Free Skateboard Mag interview with Benny Fairfax: "Okay I’m not too sure where this sits in relation to what we’ve just discussed but do you maybe want to do the Ethan Fowler story now so it’s out of the way… If you still feel comfortable telling it obviously. Yeah ok fuck it, he deserves to get called out. So this is quite early on when I was over there…Actually maybe I need a beer for this, one sec (goes to the fridge)… Also before we get into it I want to make it very clear I met so many lovely people there, made so many good friends and overall had the best time. This is just one of the more negative things that happened to me when I was there… I know… Okay. So um… Obviously Ethan Fowler - OG Stereo legend - I looked up to his skating so much… Always thought he was a steez guy etc. Yep. I mean… Tincan Folklore… Yeah… But I was maybe not as aware as until I went out there just how much all those guys idolised him, how much he was like the fucking guy. Anyway so I didn’t have a licence or a car so you know, once I was out on the sesh I was kind of at other people’s will… And one afternoon the guys I was with were all excited like: ‘hey dude we’re gonna BBQ at Ethan’s house and then we’re gonna go to his psychedelic rock show, it’s going to be fucking sick dude! Ethan’s the fucking coolest!’ You know like the sun shone out of his arse for them basically. Everyone loved him. So we go to Ethan Fowler’s house, we have this little BBQ then it’s all ‘we’re going to the bar now like, Ethan’s band is going to play dude, sick’. So we were in some little basement bar in Downtown LA, and you know he plays his show - everyone’s had a few beers - whatever… It was really loud in there and so he just kinda cornered me like: ‘hey man, not too many n****rs in here is there? You must feel super out of place dude, look around.’ And I just, I just froze - like what the fuck? He knew that I was the little kid on the team, the new guy coming over here from England, and that he was in this position of power. Like I’m fucking Ethan Fowler, like I can say whatever I want to you. So yeah, ‘not too many n****rs in here, you must feel pretty out of place man.’ And I’m just like ‘errrr’ and I’ll never forget he looked me in the eyes smiling and said, ‘you probably want to punch me right now don’t you? But you’re not gonna are you?’ And then he walked off. I was left there frozen like, ‘oh fuck…’ I didn’t know what to do. I just left and got a taxi to wherever I was staying that night and that was kinda it."
I hate people like that. But people like you wouldn't be reposting James Hardy's interview he gave about Heath on one of his slo mo drama parts. What Jason Jesse (for eg) and Ethan Fowler are guilty of is NOTHING compared to what Heath (man in his 30s at the time) did to Hardy (15 at the time). But there's no race component to signal with so Heath gets to be well regarded. Skating has liberal bs baked into the culture. Like Ed Tempster ect. Ed rips don't get me wrong but he's a douche. Him and his wife unfortunately are douche bags. I sat behind them at Slam City Jam. They suck.
This is not a pro-worthy part. I guess he was a pro back in street skateboarding’s early days and then just never really progressed, but people pretended not to notice? His style is decent, but the trick difficulty level just isn’t there. People today have to work so much harder.
@@hellrose18 I’m comparing him to the standards of those days. He had by far the weakest part in That’s Life, which was 2004. and by any objective measure was not good enough to be a pro two decades ago. I get that skateboarding isn’t just about trick difficulty, but even pro skaters of the era who were known more for what they did off the board like Bam Margera and Ali Boulala did far more difficult and bigger tricks.
