Right, well my name's Myles, I am Danny's flatmate, who's got this brand new book out.
Since I'm his flatmate, it's probably best for me to ask the questions that no one else
is asking. Really hellish stuff.
How did you rope me into this?
Yeah, it'll be fine. So,
first off, the book goes through your whole life pretty much til now, so we'll start
off near the beginning. So why were you such a little shit in school?
For me it was just
about hanging out with friends really, that was all I think about when I think about school.
So did you cause any issues?
Ah of course! There was too much free time in school as
well, like, it was good, I really enjoyed it, and I did also do some kind of work.
Did you?
Maybe you can't tell by my writing!
That's another thing, did you think now, looking
back, would your teachers doubt a book being written by yours truly?
Oh yeah for sure! It
would be funny to talk to some of my English teachers about it but, it's actually the first
book I've ever read, cover to cover, is my own book!
Well that's a good start! So in
this book, what is an instance of you getting in trouble at school?
Oh yeah that was in
primary school, yeah of course, bringing a machete into school! Yeah, don't recommend
that. Nowadays you'd get -
Skye! Island life!
To be honest yeah, exactly. On Skye you could
get away with that kinda stuff. But yeah, I don't recommend it nowadays.
No, no wouldn't recommend it.
Did you have any other arch enemies when you were a kid?
I've gotta say
there was one arch enemy in the village, which was the policeman, the local policeman, nothing
to do with my machete wielding but mainly to do with my bike.
So how did that come about?
I just was keen on riding my bike, so I'd just be wheelying up and down the streets, doing
skids and wheelies, just as you do as a kid but of course the policeman didn't really
take to kindly to that so, and there wasn't that much else to do for him, it was quite
a quiet beat.
So this was just cycling on the road he had a problem with,
or were you actually going onto things?
Ermmm...I mean I might've been jumping some flowerbeds and
landing in the flowers, sometimes... you know it wasn't like... I was just being a kid in
the village, there was one time I'd jumped like a teddy in the middle of the road and
he comes after me with the blues and twos, all my friends scattered, we all, we were
hiding behind the bottle bank, looking over, trying to do a runner, and he comes screeching
round the car park and jumps out and pulls my bike from between my legs,
you can read about it.
Pinned up against the wall,
yeah exactly, I got my actual rights read to me.
That's what happens when you're 13,
So 13 you got your rights read?
Straight out of Plockton!
Yeah exactly, straight out of Dunvegan yeah exactly.
So, from the moment that you sorta decided to start riding your bike, and throughout
that time learning new tricks etcetera, is there anything that scares you about riding?
Oh yeah of course, I mean if you're not scared, you're not doing it right or you're probably
not progressing in some ways. I mean, nowadays I'm having to deal with fear probably more
than I used to in some ways, you know I'd be riding every day like I do in Glasgow when
I'm home
So you have less fear - you had less fear when you were younger than you do now?
I think so yeah, I mean, I was riding kinda differently, so you'd just be out there, you
know, if you think back to Dunvegan, there would be times when I'd be on top of the bottle
bank in the car park just beneath my house, psyching yourself up, trying to drop off on
on my Raleigh Burner, and my friends would be watching like probably scared for my life,
I'd be scared for my life, but nowadays it's kinda part of my job to be almost in that
situation with friends looking on, they've maybe built the set up and I'm having to ride
it so it's a funny situation.
So do you think the fact that you know your pals like our
other flatmates like John being there and building the stuff, does that put more pressure on then?
I mean, sometimes if you've dragged them half way round the world to go and like build
some..whether it's a ramp between two rooftops in Gran Canaria, or getting them to build
some supports in a building in an abandoned town in Argentina, if they've put the time
in building that stuff then I'm kinda wanting to go through with the idea, it's my own ideas
and my own calculations on the risk and things like that, but yeah, you just kinda wanna
do it for the team that's involved.
So you know obviously with the book and the films
that you've done and have made you probably a more world-known biker, would you
say that there is another MacAskill that could rival the fame?
One other MacAskill called
Giant Angus MacAskill who was 7'9" who lived in the 1800s, my dad actually runs a museum
about him.
So what's he famous for doing? He's the biggest guy?
He was the tallest man
to live without giantism and he's famous for doing all these feats of strength.
What are these feats of strength?
He lifted an anchor that was 2300lbs or something like that, and
I'm pretty sure he lifted a fully grown horse over a 4ft fence!
It would've been a bit of a struggle!
Has that been documented?
I'm pretty sure it's in the Guinness Book Of Records!
I wonder what kind of horse it was.
I think it was a Clydesdale.
A Clydesdale?
Yeah, it's not exactly going to be a - I could lift a Shetland pony over a fence!
So where's this museum then?
It's in Dunvegan, on the Isle of Skye. If you're passing, you'd better stop
in and go see my dad, get a cuppa tea.
So is that going to get an extension put on it?
Like the bike extension?
It would be fun to display all the bikes and the films somewhere.
It was something I planned to do a couple of years ago but time is just...
You just decided to pile them in the flat?
Yeah exactly, if anyone wants to come round to the Pollokshields Palace then-
You've got to reach over the bike to get to the sink!
You're extremely tolerant I'll give you that!
I'm not the best either am I? I've got a real issue with dishes, like I'm pretty bad with the dishes.
Compared with just having bike stuff everywhere, it's
like literally, you try to go to the toilet, you've got to climb over a bike, you open
the cutlery drawer there's a hub, grease in the cereal, yeah exactly. But that's life!
All the spoons are bent from using them as tyre levers.
So in terms of, you know, moving
from Skye to somewhere like Glasgow, where do you see yourself kinda settling down, or
is there a city where you think, I want to go there.
It's tricky at the moment but I've
definitely come to a point, like I feel like I've ridden a lot of stuff in Scotland, I
feel like I've really wrung the ideas out, I remember doing a clip in 2010 with Red Bull
called 'Way Back Home' and I thought that was gonna be the last clip that I did after
'Inspired By' in Edinburgh this was the last thing I was gonna do here and it was gonna
be going all round the world to do different stuff, but I've managed to really squeeze
a few more ideas out of the place.
Where next? Inverness? Ullapool? Ullapool, you've not
been to Ullapool, have you?
The rocks up there would be pretty good! To be honest I'd really
like to go to Japan, I think it would be...
I've never been, but it looks amazing! Yeah
we should make it a flat trip out there.
In terms of travelling the world, have there
ever been random scenarios where you've ended up in the company of say someone who's like
an A-lister or something, and you're in this random situation?
Yeah I've definitely
ended up in some strange, strange places with strange people over the years. Most recently
I remember having a drink with Bill Murray in Shanghai.
I think he's my favourite human.
He had like a, I'm pretty sure he had a cane and a top hat on, that was a bit of an unusual
night, and then-
Does he need the cane?
No, he was just cruising, he was just like looking the part.
Also I've been in a circle of conversation with Tony Hawk, Kevin Spacey and Mike Fanning
who's a very famous pro surfer.
Is that the guy, the shark attack guy?
Yeah that's the one!
So I've been in like a circle of folk over there in Abu Dhabi, that was unusual as well!
Right, so, that was an interview with Danny MacAskill by, or with, his flatmate,
Myles Bonnar. Thanks