When watching somebody skate, it’s easy to form an opinion by looking at what they do. You might say that Kody Noble is a great skateboarder because he is so well rounded, touching everything from street to downhill, paired with great style. However, during a week spent touring Vancouver Island with Kody, I began to understand that it’s not what he does that makes him a special skateboarder, but how he does it and his attitude regarding where he is going. Kody is not just a well-rounded skateboarder, he is a well-rounded individual; and it’s a combination of the two that allow his skating to speak.
I began our discussion with a really old video of Kody skating from his high school days. I wanted to hear about the back story, and who he was skating with. Your can find this video on Youtube, titled: “Kody 50 50 rail run near trailswest.avi”, channel: Skate 138.
Oh, this is old. I was straight out of high school here, or maybe even still in high school, I’m not quite sure. I lived in the apartment buildings in the background there.
Who were you skating with?
This was a crew I was skating with called skate 138.
Tell me about the importance of the home town crew.
Well it goes back before this, there was a shop called Infinity skateboard supply out of St. Louis, Missouri, and they were the first shop that was helping me out. The owner, Justin Kinoki, was one of the biggest influences I have ever had. Before he opened his shop he would come down from St. Louis to skate with us in Farmington. We started skating every day. He would pick me up from school and we would stay out late and skate tennis courts till the lights came on. Even in the winter we would break the ice up and skate these two little boxes we made.
You guys were hungry, I love seeing that in young riders, now that we’re older it’s so easy to make excuses to stay inside and wait for the sun to come out.
Ya, for sure. Justin was just a heavy motivator, which I was so lucky to be around at a young age. Soon after all this, he started his shop, you could see he was just doing all this for the fun of it. But yeah, he would drive an hour each day just to skate with us. It was really cool, a great time for me.
I guess Justin was a bit of a mentor for you, how important was it for you to have this relationship at that time?
Oh for sure, Justin was definitely an important mentor you could say. I also have my parents to thank, they supported it. They thought it was kind of weird I was hanging with an older dude, but they met him and were cool with it. He put me on the team and all other guys were smoking and drinking but I was 15 at the time and Justin was straight edge and was really good about saying “if you want to skate for the team, no smoking, no drinking, just skating.” He taught me the name of the tricks, what switch was, what fakie was. They kept me in check with what I was doing on a skateboard. I was pushing mongo, so they called me mongoloid, ha ha. They taught me all those things, and not a lot of people have that, so I’m grateful I had it growing up. If it wasn’t for that dude I wouldn’t have continued skateboarding.
When did you get into downhill skateboarding?
I moved to New Mexico and started teaching skateboarding at Time Ship Skate School. Most of the guys there had a huge downhill background but I did not know much about it. They host this event every year called ditch slap and the week I started working there was the week the event was happening so I got turned onto it pretty quick. From there Dave Price took me under his wing and taught me a lot. I started going to races and thought racing was what I wanted to do.
Tell me about when he took you out the Newton’s Play Ground for the first time?
Well, I had only been downhill skateboarding for about 6 months with Dave, and there was this race, Newton’s Play Ground, in New Zealand, and at the time was apparently the hardest and fastest race going on. It wasn’t just that, I really wanted to check out New Zealand and Australia. So, Dave and I pushed to go out there. It was super fun, but I definitely was not prepared for it, ha ha. I ate a lot of shit. I ate it more than actually making it down the hill. I was really pushing it, and trying to go fast. I did surprisingly decent for my first big race, I think I was in top 20 qualifiers.
What was the decision maker to move to California?
I just wanted to skate, I did not really know what I was doing. I meant to move out with my cousin, but when I got out there, he decided to move to San Francisco. I happened to meet up with the guys from skate house and we were skating every day, they were doing a lot of cool stuff so I felt it was the place for me to be. It really helped me out a lot. Louis Pilloni taught me a lot about editing videos and stuff.
What was it like living on the couch for a full year?
Well, I had kind of a make shift room with sheets tied to a book shelf, it wasn’t too bad.
How did you manage to bring chicks home?
Well, Louis was working at sector 9 and was only home on weekends, so for the whole week I pretty much had his room.
Did he know what you were up to in there?
Oh ya, we had a thing worked out where I just had to wash the sheets it was all good to bring chicks home. I mean, it didn’t happen as much as I would like but there were a couple instances. I didn’t try to bring girls home too often because our house was disgusting, and I did not want them knowing I lived on a couch. To be honest, during that time, I wasn’t really focusing so much on partying and picking up chicks. I had just broken up with my girl of 5 years, we were literally just eating and breathing downhill skateboarding.
It must have been a really potent time for you to cultivate your skating; being surrounded by such a devoted crew.
Ya, you’re totally right, but to be honest, it might be kind of why right now I’m sort of burned out on downhill. I mean I’m still stoked on it, but I find myself having more fun just kind of cruising hills, I’m not trying to bomb it right now.
I guess that kind of puts you in a pinch, there is this notion that if you want to get noticed in the industry you really need to push the envelope in downhill skating by going faster and faster; constantly putting yourself on the line.
How are you balancing this right now, to still stay relevant while staying true to what you genuinely want to do?
I find a major part of anything you do as a skateboarder comes down to how you do it. Keeping things looking good. Like, get your style down before trying to do something crazy. Style, to me, is everything right now, because everybody can already do what everybody else is doing, it’s just how can you make it look different and natural. I’m not to stressed about being the fastest.
Since then, how as your skating changed?
Well when I was living at the skate house I was fully surrounded by downhill skateboarding, so that’s all I did. Now that I’m on my own I have more choice to what I want to do. I find it’s a lot easier to just go push around and find things to skate around my house. Getting back to what is more accessible. Since then I kind of fell out of the whole racing scene. I loved skating downhill but racing is something else entirely, it’s for a particular type of person and I’m not like that. I like to have fun, but my mind is not really on winning. I find there is a different mentality behind racing. It can be more looked at as a sport, where I see skateboarding more as an art.
Now that you are out of the race world, what are you doing to build a life around skateboarding?
I’m working on building media. Creating videos and building content for the companies I ride for. I make an effort to go on skate trips, film and Instagram my life away, ha ha.
How does it make you feel forced into this social media beast and putting your life online?
I have mixed feelings about it, I think it’s cool that you can check out what other people are doing, but it’s also kind of a drag that skateboarding has turned into such a media thing. It’s sad that it’s more about social media than it is about skating. It’s not about being good on your skateboard, as long as you can make it look good on Instagram.
It’s not like it used to be where you could just skate all year with your team, working closely on a video. I guess it is about keeping a constant stream out.
Yea exactly, you gotta just constantly put out shit that might not be as quality. I mean, there are still people taking time to put out quality things, but I would like to see things out there more art driven and style influenced. I think right now there is a pattern of what downhill is supposed to be, and people are not looking past that. There are a lot of the top dudes in the industry that are calling the shots, saying what’s kooky, or what you can or can’t do. I’d say fuck all those rules and do your own thing.
What’s something you have seen recently that has influenced you?
I have been skating with skip from Turnco. He refurbishes skateboards, cuts them out into funky surf shapes and paints them all wicked. I have been watching what that dude does and it’s so sick, he is just super happy with the little things that he is doing. It’s hands on, and it’s art, but it’s skateboarding. I think that is unique. He’s just doing what he does, he is not copying anybody or worrying what anybody else thinks.
Do you see yourself physically doing more art soon?
Well, when I say art, I mean it more as a way of living, I love the lifestyle skip lives. I definitely do want to make more art related stuff; like lately I have been having fun making skate racks. I made a few for flat Spot Skateshop in Vancouver. It feels good to work with my hands. I’m actually working on making a movie. Not just a skate video. For me this is all a way to hopefully bring downhill skateboarding and skateboarding together. I’m hoping to collaborate the scenes a little bit with this movie. I’m also working on my own skate part now.
It was great talking with you! Do you have any final thoughts or people you would like to thank?
I wanna thank my mom and dad for all the support, and my brother for getting me on a skateboard. Also, a big thanks to Riviera Skateboards, Paris TruckCo, Etnies Shoes for all the help!
Interview by Joey Bidner
Photos by Jordan Langdon