Throwback Thursdays : Friendly Interview

For this Throwback Thursday, I've uploaded an old interview from Scoot Nation #4 I did with Jackson Manzie & Jon Archer on Friendly, DIY spots, real spots, & and the upcoming "Lux" video. Enjoy!

Building something out nothing.

When I first starting riding, there were no skate parks around me, my friends and I would just make kickers from some logs we found in our backyards, throw a sheet of plywood on top and ride that for hours. I got older more parks started to pop up, but there was always some kind of hassle. Too many kids, haters, people regulating helmet and pad rules. I couldn’t take that, which was probably what pushed me into street riding. But along the way I found that building my own spots could be just as fun as finding street spots. There’s a satisfaction in having your own little “do it yourself ” spot that only you and your buddies know about. In most cases, you can’t ride street all the time. During the weekdays people are working, security are in full force, there’s too many people around so you need to go somewhere to ride on the down low. Building your own spots adds on to the idea of street riding being innovative.

In Richmond,Virginia, where I’m from, the skateboarders take it upon themselves to build all the “DIY” spots. We’ve had one at an abandoned mall, old basketball court, a tennis court, and now a plot of land behind a bunch of houses. Everyone pools in to buy bags of quick crete, go out to find old cinder blocks or bricks from demolished buildings or even go as far to steal rails or cool obstacles to ride from random places. These spots take a little time to perfect, they might look sketchy as hell but the end result will probably get you more hyped than riding any skatepark

A Treasure Island

Now the reason I’m telling you all this is because, this is a part of our culture that is almost non-existent in the scooter scene. With the exception of one crew, Friendly, who come from the most unlikely place for “DIY” spots,Australia.Where the parks are plentiful and street riding goes by almost unnoticed, the Friendly crew has been putting in work that has set them apart from your average Aussie scooter rider.

I honestly think these guys are on the come up and will grow into some of the most well known names in the scene. I managed to have a chat with Jackson Manzie and Jon Archer from Friendly to ask them about their experiences with “DIY” spots, street riding, and their upcoming video,“Lux.”

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- Jackson Manzie -

I met Jackson back in 2008 at SD3. I didn’t really get a chance to hang out with him but he definitely seemed to be a “friendly” fellow. Since then Jackson has been constantly steezing his way into the limelight and promoting his homies with some Friendly flicks. His last edit of his trip to California was so foxy that it earned him a spot on Proto Scooters. I only see good things coming from this guy in the future.

Hey Jackson, How are ya man? How’s the Aussie life?

Pretty good, it’s autumn here and I’m sitting on my veranda with my dogs in the sun. Can’t complain.

Andy Muscat - Indy Tweaker

When people think of Australian riders, they mostly picture a lot of intense park rats, with multi colored hair, and video game-like briflip combos, what made you guys choose the streets over that? Do other Aussie’s get down with your crew’s style? or do they hate?

I’m not sure at what point we made the transition but I think a lot of people we ride with started to watch a lot of skating because scooter videos are for the most part pretty terrible. That, and most of the people I ride with have been doing it for 5 years or more and just got over going to the park everyday. I don’t think I’ve heard any hate, but we also ride park all the time and are friends with a lot of the park riders in Sydney because we’ve been around for so long, so I guess that helps. Exploring is just a lot more fun than riding a park I think, but it’s the culture here and I’m not going to try and change that we just do our own thing.

Darcy Altavilla - Andy Muscat - Sean Furze

Jake Turner - BS 180 barspin railhop

That's cool man, so who’s currently on the Friendly crew at the moment? How often do you guys all get together?

Hard to say haha, a lot of people now.We made like a Facebook group so that we could organize where to ride easier and now there’s something like 30+ people in the group that we ride with all the time which is awesome. Some of them don’t even ride anymore but are just old friends who like to stay in the loop. But Jon Archer, Aaron Brandson, Nathan Clark, Jayden Hogan, Kevin Austin, Luke Maff, James Bull, Royce King, Billie Rainbow, Alex Collins, Sean Furze, Darcy & Melvin and a few others are who we ride with the most.

Unfriendly fiends at Friendly fields

Pillage the streets.

That’s wild. I saw in one of the older Friendly promos that you guys had built your own “do it yourself” spot, that got me real hyped because that’s mainly what me and my friends ride around here during the week, what made you guys decide to build that? Aren’t there plenty of local parks around you?

I guess we probably got the idea from you haha? Wherever that one you ride is cool as! I just spotted this huge lot where an old school had been knocked down, and the developers weren’t going to build anything new until 2013 I think, so me, and two others built a ledge there and we just kept adding stuff because it never got taken down. It’s called Fields.

Jackson Calcutt - BS Hurricane to downside whip out

I think this is Jackson the Manzie

Hell yeah like true street pirates, As far as the street spots go out there, what’s it like riding them? Do you have a hard time with security? Or are people pretty relaxed?

The spots are pretty good all round, but there are shortages of some types of spots, like it’s pretty hard to find a really good quality down rail, and I’ve been looking for a bank to rail hop for like 2 years and still haven’t found a good one.The city has the highest concentration of spots, because all the architecture is quite old, and other than that most of the spots are fairly spread out. So most of the time we’re in a car going from place to place. Security can be total hard-asses sometimes, and sometimes not, as with any city. Depends on the spot.

Fuck a park, street quarter! :)

What are some of your favourite spots to ride?
Really hard to say. Probably one of my favorites is these street quarters outside an aquatic centre.They’re just one of those spots you can never get sick of because finding a quarter pipe outside of a park is hard. Other than that, I like spots where the vibe is nice. Doesn’t have to be anything special but there’s a great set of ledges in Sydney University in a quadrangle where everyone is super chill and you can hang out there for hours.

Jackson Manzie - Back 180 noseboner

What can we expect to see in the future from Friendly? Last I heard, you guys were planning on making a full length video, is there any update on that?

Yeah, we want to do a good length video where everyone gets parts,because everyone’s style is so different and fun. But it probably won’t be all street, I want to get some gnarly bowl footage as well and include that because Royce King and a couple of other people we ride with destroy bowls.

Any last words?

Not really, I’m supposed to have met someone at a spot like 10 minutes ago so I guess I’d better go do that. Actually Jon Archer is 18 today, happy birthday

  - Jon Archer -

I haven’t had the opportunity to meet Jon yet, but I think that his riding alone speaks enough. He’s pretty new to the scene but I’ve been really digging what he’s been throwing down. Can’t wait to see what his part will look like in the upcoming “Lux” video.

Hey Jon, How’s it going man? Heard you just turned 18, How’s it feel?

Yo dude, things are alright, just at school, trying to ride when I can. So far being 18 feels the same, I’m doing the same things I was doing a week ago haha. I’m sure ill change my mind in a few weeks haha.

Jon Archer - Indy gap to street

So how long have you been riding, and when did you become a part of Friendly?

I started riding around early January, late February 2010. Umm around the end of 2010 was when I started riding often with the friendly dudes, were all mad homies now.

Alex Collins - Switch Frontboard

I heard you guys are planning on making a full length video, how’s that coming along? Who’s throwing down the hardest?

You heard right man, yeah it’s coming along well so far were all getting clips and being productive. Good question, its really hard to pick since everyone is shredding so hard, keep an eye out for one of our homies Brad Mcmanus though, his part for sure is going to surprise alot of people, he sends himself down anyyyyyything.

Who says briflips are just for park riders?

Brad McManus - Briflip

You’re one of the few riders that many would consider as strictly street. What influenced you to ride the way you do? Did you ride park first? or were always into street from the beginning?

I’ve ridden street since the beginning, its so bloody fun. My early influences came from skateboarding, skaters like Jerry Hsu, Leo Romero and Andrew Reynolds. Don’t get me wrong I have fun riding park too, especially bowls and minis half pipes.

How do you feel about the majority of Australia being park riders? Do you think kids are gonna start riding more street as they get older or just continue being park rats?

I don’t really mind, I just wish park riders would actually start using the whole park and shredding bowls instead of doing endless halfpipe runs. Yeah in the future I hope to see more dudes shredding street, I think it will start to even out.

Jon Archer - Wallplantin

I definitely agree with you on that one, I’d love to see some more flowy bowl runs. What kind of spots do you like to ride?, Are there any places outside of Australia you wanna travel to for riding?

Everything, I enjoy all terrains of street.Yeah I want to hit up Barcelona and America in the future, the spots at both of those places are crazy compared to down here.

Any shout outs or last words? Yeah for sure, shout out to Scooterhut and Tilt, Friendly and all the homies out there shredding. Cheers for the interview Matt!

There you have it lads, take a page out of Friendly’s book and go against the grain. Gather all your homies together and do something productive. Find abandoned spots, make em your own, go on some filming missions and enjoy the good vibes. Make sure to follow them on facebook as I’m sure they’ll have plenty of photo/video updates on their up coming video “Lux.” Until next issue, keep shreddin!

Cheers to Aaron Brandson & Geordie McAleer for taking these photos!!

-McKeen