harder today, it’s like, no, you can’t go in there, stick to the mom and pops, [but] these guys can live so much better,” he says, weighing the options.

Selling out is like the ultimate back-turn for skaters…but selling out is no longer all or none. It’s such a fine line, more now than ever. There’s a decision to be made: There’s skating because you’re committed to the lifestyle, and there’s skating to make a living. Koston gives an example, saying, “How far are you selling out? …Do you still want to fly coach to fucking Australia, or do you want to at least sit in business class?” I’ve never flown to Australia, but given a choice, I’d take that business class seat any day. Koston knows he’s a role model for kids. He gets a lot of questions about getting sponsored, doing contests, and his answer to all of their questions is to just go out and skate. “The only way to do it is by doing it. All I can tell them is just skate. Don’t do drugs [laughs].” Koston’s skated for a very long time, and it is this commitment that is skateboarding’s true reward. “I’m pretty sure just, this long into it, if I was broke, I’d still skate when I could, I’d just be working at Blockbuster, somewhere, Subway, but that’s it, get to do what you love.” We’ve enjoyed his mastery of skating, and his contributions to the skate community, but Eric Koston’s matured now, and as all athletes must do, he’s planned for his future. “I think when I really truly feel that I can’t contribute like I should as far as a professional’s concerned, then I’ll hang up the pro model. I’d still like to be able to design shoes for sure after I’m done, but maybe not do it as a pro. I don’t know, I’ll still skate, I’m probably going to do that until I can’t physically.”

ERIC KOSTON THE CELEBRITY:

Starring in numerous skate videos, Koston, who once had to settle for hand-me-downs, has elevated to celebrity status within the skate community. These underground skate videos have led him to just a bit more of the public eye. Well, a lot more. Our interview was postponed twice due to scheduling conflicts. In other words, Mr. Koston was busy jet-setting to other events. I don’t know, maybe you’ve heard of one of them, the ESPY’s? Yeah, and speaking of attending special events, when he does make an appearance at a skate demo, there’s always a mob of kids and admirers hoping to catch a glimpse, or if they’re lucky, an autograph. Stepping into the limelight doesn’t seem to bother him too much. You can hear his voice on skateboarding videogames; he was featured on MTV Cribs and made a cameo appearance in Jackass: The Movie.

Originally, he was supposed to make a skating cameo in Metallica’s “Unnamed Feeling” video, but instead he was cast to have a panic attack inside a meat locker. Hey, what video were you in? Did I mention he’s a baller, too? He only gets better… He’s participated in the NBA Entertainer’s League for seven seasons. A huge Lakers fan, he’s met two of their greatest stars, Shaq and Kobe. “My friend Atiba shot [Kobe] for Slam,” remembers Koston, “and so I went in as an assistant. We got photos with the three trophies, which is pretty sick.” Thanks to his connection to a producer, he also scored a spot in a music video featuring Shaquille O’Neal and 311. Hey, any video with celebrity cameos can always use more celebrities! “I was like, fuck yeah, I’ll do it, I’ll do it for free!” he laughs. So what did he do? Hmm, let’s see, we have a guy who likes to jump over big objects, and we have this guy who’s sometimes mistaken for a big object. Seems pretty obvious what needs to happen.

“I got to fly over Shaq, did an aerial over him…that was scary.” Koston was worried about a lot more than his own safety, he says. “Oh, fuck yeah, I was like Jesus Christ, fucking season’s over if I kick my board away into [Shaq’s] head and give him a concussion… I could just put him in a coma. But he was into it, he wasn’t…afraid, he didn’t even flinch. The ramp was high enough to fly over him, that big-ass fucker.”

ERIC KOSTON THE SNEAKERHEAD:

We switched gears to shoes, and Koston started reminiscing. “…I always used to like shoes, even when I was a kid.” When Koston said that, I had to smile. Sneakerheads are a crazy breed, aren’t they? It always starts young, and they always remember which shoes they had first. “I would always look at people’s shoes, like people’s Nikes and Reeboks back then, all those classics. I never had any of them, but I remember looking at them.” Before Koston ever got his first pair of Reeboks or Nikes, before his own signature shoe line with éS, his very first shoe was a pair of Airwalks. “You know those crazy Airwalks that had that spider web print on the side? It was way back, and I remember that pair was from Mervyn’s. They had that lace flap; it was like a lace cover flap that Velcroed over the laces, I think it was for like vert skating… After that, it was Vans, because there was a Vans outlet nearby and they had $20 Vans,” Koston remembers.

His love for Vans runs deep; he spent most of his early years in Vans, ranging from Chukka boots to Old Schools to Sk8 His. “I skated in Sk8 His mostly, that was my shoe forever!” Waxing nostalgic on different colorways of Vans for awhile, I couldn’t help but to ask Koston’s thoughts on the major sneaker companies entering the skate arena again. “You know, it’s weird because it always goes back to ‘they weren’t there,’ you know what I mean?” Koston recalls. When the X-Games were just coming up and everyone tried to cash in on the action sports craze, he says, “Skating was getting big, [the big companies] came in, they fucked up, and they peaced it out.” Koston is wary of the big companies, but understands business is business. “You don’t know what they’re going to do. It’s hard to put a lot of trust into something like that, as far as I’m concerned. If a major company came to me and said: ‘Here’s an offer for you,’ I wouldn’t do it, it would just be sketchy. I couldn’t trust that, especially with skating. Look how much time I’ve put into it, and where it’s gotten me.

The pie is only so big, and when the big companies jump in, they’re just taking a piece of our pie, in a way. It’s the way I see it, but you can’t stop them. They’re going to do it, and they did it.” Koston understands that the money and temptation are there, and has seen some of his good friends lured away to the bigger companies. “Now, Nike is doing it the right way, Reebok is doing it the right way, but adidas, they’re still…I don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” he says, rolling his eyes. Reebok had a huge signing with Stevie Williams, and Koston is happy for him, saying, “It’s cool for him, it’s cool that he’s definitely doing his thing.” Turning my attention to the other major signing (Paul Rodriguez) by the other major company (Nike), Koston didn’t mince words. “I think they ripped him off,” he says, matter-of factly. “I think a company like Nike, they should be paying out the fucking ass. …Somebody of Paul’s ability and marketability, he deserves more. Fuck, LeBron’s getting a $100 million deal, it’s just not comparable.” Pretty bold words, but Koston is just thinking of the future for skateboarding. “Hopefully there’s something there after it all, you know what I mean? That’s the thing because there’s nothing really long term, it’s only to the extent of a contract.” Koston pauses, and sits in silence for a minute.

To lighten the mood a little bit, I ask him if he liked Air Jordans. His face lights up as he says, “They were just the sickest pair of shoes even way back when.” I asked him about his personal collection and what he wears. “My closet…it’s kind of all over the place,” he laughs as he leads me into the piles of shoes. Koston sports a formidable sneaker collection. When I asked him how many sneakers he has, he laughed, “I don’t know; I have over two hundred for sure, but I don’t really count anymore. Plus I don’t know where all of them are.” We know the feeling.

I was blown away by the sheer variety of sneakers he had. They were all there: éS, Vans, Nike, Reebok, adidas, And1, ASICS, VisVims, Etnies, Converse, Bathing Ape, Prada…the list just goes on and on. Not only that, but every single pair that Koston gets, he wears. Well, he says, “I wear most of it. Some of it, I have the intention of wearing, but I never just get around to it.” Sneakers are meant to be worn, right? Jokingly, I ask if he considers himself a collector, to which he laughs, “Yeah, but I’m not crazy like other people.” Koston directed my attention to his latest acquisition, a pair of original Air Maestros from 1993 he picked up from Flight Club. “I was just looking at the shoes in the glass case, the whole Jordan wall, like how much everything’s going for, and I’m like, ‘I got all these things!’” says Koston, amazed. He was blown away at how much sneakers are fetching these days, especially the Dunks. “It blows my mind to know that they’re selling for that much, it doesn’t even make sense. Does anybody buy [them] for this much?”

Koston is proud of his collection and loves all his shoes, from his own signature shoes to the Starter Shaq shoe he picked up at K-Mart. “I used to just buy anything that came my way, but now I’m a little more selective. It depends on what it is.” Speaking of Koston’s signature shoes, he has been with éS since its inception in 1995, and has had seven iterations of his own sneaker: The éS Koston series.

We talked about skateboarding, we talked about being a celebrity, we talked about sneakers—we talked about the truth. But you know, that’s the vibe I got from the start. Koston doesn’t mess around and he doesn’t worry about what people think about him. He’s a chill guy, but he doesn’t pull punches. His honesty is borne of years spent building a skate community from the ground up—from a hobby, to a way of life.

Signature Shoes: Eric Koston éS

If you ask an athlete what it’s like to have your own signature shoe, I’m sure they would all say that there’s nothing like it. If you ask them what kind of input they had on their own shoe, you would probably get answers like, “I tested it,” or, “I picked the colors.” Signature shoes are special, and should be more than just stitching an athlete’s name on the side. It is the athlete’s expression of perfection: a melding of form and function that gives a consumer insight to how and why this athlete performs the way he does. We talked about how his signature shoes contribute to the synergy of his skateboarding:

How did your signature shoes come about? Did they come up to you and just offer you a shoe, or did it just come about naturally?

Yeah, it just came about. I was riding for Etnies, it was before…they separated everything, and they were like, basically, yeah, you want to work on a shoe, and we’re also starting this company, it’s going to be called éS, this is going to be the team, and so on. That’s when Sal’s shoe moved. He had a shoe on Etnies and it moved to éS, and mine moved with it—the next shoe, the signature shoe.

Your own signature shoe?

Yeah, I wanted to make something.

How much input do you have into all of it?

It’s everything.

Design and colors?

Yeah, as much as I can. I feel like I should do more, but that would entail going to like what used to be Korea, but now China, and breathing down over somebody’s shoulder, like,”No, no, no, like this, like this,” which I feel like I should sometimes, but I just don’t have the time to. I wish I could, just because the sample process is a little tough, it’s like, “Do this, this, this,” and then someone [goes] there and it gets interpreted, but I don’t know how well…the translation is coming along. It’s a battle for sure; it’s fun, though. I get to make what I want, just going through so many styles I feel like on my shoes.

What’s it like when you walk down the street and you see a kid wearing them?

It’s cool. It’s definitely cool to spot somebody in your shoes. It’s almost weird when they’re random [people], like dads and stuff. Like, how the hell did he end up getting those? I saw them on a homeless guy once, it was pretty funny, I forgot where it was.

Do you have input on the technology too? All the Sole Tech stuff?

Yeah.

Like how they redid your Koston 1.

Yeah, everything, I see through every part of the shoe as much as I can. Colorwise, I do mostly, but it gets so… they change so often every season, it’s like, five guys there helping, too. Designers, R & D guys…sometimes they have colors… anybody that I’ve closely worked with anybody that has an idea sometimes, because when you color that many shoes, you start running out of ideas.

Well, you’ll always have a Laker color, right?

Yeah, I try to make one, that’d be for myself, if you don’t, but we have pretty much… we’ve had one in production for every shoe. Now that I think about it, the K6…

How fast do you go through your shoes?

I don’t know, mmmm… I’d say roughly like a pair maybe a week, depends what you’re doing, or how you’re skating. But on average, I guess one a week.

I noticed that your K1 through K5 are kind of more high-tech feel, and K6 went back retro style, K7 too, actually. Did you do that on purpose? Are you more into the retro look?

Yeah, …I was going through them, too, and I started to think about the K1, because the K1s were not even that tech when I think about it, compared to all the rest. …The K1 was kind of timeless in a way, but even the K1 can use some altering, too, to kind of catch up to today’s standards… I kind of wanted them to have a timeless feel to them… Plus I’ve done that so much like trying all sorts of shit basically with tech, I just wanted to be kind of, just flip it and just make it, and go all the way back.

You just want it to skate well, right?

Yeah, that’s number one, it has to skate well. That’s the most important feature.

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