CHRIS ENGELSMAN: There's the cover of Issue Number One with
Damian on there.
Kind of funny.
Hardboots, stretch OP.
A lot of people probably didn't realize that they did
all kinds of relief cuts in their boots and different
things like that so they could tweak in them and do some
insane stalefishes, and tailfishes and cross-rockets
and Lien Draculas, you know.
Tricks du jour back in the day.
TODD RICHARDS: Damian was a skater too, and obviously he
had the whole correctional boot thing going, like weird
correctional shoes.
Damian's hardboot thing.
And he was one of four dudes that wore hardboots and that,
he claimed it so hard.
But he was just like--
Damien was bananas.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Nobody rode hardboots but our little crew,
and I really don't even know why.
I just started riding hardboots and they felt right,
but it really made me a more powerful rider.
Like I could really stomp things way more than I could--
because I went back and forth.
Everybody was trying to give me the right softboots,
thinking I might be a better snowboarder, and it just
wasn't the case.
I'd get back in my hardboots and I felt like I could ride
anything and fly off jumps, twice as big as I could go
with softboots.
When I had softboots on, the board felt like a toy.
When I had hardboots on, it felt like a machine.
Like it was connected to me.
When I leaned over, the board was instantly on an edge, and
I could rest on my boots to do half the work.
So I could really get a good power going.
But no one ever caught onto that.
Koflach was the only company making the snowboard boots.
It was just Tom, Jim, myself, Bonnie and Dana, I think, that
were riding hardboots back then, and everybody else was
on softboots.
The entire industry.
But I'm glad I did.
I mean, they were kind of goofy-looking, but I could get
so much air on those things.
I loved them.
JERRY DUGAN: He wore hardboots.
I mean, that was his thing.
He was a hardboot guy.
Him and Dana were hardboot guys.
But he could tweak his board and tweak his body in ways
that no one in hardboots has ever been able to do.
They were behind the whole hardboot revolution.
Yeah, hardboots, it's the way.
Look, we can tweak everything.
That eventually caught up with them and didn't work out so
well as things got a little more
technical and more finessed.
But back in the days of just big, macho grassers, and
frontsides and stalefish, melon, backflip, whatever, it
was all pretty OK.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I think if everybody would've followed
suit with us, snowboarding would've--
it's hard to tell.
I mean, with these guys that are ripping freestyle riders,
they might want that flexibility, but I had my
boots so cut up in different angles.
I knew exactly what I needed to cut out
to do certain tricks.
And so I would chop out the whole inside of the boot so I
could lean away and do Japan Airs and Crooked Cops and all
those things and--
I mean, I had them cut up so much they almost were
softboots, but there's just nothing like that feeling of
the toe and edge response that you had.
It was insane.
As soon as you thought it, the board was doing it.
It was amazing.
And in my softboots, I feel like I'm all
wishy-washy, swimming.
And I've gotten them clamped down pretty damn tight, and
they're still just not quite a hardboot.
JEREMY JONES: The thing we got from Damien was balls and
backflips, pretty much.
The dude would just charge everything and we always
tripped out that he could do it on hardboots.
That was a big thing for us.
It was always kind of mind-blowing.
How does he do that?
Because he would tweak so hard in hardboots and we never got
in, so there was always the Damian tweaks and it was
always in our things we talked about.
It was, like, dude, you tweaked that like Damien!
So it was speed, and it was size of airs, and it was the
balls he had to do the things he was doing.
MIKE McENTIRE: You can never front on Damian.
There's no way anyone can ever front on that guy.
He was the original rock star.
He was the guy, dude.
There's no one like that.
And like his lifestyle and his whole scene.
He had everything to back it up.
He had this Penthouse Pet for a wife.
I don't care if he wore neon green and orange or whatever
his thing was at the beginning.
What he was doing was extraordinary.
He was totally way beyond anyone.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I was a snowboarder when I was with
Brandy, but I was 19, 20 years old.
And I met her at a nightclub down here, and we started
going out and the rest is history, but that lasted for
about five years.
That was a good time.
It was perfect for my snowboard career, because she
was a superstar, and I was a superstar in snowboarding, so
it put us together and it was kind of cool.
JERRY DUGAN: Damien was married to Brandy for years
and Brandy was a--
she was Penthouse Pet of the Year, and she for sure got way
more press than we got.
She was way more attractive and was in bigger magazines
than any of us had been in at that point.
I do have one great story about Brandy, though.
So Brandy, she told us that she spoke Japanese.
She was like, oh, I'm fluent in Japanese.
And we all look at Damian and we're like, OK fine.
So we're on, like, the bullet train going to Hokkaido or
something, and Damian and Brandy had one of the
magazines out.
And they were sitting there.
I think it was me, Tom Burt, Damien, Brandy, and
[INAUDIBLE]
and this guy comes up to her and he looks at her and he
starts going [INAUDIBLE]
and he asks her something in Japanese.
And she goes, "Hai." Because it was clear he was asking,
like, oh is that you on the cover of the magazine?
And it's like some nude girlie magazine and she goes, "Hai."
And then he asks another question and she just answers,
"Hai," which means yes.
And at that point, he just reached down
and grabbed her boob.
And we're all just like, whoa, whoa, whoa!
We jump up, pushed the guy off, and we're
like, hey, hey, hey!
No, no, no!
And our Japanese guide said, oh, he asked if that was you
on the magazine and you said yes, and then he asked if
those were your boobs, and you said yes, and then he asked
you if he could touch them and you said yes!
Like that Japanese is working really good for you, Brandy.
STEVE GRAHAM: Damian and Brandy were still an item, and
so I'm supposed to meet them at the beach-- this is down in
Huntington-- and I see this Mexican guy, just kind of
looking like this, looking over, and I'm like, man,
what's that guy looking at?
And I just, huh, whatever.
And I walk up.
I'm like, hey, what's going on?
And he says, I'm just checking out Pocahontas down there.
And I look over and it's Damian and Brandy and they're
both in G-strings, and right then, I just--
oh, my God, I start laughing.
And I didn't let the guy know that I knew them, and I'm
like, yeah, check this out.
So I started going down there and next thing
you know, I see Damian.
He sees me and just runs around a rock and changes.
Puts his trunks on and Brandy just stays the same.
She's probably topless at the time.
And so I go down there and next thing you know, I'm
giving her a big hug, and Damian comes around
and I slap his hand.
And homey on the hill just, what the?
And he starts to come down.
And I'm all, beat it!
That was Pocahontas.
And sorry, Damian.
Cat's out of the bag, now.
I held it for all those years.
I didn't tell anybody.
MIKE McENTIRE: I got some really good ones, but they're
kind of, like, x-rated, but--
[LAUGHS]
DAMIAN SANDERS: Farmer and I were riding together.
We were filming on the Palisades at Squaw.
We're right underneath the chairlift.
Everybody on the chairlift is all, go!
Go!
There's a hundred people watching us and so, this cliff
was already pretty big, maybe a 45, 50-footer.
Farmer goes first and he lands and, kind of, digs this giant
hole and bounces out and pulls it off.
And so they're ready for me.
I jump and right when I went off the cliff, I saw that
giant divot and I think, I'm not going to make it anywhere
but right at that hole.
So I went upside-down and backwards down the hill and
everything caved in on top of me.
I'm stuck with this arm behind my back, this arm is holding
the goggles, and I'm trying to get the snow out of my mouth,
because all of this snow is just covering.
I was laying there, totally compacted with just my face
showing for about four minutes, and one-half an arm,
flipping around like this.
And I was in a full panic for 10 seconds, and I'm just
wiggling and screaming.
I can't do anything.
I can't get this arm free, and the board's all twisted and
then I just compacted, and so it was like cement.
So I wasn't able to move at all.
And so, when I got just my mouth uncovered, I'd be able
to start screaming, "help," and they were so far down,
they couldn't see me.
So they were all waiting for me to get myself out.
And that's the worst part, because I remember sitting
there for about three minutes before they even started up
the hill, because no one knew I was really stuck.
-What were you thinking when you couldn't see anything?
DAMIAN SANDERS: That I was gonna die.
I was just waiting to die.
[MUSIC]
DAMIAN SANDERS: And my good buddies, Shawn and Dave, came
to save my life.
First guys on the scene.
Every time I moved, more snow would fill the hole, right
into where my mouth was.
And so the goggles are all crooked.
It's pitch dark.
I could see a little bit of light from the cliff.
And then every time the slow trickled off the cliff, it
went right into the hole, right into my mouth.
It was just like clockwork.
So I just stayed there, watching the snow trickle down
this cliff, going, "No more, no more snow.
I'm gonna die." And I seriously was waiting to die,
because I couldn't get a good breath,
and I was just panting.
I was freaking.
I thought they weren't coming.
And 8 and 1/2 minutes is a long time to spend suctioned
in there like that.
I was flipping out.
And so finally, I felt the snow move, and I see Farmer's
head come out there.
Big woolly mammoth.
Big bear head.
And he's all, "Are you all right?" I'm all, "Get me out
of here, I'm freaking out." He starts digging my mouth away,
and then he got my hands, and got me out.
So I really do owe him.
He pretty much saved my life, there, because I was a snow
chunk away from suffocating.
And so that made me exhausted as all hell.
But we did end up riding the rest of the day.
And then every fricking night I had that nightmare.
Just waking up going, I'm not buried, I'm not buried.
It was a drag, but it was cool for the video.
It was good drama.
So it was about seven or eight good years of just really
power riding, and then five or seven years of just trickling
and doing it, because I could still get paid to do it.
DON SZABO: Damien blew out his knee a couple times, and he
had it rebuilt one time and then he blew it out again, and
he didn't have it fixed again.
And after that, he started partying a lot.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I moved into this big-ass
house on the beach.
It was literally right across the street from the beach,
so-- just up a few streets.
And we started throwing house parties, because we had so
many friends in the industry, with snowboarding, and
motocross, and surfing all being down
here in the same area.
And the house parties were always the blast, and then I
had this idea to throw the Pimp 'N Ho party.
This was probably about '91, I think, was the first Pimp 'N
Ho, or '92, and everybody dressed up like pimps and hos.
And back then, we didn't have a clue what that even meant.
It was so funny.
All the girls we knew were strippers from the local strip
clubs, so to have a Pimp 'N Ho party just fit right in.
We all had these ridiculous outfits and-- with the big
hats, and the feathers, and all that shit, and then the
girls dressed like total hos, and it was so much fun.
[LAUGHS]
DAMIAN SANDERS: Welcome to Huntington Beach.
DON SZABO: Back at the house, I mean, he had crazy parties
every week.
And ran until 2:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and just a lot of
crazy stuff going on.
And I can say, I was kind of worried for him, going, what's
he going to do?
He's kind of, spending his money, and not making money
and just partying and what-not.
And little did I know that he was going to turn that into
his career.
And he's doing really well, throwing parties, and doing
the whole monster stage thing that he does.
He's a super-creative guy, and he's always been a
really great guy.
DAMIAN SANDERS: This is the front porch
that got so much action.
We used to have our 4th of July parties.
Everybody would be hanging out out here, partying all over.
This was the 'hood.
And then right there is the beach, 100 yards away.
Can't complain.
When we first moved into this house, the first party I ever
had, I walked outside and Dana was riding the
oil rig, going "browrr".
You'll see later like the giant human catapult we built
in the backyard, here, that my buddy got launched
at the beach on.
Dana's got it on one of his videos, and the guy flies
about 15 feet up, and then cracks his head on the back of
the catapult.
STEVE GRAHAM: It was a Halloween party at
Damian's, and we--
I mean, everyone was there.
We were raging.
The ladies who were strippers ended up showing up a lot
more, like more the LA crowd all of a sudden showed up, for
Damian's parties.
The next thing you know, there's girls making out, and
windows being broken.
It was out of hand, and we couldn't have enough of it.
And we were just all dressed up in some stupid costume.
And that was, I think, the first--
in my opinion-- the first Club Rubber.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I knew that night.
When that party was over, we knew we were on to something
huge, because everybody had the time of their lives.
TODD RICHARDS: I know Damian used to do
that Club Rubber thing.
It was like a really big moneymaker for him for a
while, and probably just rakes cash.
Because people-- it's like legendary at this point.
So he's got a good thing going.
He's still marketing himself as being a weirdo.
It's awesome.
I like it.
DAMIAN SANDERS: The things that used to go down at my
house were phenomenal.
And at Rubber, Ecstasy was huge.
Everybody was on drugs and techno music had just come in.
So you go to that club, and it was almost like this great
hedonism orgy.
It was just nuts.
And you go in there-- you open a door into one of the VIP
rooms, and people were in there having sex.
And you were like, oh, shit!
Sorry!
And you close the door and go party somewhere else.
And it was happening every single night.
And the cops didn't catch on for literally
four or five years.
People were walking around with hats that say "X Man" on
it, because that's the dealer.
The Huntington Beach team had a great run for about six or
eight years.
There were just phenomenal.
John Huntington, I met through nightclubs down here, because
I was doing all these house parties.
He was also doing nightclub production stuff.
We started going to Las Vegas, started doing clubs out there.
And from the clubs out there, we went into arenas.
And John was like the booking agent.
He would go into these massive casinos and OK, we want to
throw a Pimp 'N Ho party at the casino, at, like, the
Mandalay Bay.
Somehow he talked him into it.
Tommy Lee was our guest host.
Minnie Me was one of our hosts.
You know, made a fortune.
It was like one of those movies where the drug lord is
laying on the bed, playing in the money and shit.
It was just classic.
And then you've got 10,000 people on the dance floor and
all these huge DJs and everybody dressed
like pimps and ho's.
Tons of fun.
It really fell into place.
From snowboarding, to doing house parties, to doing
nightclubs, to doing production for other people's
huge parties now.
And it's just really, I've lived a pretty charmed life.
I've been really lucky.
-Thank you, Damian.