ERIC DRESSEN: I come down here by myself, go on long runs in
the morning.
I guess this is the original one everyone skated.
Now I remember why they put this stuff on.
I think these people were complaining, the people who
lived here.
These are high dollar condos or whatever.
I think they were complaining about the noise from the
skateboards.
I think that's why they put this on there.
ERIC DRESSEN: Yeah, because there's no houses over there.
ERIC DRESSEN: We came down here one evening, probably for
an hour or two.
They just told me they were going to do a little
promotional video.
They didn't say they were going to do
a full blown video.
And back then, it was just like, oh, I skate down here.
So let's go down there and film something real quick.
And then let's go up to [INAUDIBLE] and film something
real quick.
And, oh, there's a mini-ramp at Vans.
I've got this pool over here.
Little did I know that video was going to
make such an impact.
That was just kind of a day in the life of me.
GEOFF ROWLEY: If I was to think of one time or one
video, it was bombing the hill in LA, which is right by the
Getty Center now--
that hill you can still see coming south down the 5 with
the lights on--
when that was first built.
Eric was skating down that.
And he was power sliding.
He was doing 10 foot power slides down a hill full speed.
And that was most of his video part.
And that's so creative and is super inspirational to the
kids of today.
And they need to look at that and grow from that.
ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN: I don't know where that hill was, but
I could have sworn it was right by where I lived,
because I used to skate down that hill and be like, dude,
this is where it happened.
Or I'd try to mimic that.
To me, that's the ultimate Eric Dressen video part--
super well rounded, fast, and just, like, aggro.
ERIC DRESSEN: Probably two days.
Maybe two or three days max.
I know Tom Knox filmed his part in two hours.
Right when got on Santa Cruz, they flew me up-- where I'm
going to fly to Chicago for some contest, and they showed
me the semi-edited version of "Speed
Freaks," Tom Knox's part.
And I was like, holy shit.
This is the gnarliest thing ever.
I'm all, Tom's going to win this contest.
And they're all, no, you're going to win, Eric.
You're going to win the Chicago contest.
TOM KNOX: This was 1989.
He'd been winning everything else.
They were expecting Eric to win.
And I ended up winning that contest.
So it sort of threw everybody for a loop.
I think Eric got second or third, but that was probably
the second time I skated against him in a contest.
And back then, they turned you pro, and you had
to earn your model.
So I was pro for almost six, seven months with no model.
Eric, he came onto Santa Cruz, he's going to get a model
right away just because he's Eric Dressen.
They're not going to make him wait.
So his model was already in the works.
Then I win the contest, and they had to scramble to get a
model going for me.
There's probably literally ten vert guys that had boards out,
and then me and Eric were the street guys.
Santa Cruz grew and expanded out through the '80s boom.
JEFF GROSSO: Tom Knox and Dressen, the little toxic two
there, they would sit and fucking score runs and shit
like, I fucking did a hurricane on that thing.
And then I went over and I fucking did a one-footed 360
over the box.
And ba da da da.
Eric was all business.
TOM KNOX: He influenced me to do certain moves, like
farther, longer, faster, those kind of influences.
ERIC DRESSEN: He was super innovative, just like that
double-sided curb stuff, like taking the vert to the curb.
That blew my mind.
I liked his work ethic and the direction he was going,
because he was down to handle business instead of just
hanging out and going to party at night and all that shit.
TOM KNOX: From, like, '89 to '92, I would
say we were the focus.
All the advertising, all the videos were focused on us.
It was good, because we sold a lot of boards,
got to travel a lot.
GEOFF ROWLEY: I always look to those old videos for
inspiration, because I still believe the creativity and
just the way that people were riding and doing tricks was a
big part of what makes it enjoyable to watch.
I still to this day love watching them in "Risk It."
KENNY ANDERSON: "Risk It" is original street skating.
Like the way he'd cruise down the street and do little 180s
and half cabs, that's what Dressen was all about to me,
just fast and powerful and controlled.
Especially back then, being that controlled and just
looking at someone skate a certain way.
It's just the way he moved.
ERIC DRESSEN: I guess.
Yeah, before that, the only people who came out with
videos were Powell.
Once Plan B and all those videos came out, I think
that's when it became really important.
Or H-Street.
I remember when the H-Street video came out.
I was in England.
And everyone was just like-- every skate shop we went to,
everyone was just glued to the TV watching
the H-Street video.
And I was like, who are all these guys?
Matt Hensley?
Who's Matt Hensley?
So I just went and rode all this bitching shit in Europe.
I was just in Hawaii skating all this bitching stuff.
And they show up, and they're like, oh, we
need a video part.
And that's like, "A Reason for Living." I was
like, God damn it.
There's nothing around here.
And you've got a week or two.
We're going to come down.
I kind of regret not bringing a filmer and
capturing some rad shit.
A lot of stuff I did never got on video.
The only people that saw it were the people there at the
demo or at the session.
One I took really seriously was "Troops of Tomorrow." I
had Chris Ortiz film it.
And he was down whenever I wanted him to come film me.
ERIC DRESSEN: Back then, we used to be able to pick music.
It was easier, music rights and stuff.
And then Gavin worked at Santa Cruz, and he
was with the Faction.
He had all the punk rock hook ups.
So we could get SST or whatever, Posh Boy Records.
Being on Santa Cruz and traveling and doing good in
contests and making all this money, my ego just got really
out of control.
I wanted everything right then, right now.
But I didn't really realize that people don't like
complainers.
So I got a phone call saying that you
should find a new sponsor.
TOM KNOX: He did sort of get run out of town from one of
our sponsors.
And like I said, '92 was like a whole other revolution of
big pants, small wheels, tech tricks, and a whole slew of 15
and 16-year-old kids that they turned pro.
ERIC DRESSEN: The world dropped out from under me,
like, boom.
It was out with the old and in with the new.
JEFF GROSSO: This goes back to the original fucking thought
or notion or whatever about what happened to him in the
'70s, and why'd you leave?
His timing was kind of--
he kind of got burned on the timing thing.
Because by the time he came back and started to compete
and really rise to power, getting his due and stuff, the
whole thing shifted again.
And when Rocco trots out Billy Waldman, Rocco goes, I'm going
to completely decimate the idea of the pro skateboarder.
Anyone can be a pro skateboarder.
So Eric's window was two, three years tops, even though
he turned pro at 12 or whatever, 10, whatever the
fuck it was.
ERIC DRESSEN: I still kept skating.
I was trying to figure out who I was going to skate for.
I wanted to skate for Powell, because I was really always
good friends with everybody who worked there.
I was just fucking around on this stupid handrail trying to
do nose slides, and I whipped out and landed off
balance on one leg.
And my knee just collapsed completely to the right.
I just popped it.
And I went home and laid in bed for a year,
lived off my savings.
And after all that, that's when I started partying.
I went from my really good paying job to being absolutely
broke and no opportunity and stuff.
And I never thought that was ever going to happen.
I thought I was set for life.
I signed a one year contract, and next year I'm
going to get a raise.
Little did I know.
I ended up moving in with my dad.
And then he got sick of me real quick.
My dad kicked me out, and I moved in with all these skater
dudes in Westwood.
And that was right when the "Toy Machine" video came out.
I got super inspired by them.
And I just started--
after work or whenever--
going street skating.
We were living up by UCLA by the courthouse.
So I was skating super hard, but just the opportunity
wasn't there for me in pro skateboarding.
I started partying gnarly and started fucking around with
drugs and just raging.
ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN: No one had seen anything of him for a
really long time.
And this was before me even meeting him, because he had
that "401" thing come out.
And it was all night skating.
And that thing was super sick too, because it was just
classic Eric just attacking shit.
But it was all night.
And then I had heard that dude only skates at night.
He doesn't like the sun.
-Dressen was stuck on drugs and speed and shit.
And he was downtown in his apartment.
And he was just fucking hanging out by
himself being depressed.
And I was like, really, Dressen?
I'd never known him to be a drug addict, so when he did it
later on, it had to stem from some sort of depression from
skateboarding.
Your grip on life is what holds you together, and it's
your passion.
His passion his whole life has been skateboarding as long
I've known the guy, always psyched on look at my board.
Check out my wheels.
Check out my new graphics.
That's what excites him.