BILLY VALDES: I don't skate as much as I did before.
That's, I think, a standard.
You grow up, you have more responsibilities.
I have a child now, I'm married.
You have bills--
back then, I didn't have bills.
You wake up, you don't even have a thought.
Well, I didn't.
It's like boom, wake up, do whatevs.
Go skate, go do whatever.
Early on, Menace days, it was hanging out in my pad really,
to tell you the truth.
Actually, my chick's pad, now my wife.
GINO IANNUCCI: I remember a lot of days
being at Billy's house.
Everyone would just kind of meet there at night and hang
out and smoke or drink or whatever.
He was like the show, you know what I mean?
Anytime Billy was around, whether he was at our house or
if it was at a spot, everyone was around.
He was in the middle and he was just like on 10 always.
And it seemed like he wasn't an everyday type of skater.
But when he got on his board, he'd bang out something sick.
So that's what was dope about him.
-Where are you from?
BILLY VALDES: Born in Chicago, but raised in Los Angeles.
So I consider myself a Los Angelino, I guess.
-Do you remember the first time hearing about or seeing
any pro skaters?
BILLY VALDES: One of my friend's sisters was dating
some Christian rock dude, long hair, like Stryper--
bandannas around.
And he's skating and he gave my friend
a Ray "Bones" Rodriguez.
Then I think first video I saw was "Future Primitive." Then
you get psyched, you're like dude, I want to be a Bones
Brigade member.
-So how did you end up becoming one?
BILLY VALDES: Shoot, I don't know.
Right place, right time, I guess.
A lot of my friends already kind of skated for it.
RUDY JOHNSON: There would be crews of little skate groups
and they would skate from spot to spot.
And we'd meet up sometimes and be like oh hey, what's up?
And Billy, man, he was skating rad.
He was part of Paolo's little crew of friends.
-Tell me about Paolo Diaz.
BILLY VALDES: The local ripper, always.
We met in high school.
He came up to me and asked me if I wanted to bail from
school and go hang out and do stuff that we're not supposed
to be doing.
-So you skated for Paolo at the same as him later?
BILLY VALDES: Yeah, we were on there at the same time.
And he kind of helped with all that, too.
He kind of pushed for me and Joey to get on.
He wanted us to tag along, we tagged along.
Stacy happened to be at Los Feliz one day and he kind of
liked the way a few of us skated-- like Joey, this kid
Ruben Prieto and me.
We filmed the part after that, it never got released.
And Paolo was filming his first solo part.
And everyone knows him as Paolo Diaz.
Back in the day, everyone called him Pablo Diaz.
Everyone's like, dude, you heard of this
guy named Pablo Diaz?
Oh, he ollied the six, fucking lost a tooth.
JOEY SURIEL: Dude was like an urban legend
in the 'hood, bro.
And we used to call him Pablo.
We didn't know it was Paolo.
So back in the day, we would just hear these little stories
about this guy named Pablo Diaz.
FABIAN ALOMAR: What he did and things and tricks he's done.
JOEY SURIEL: We'd got to a spot and be like
yeah, Pablo Diaz man.
He did this there, that there.
FABIAN ALOMAR: Back in the '80s, there was all kinds of
crews and cliques of skateboarding cliques.
And we used to be in Mutants.
So we used to hang out with Paolo, because was like the
main dude in Mutants.
Paolo was sick.
And there was like a couple Korean dudes.
What's his name, Chang?
Sang?
JOEY SURIEL: Sang.
FABIAN ALOMAR: And they used to all hang up right here at
this school and another school called Dayton Heights, it
right down the street.
-And Paolo's from here?
FABIAN ALOMAR: Yeah, Paolo's a native of all this right here,
just like us.
Paolo and Billy Valdez, just sick.
JOEY SURIEL: I ain't gonna lie man, we used to always trip
out on him.
Because he would be on the Jimi Hendrix, he'd be on the
total opposite side of the spectrum.
We were always into the hip-hop, rap music.
-You [INAUDIBLE] dress like a skater back then?
FABIAN ALOMAR: No, we used to wear Dickies.
-Was that an influence from skating?
JOEY SURIEL: No, that was just--
FABIAN ALOMAR: Bad.
JOEY SURIEL: Gang influence, man.
It wasn't that we were trying to bang or nothing.
It was something normal.
STEVEN CALES: Hey, I used to come to where I'm from like
the way I look from New York.
And his sister used to count on me.
And meanwhile I'm counting on her, the way she looked.
JOEY SURIEL: Steven used to make fun of us.
Like, why are you wearing that?
Because he didn't understand.
FABIAN ALOMAR: And we used to make fun of him, because he
came over here with all this shiny, dress like slick Rick.
And we were like what's wrong with this dude?
Big chain, gold teeth.
So we had baggy clothes and white t-shirts.
JOEY SURIEL: But it was cool, because when he came then we
were exposed to his culture.
Where he came from, where he grew up
seeing, and vice versa.
And that was cool, and then we connected.
-Were you guys trying to do something
different, like Menace?
FABIAN ALOMAR: We were just being us.
JOEY SURIEL: Yeah, man.
FABIAN ALOMAR: I mean, to tell you the truth, I wanted to
just fit in in skateboarding, but I didn't know how it was
going to be.
I just knew it was a dope company because it was coming
out of World, and Kareem had already a big name.
But I think that we were just being us, man.
-That's the bomb!
-These guys love this shit right here.
-That's the bomb, OK.
Where we at?
-Midtown.
-NYC midtown brothers.
STEVIE WILLIAMS: I loved everything about Menace.
Everything about it.
The graphics, the team, the swag, homies--
it was a good thing.
BILLY VALDES: Actually from day one, too, I'm going to say
that the name Menace I wasn't psyched on, but it grew on me.
Because I thought it was like what?
Like fucking "Menace II Society?" You know what I
mean, I was thinking of the movie.
But then it grew on me.
I think the name's fucking dope.
He knew that at the time we were standing a little bit
different and just representing ourselves a
little bit different than most kids.
-All y'all half-assed niggahs with your
half-assed shit, eat a dick.
BILLY VALDES: I worked for Extra Large back in those
days, at the shop.
And so we had a good connection with music, like
rap, because Beastie Boys were involved.
So like before Cypress Hill came out, I had Cypress Hills
tape, t-shirt, yadda, yadda.
-Oh shit, Wu-Tang stickers.
BILLY VALDES: We were all listening to
Wu-Tang, too, at the time.
Had a lot to influence in the original first set of series,
I should say.
I mean, we all sat down together, but I had a
sketchbook like the Enter the Pu-Tang board.
I'd sketched that damn thing.
Oh yeah, this should be like a team board, boom.
But Shiloh came up with the title.
Because at first I left that blank because I
was like enter what?
-What was the ad "Enter the Pu-Tang?"
There was like a photo?
BILLY VALDES: That was Kareem's idea.
Like, dude, let's shoot like a Wu-Tang style ad.
And that's kind of what we're doing at the time.
So we're like, let's do something that fully
represents us.
And boom, Caustic shows up with this model.
And so our first thing is, is she going to get naked?
And then she's like yeah, I'll do it.
And so we all look at each other, dope, that's rad, she's
going to get naked.
And next thing you know, Caustic posed a cockblock move
and acted like it was his girlfriend.
He was like no, no, no, only topless.
It was a good move, because it would have been
too raunchy, I guess.
LEE SMITH: It's funny, the image that people all over the
world had of Menace is like OK, we're a skate company of
mostly black and Latino skaters.
And our image was hip-hop and all this shit.
But people really thought we were gangsters or some shit.
People have come up to me and said the craziest stuff.
Especially in Europe, because they were just like whoa,
these dudes are just beating people up at the skate spot
and getting crazy.
FABIAN ALOMAR: There was probably like two or three
occasions where I went and I ended up getting into a fight
with somebody out in Europe.
GUY MARIANO: We're all in a bar in Europe, and there was
like a wedding reception going on.
And somehow there was like this bouquet of flowers, it
was just sitting there.
And I remember I picked it up and I grabbed it and threw it
into a group of skaters.
And they all jumped and kind of shredded it apart.
But it was actually from the real wedding or whatever.
And this gnarly European dude came up and
wanted to fuck me up.
And they're like, hey dude, you should go up to your room,
this dude's pretty pissed.
And I went up to the room, it was me, Fabian and the girl
Fabian was messing with.
And this girl had 666 tattooed right above her vagina.
Pretty crazy girl.
And I open up the door and it was the dude.
And he clocked me right in the face and Fabian ended up
beating his ass.
LEE SMITH: So he beat up the father of bride
in our hotel room.
ERIC PUPECKI: I don't know, I can't get into that.
But I know he liked to get us in trouble.
But he was crazy, too.
But I guess I was, too, so it was no big deal,
it's all a good time.
You know, everyone would come around and they'd want to talk
and hang out.
All the hip-hop kids and the hip-hop skater guys.
It'd be like uniforms.
They'd walk up in a Menace uniform, it was ridiculous.
We went to Germany one time, the whole
stadium was Menace uniforms.
There was like Joey's and Eric's and Fabian's--
dudes trying to look like us.
It was crazy.
And we weren't even doing nothing in the contest.
We weren't going to win.
We got to do everything, we'd go to great hotels, we'd have
a great time, we'd have stacks of [INAUDIBLE] and weed.
We had skateboards galore.
We got to go on all the A+ tours, so we'd go to Germany,
we'd go to Switzerland, Italy, everywhere--
can't beat that.
-I remember they used to tell me yeah well, you're not going
to make it in skateboarding.
I'd be like really?
OK, we'll see about that.
We'd go on tour and the overwhelming presence of
Menace product that was out there.
Like denim and jackets and boards and all these different
things, I remember it was out there.
And if I had to gauge based on what I saw, it was definitely
successful, financially.
LEE SMITH: Looking back on it, you never think this is going
to end one day.
You're like I skate for Menace, we're the shit.
We don't even need to skate.
We've got the best image.
Kareem is the man and he's basically telling me we're
going to be chilling for life and you believe that shit, yo.
You know what I mean?
I'm hanging out with you, you're telling me that we're
straight, we're good.
I see the way you're living, you got a pocketful
of money every day.
And I believe that shit.
BILLY VALDES: Fishy from day one.
Biggest check you ever get on your board releases, boom,
bam, big check.
Wow, dude, I made this much!
Like bam!
And then it goes like whoa.
Then it stays at a steady--
checks just started getting smaller.
It was like hint hint.
And not that boards weren't selling, it's just fucking
cutting the checks.
I don't know where the other money went, but who knows.
ERIC PUPECKI: When did we get these?
So this was after Menace, obviously--
MNC.
So this must have been when we were starting MNC when we had
to change the name the first time, I guess.
JOEY SURIEL: That was a huge blow, bro.
I'll be honest with you, that was a huge blow.
We'd be on tour, and the kids would still be
referring to Menace.
But we'd be wearing the All City shirt and they'd be like
oh, what's All City?
-Menace [INAUDIBLE]
JOEY SURIEL: The trademark lawyers fought it out, and
they said that MNC was still not enough of a change.
And that's when we had to do the All City thing.
And then as soon as we maybe thought we were getting a
little bit of momentum, it came again.
And I guess All City was owned by Russell Simmons.
FABIAN ALOMAR: Fat farm, man.
JOEY SURIEL: But it was just a big old thing.
And then finally, when Kareem knocked down City Stars.
-So it had four names?
JOEY SURIEL: Three.
-Well. there's Menace, MNC--
JOEY SURIEL: Well, the MNC, yeah.
FABIAN ALOMAR: Yeah, you could say four.
-All City, City Stars.
ERIC PUPECKI: That's just basic business.
If you try to push a universal product and you change the
name every three months, the people aren't that smart.
You've got to drill it into their heads.
You think Girl would be as good if they had to change
their name three times?
Maybe.
That definitely probably put a big hiccup in the business.
If it stayed Menace, I think that marketing would have been
just through the roof.
You wouldn't have been able to stop it.