Steven is one of those little shits who is just a little bit too old to be a “little shit” anymore. I mean that as a compliment. He’s the kid in class who never shuts up – not because he’s a bad kid, but because he’s too excited to sit still. The amount of enthusiasm that this kid has for life is admirable. I’m only 24, but he makes me feel like an old man – that, and he makes my skating look like an old man’s too. Steven was kind enough to do an interview with us in which he relived the Skate Rock Tour, forgot to use real words when he got excited, and explained how he and the rest of the Creature team are a big Proactiv family.
Wesley: So Steven, you’re a newer guy on the scene, can you please explain to the world just exactly who this mysterious Steven Reeves fellow is? Aren’t you the guy who played Hercules?
Steven: Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t even heard of that.
Wesley: You’ve never Googled your name?
Steven: Oh, I forgot I’m the same name as that huge bodybuilder…
Wesley: That’s right.
Steven: Yeah, hell no! (laughs)
Wesley: Alright, but anyways, give us an introduction to Steven Reeves.
Steven: Um…I was born in L.A. Moved to Medford, Oregon. Started skating there. Grew up there. That’s the place I stayed the most – Medford. That’s the place I call my hometown, I guess. Now I’m just kind of going around – I lived in Portland for a year. Which is like the best town in the world I’m pretty sure. Yeah, I’m just floating around right now, just jamming, checking stuff out. Traveling.
Wesley: Okay.
Steven: Hell yeah! [Remember that enthusiasm that I mentioned?]
Wesley: (laughs) And you’re a Creature guy, is that right?
Steven: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Creature!
Wesley: Tampa. Were you in the finals, or am I mistaken?
Steven: In Tampa?
Wesley: Yeah, I thought you were in the finals. Were you not in the finals?
Steven: No, no, no, I missed the cut by like two. The dude above me got a free iPhone. Then it was me right after that. I don’t know. I missed the cut and I missed the iPhone.
Wesley: Tragic.
Steven: No worries, it was fun. It was one of the best contests ever. I’m going back every year.
Wesley: What’d you do wrong? Was there a flaw in your game plan?
Steven: Oh, I didn’t even have a game plan. I never have a game plan. I just fucking…I just start jamming! They just weren’t feeling what I did that time. No worries.
Wesley: No man, that’s awesome, what’d you say, you got like 14th or something?
Steven: Yeah, something like that.
Wesley: That’s very respectable.
Steven: Yeah, I was hyped.
Wesley: Well, I’ve met you before Steven and you are a very well mannered young man. Could you please explain to me how a nice fellow such as yourself manages to also be evil enough to ride for Creature?
Steven: (laughs) Yeah, that’s a pretty tough question. Um…well, I don‘t know…it’s all about just fucking like…how you skate, not necessarily how you are as a person. You know, if you’re just like jamming, going super fast or whatever, it’s just like…I don’t know. I met Navs a while ago and he was hyped just like “oh yeah, well cool, we’ll do this Creature thing” and it’s on dude! Most of the dudes are nice – they’re all super cool.
Wesley: Oh no, I’m not doubting that. I was just wondering if you have to do anything to stay evil. You know, sacrifice babies or anything like that.
Steven: Oh…well…I’ll stay off the record about that one. (laughs)
Wesley: Do people ever think that you are Al Partanen? Do you think maybe sharing a haircut with the guy helped you get on Creature?
Steven: Oh man, I get that all the time. At Tampa they were calling me the “Mini Al.” They were all “ohhhhh, look, the mini Al Partanen, ohhhhh, that’s pretty cool, blah, blah, blah!” I’ve gotten that. I’ve gotten all sorts of names. I’ve gotten “Tony Alva” tons of times. Dude, the first time I ever met Phelps from Thrasher he was like “oh, I saw you in Lords of Dogtown, bro!” (laughs)
Wesley: So you met Phelps, huh?
Steven: Yeah, Phelps is rad. He’s a good guy.
Wesley: Okay, that wasn’t scary? That’s seems like a rit
e of passage for upcoming ams. Have they met Phelps? Does Phelps like them? What happens? You know what I mean?
Steven: Yeah, yeah.
Wesley: But Phelps is alright with you, huh?
Steven: Hell yeah. They’re cool. He totally heckled me, but that’s good. As long as you can dish it back it’s cool.
Wesley: It keeps you on point too, huh?
Steven: Yeah, yeah.
Wesley: So, I saw you had a part in Strange Notes recently.
Steven: Yeah.
Wesley: Do you feel psyched on that?
Steven: I was pretty hyped on how it came out. I wish I could’ve had more street footage because I filmed a lot more street but it didn’t work out with the whole deadline thing. I don’t know. I think it worked out pretty good. I was super hyped on the song ‘cause I didn’t pick a song, you know? I just gave them footage and then they put it together. But the guy was like “oh yeah, hey, well I picked this song.” I just so happened to buy that CD like a week before. I was stoked!
Wesley: What a trip. That’s funny that you mention street because I noticed that you had a few street tricks in there and I was gonna ask if you’ve got some street moves up your sleeve.
Steven: Yeah, I have street feet man. All day long, it’s so fun. I’ll skate rails and manual pads. I like going fast and doing gaps, you know what I’m saying? You know, just like fucking hauling ass and like jumping down stuff. It’s so fun!!!
Wesley: Alright, well, how much time would you say that you spend on the road?
Steven: (laughs) Oh wow! Okay, probably in the last… Do you mean like driving or just not at home?
Wesley: Just, pretty much, your lifestyle – not at home.
Steven: Oh, like 100% so far. It’s like 99.9%. Like whatever. Like 99% on the road.
Wesley: Does that stress you out at all or do you love it?
Steven: I love it! That’s what I’m trying to do right now with my life. Like I told you, I lived in Portland. The lease was up in May. I moved out and I’ve been on the road since then. Basically, just living out of my car and going from place to place. You’d think that when you get back from a trip nothing will be going on. But what happens is I’ll go on a trip and from that trip, another trip will happen and from that trip, another trip will happen. I’ve seriously just been on the road for the past three months straight. It’s cool though. It’s what I want to do – I want to see the world, travel, and meet new people. Check stuff out and skate new stuff, you know? That’s all I’m about right now.
Wesley: Oh man, that’s awesome to hear that king of hype. Do you feel like the older guys like Navarette, or whoever, feel as motivated to stay on the road or do you feel like they’re more homebodies?
Steven: They like going on the road. I went on the Skate Rock tour with them and they were kind of ready to go home. They were like “ah, let’s get out of here, let’s go back home.” I’m sure they’ve all done their fare share of traveling.
Wesley: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering – maybe because you’re young and you can just keep going and going.
Steven: Yeah, they’ve probably seen it all and done it all already.
Wesley: Well, since you’ve been on the road so much do you want to do the “crazy tour story” question?
Steven: The “crazy tour story” question…(silence)…I gotta think about this one…does it have to be PG?
Wesley: No.
Steven: Oh, too many options…too many options.
Wesley: (laughs) Take your time.
Steven: Uh…a good tour story…we’ll do this trip, this one’s pretty good so far. So there were seven of us in this van, right, and we roll up to the campsite and OH NO!!! Okay. Okay fine. Check this out! Check this out! I got it! Orcas Island. We get over the ferry. It’s like midnight and we go to the park and try to roll around in the moonlight. We get kicked out by the sheriff and he’s like “get out of here, go find a place to camp.” Before we get to the campsite, we stopped at a gas station and my friend stole a can of beans. Of all things to steal, he steals a can of beans. So he’s sitting there smashing it with a skate tool trying to open it and we’re driving around and we keep pulling into campsites trying to see if it’s empty, you know? Fully pulling into people’s campsites and they’re just sitting there roasting marshmallows and there’s us, in this huge van, rolling in like “oh, oh, just kidding” so we keep pulling back out. Then we finally find one that’s not occupied. We drive into it and it’s reserved. It’s like “24, reserved for this day” and we’re like “oh shit, they’re gonna be here in like an hour!” So we fully just ripped down the pole and threw it into the bushes. So we’re chilling at this unmarked camping spot. We start a fire and my friend’s trying to cook his stupid beans in the fire. So, we’re chilling, camping out – we’re doing whatever and this car rolls up – and, obviously, they fully know that after 23 comes 24. They roll up and we just look at them like “what the hell are you doing in our camp site?” and they just kind of creep away. We fully pulled it.
Wesley: No way.
Steven: Without even paying, either. We just left early and ditched out. It’s pretty brutal. We have pictures of like the pole with the number just thrown into the bushes.
Wesley: Wait, was this on Skate Rock tour or which tour was this?
Steven: This was just me and my friends jamming on a trip by ourselves.
Wesley: Oh, cool.
Steven: The Skate Rock thing was gnar. It was basically the first time I ever saw SHED play. I was just like drinking beers with them all day.
Wesley: Wait, the first time you saw who play?
Steven: SHED. You know SHED?
Wesley: No. Who’s SHED?
Steven: SHED (in a “duh” tone). It’s like Hitz, Navs, uh…and some other dudes that play in the band.
Wesley: Oh, awesome. Okay.
Steven: Yeah. So I saw them play and I was just drinking beers all day and someone passed me a bottle of whiskey and it was just a super wrong idea. I ended up waking up fours hours away from where we were in a hotel room with dudes bumping me like “dude, you gotta go clean the van up dude, you totally puked all over everything.”
Wesley: (laughs)
Steven: That’s kind of a brutal skate rock story. The Skate Rock tour for me was three days and it felt like a week. It was so awesome. It was perfect, dude.
Wesley: Well, how do you afford to just survive? Does Creature pay you or how do you make it?
Steven: Every once in a while I’ll get a photo incentive check or like a this-or-that kind of check. It’s not like a set thing like every month I get a certain amount. It kind of trickles in. Scumbag life existence, you know what I’m saying?
Wesley: Yeah, right, just making it happen here and there, huh?
Steven: Yeah, yeah. Fully living the food stamp life right now.
Wesley: Okay, cool. So, as I recall, you’ve been called the Manchild. Are you still the Manchild or have you grown up a little bit these days?
Steven: I don’t know. It kind of seems like I’ve grown out of it, you know what I’m saying? I don’t even know what people call me anymore.
Wesley: Okay, just curious. Now I saw an ad for the new Creature video. It’s called…
Steven: (interjects) Hesh Law!!!
Wesley: (laughs) Well, first of all, could you relate to me the rules of Hesh Law?
Steven: Ooooh, there’s a lot of rules to Hesh Law! You’ll have to wait for the video to come out and you’ll probably learn a couple of things. There’s a whole slew of laws and shit. Yeah, it’s gonna be good.
Wesley: Is that one of those things like you’d could tell me but you’d have to kill me?
Steven: Nah, not really. It’s all about the Suffer Tour.
Wesley: Okay, so it’s gonna be kind of like a tour video or…
Steven: No, this won’t be a tour video. It’ll be good, trust me. Everybody’ll have their own little chapter.
Wesley: That’ll be sick. When is that supposed to be due? What’s your deadline on that?
Steven: Uh, I think our deadline is like…January? I’m not sure…I don’t know. Don’t even quote me on that. (Uh oh, just did!)
Wesley: Oh, you got time.
Steven: I’m pretty sure the video drops in Spring 2009.
Wesley: Alright, well I think we’re about done here. Any final words for the kids who want to grow up and get big muscles like you?
Steven: (laughs) Well, uh, eat your broccoli! And…just…skateboard for fun with your friends. Don’t worry about anything. Travel. See the world. Don’t worry about sponsors and all that stuff…just jam.
Wesley: Follow Hesh Law?
Steven: Yeah, follow the Hesh Law. The Hesh Laws will lead you to goodness!
By Wesley Miller