The Rules of Skateboarding #20: Andrew Reynolds
Artwork by Charlotte Tegan
Having a signature move is tricky. Tying a trick to your name can be a huge advantage – you get a chance to give the people what they want, but you also run the risk of being labeled a one trick pony. And what about your own pleasure? What if you get really sick of doing the same trick? How do you keep it interesting?
Andrew Reynolds has been one of the most prolific frontside flippers for 30 years now, and we still think “Yes! There it is” when we see him do one. For this month’s Rules Of Skateboarding, Ian Browning chatted with The Boss about having a signature trick, using them to his advantage, and keeping them fresh.
Do you remember the first frontside flip you did?
I don't remember the exact first one I did. I've never really thought about it, actually. But I think I know the first one that I filmed. Back then it was a lot of skating little sketchy hips and stuff. Everything was a little sketchy: small wheels and a lot of tricks were being invented. If you look at those old videos of people learning all of that stuff, frontside flips were probably not that great looking: a kickflip on a hip and then kind of pivot the nose down, you know, and then it slowly grew into what it is now.
Quite possibly the first documented frontside flip from Andrew Reynolds.
Do you remember what made you want to learn them? Was there a formative one that you remember seeing or anything like that?
The one that sticks out is I do one off a taller curb. I think it might have been in the Union video. My first part was in a Union video. It's on YouTube. But I frontside flip off of a curb, it's just a little drop. But for us, it was a drop. It kind of like, almost gets all the way around, and then pivots.
But you know, I was studying every video that was coming out, and all the street skaters that we thought were cool. Mike Carroll probably had something to do with it. When they first came out, he was one of the ones who did the most, so I'd say Mike Carroll, Henry Sanchez. All the guys that were on the forefront of street skating. EMB.
Do you consider the frontside flip to be a go-to for you? And how do you think they ended up being tied to your name?
For me, and I guess just the way I'm built and the skating I know how to do, it would be easier to do a frontside flip over a gap or a pyramid then almost every other flip trick. Maybe a kickflip is equal. When I was growing up, as a teenager filming, I'm doing them in all different kinds of places: kickflip noseslides, frontside half cab flips and all different kinds of variations. And then you know, a few people came out: Geoff Rowley, Jeremy Wray, Tom Penny, doing really big frontside flips. I just kind of realized like, shit, these are some of my favorite guys, they do them too. I just started trying to throw them off stairs wherever I could.
But a lot of it had to do with it being a comfortable, easy trick to bail and to jump off things with. I've said it somewhere else before, but if a 360 flip would have been that comfortable, then we'd be talking about a 360 flip right now. No skater, unless you're Jake Johnson, wants to do the most uncomfortable, hardest thing possible. I feel like mostly everybody else is like, “This is what feels comfortable for me.”
Not everyone’s warm up is a basic trick. JJ is different.
[Jake Johnson] is one of my favorites ever. We skated recently in SF. Most everybody, pro or whatever, your warm up on a ledge is like a grind or noseslide, you know what I mean? His is like, nollie back 180 fakie nosegrind. Fakie ollie to straight switch backside nosegrind. Stuff like that — this is the most awkward, hardest shit, and this is how you start?
So I'm assuming when you go out filming, shooting a photo, whatever, you probably pick and choose where to put one down for a project, so that you're not like saturating a part full of them. How do you decide that it's the right time to do one? Or if you have multiple clips for a part, which one to use?
Around Baker2G and This Is Skateboarding, I probably thought, “Maybe I'll have one in my part, one good one or two.” But then at some point, I think even in Stay Gold and a couple other video parts, I kind of referred back to Chad Muska. What's his big part? Fulfill The Dream, right? I'm a huge Muska fan. He's just more free about his skateboarding. He would just go and do whatever's in front of him, like an attack ship, you know? I swear, I counted one time, I think he had 15 tailsides to fakie. I didn't realize this till years later. Then I was like, fuck it. I'll do like 10 in a part. I don't even care. Now I almost purposely try to put more.
One of Muska’s 15 tailslides from Fulfill The Dream, and they are all sick.
There's been times when I’ve walked into a skate park and people don't even say hi or nothing, I walk in and kids are like, “frontside flip.” That's the first thing out of their mouth. Like, wow, let me roll around for a second.
When Jamie Foy first got on Deathwish, I told him, “Look, this may sound weird, but just having a trick that people know you for, I see that you have that with front crooks. Front crook everything. If you show up and there's something big to front crook, just do it. Because it's just one more thing that they're gonna be able to attach your name to, and remember you by.”
How do you keep them interesting after having done so many? Do you ever feel like you've gotten bored with the trick?
I'm not really bored with it. If it's just down a set of stairs or something, I'm like, do I really need that? But if I could do it up something, like a set of stairs or something tall? Or to switch manual? Or just something that reminds me of somebody, like Mike Carroll might start a line with a sick frontside flip up a curb, and I think, oh, that might look cool.
I'm pretty aware that when you hear a song from your favorite artists, you're like, “I like when Neil Young plays that song.” You know what I mean? I'm pretty aware that if somebody is a fan of me, and they like my skating, they're probably going to want to see one. That's what Spanky says: play the hits. I don't know. That's what I'm good at. I do them where they belong.
Plus, I think at 43, as you get older and keep skating, the nollie inward heels down big ass stuff, 360 flip noseslides and all that shit is a little harder. So it's like okay, well I'll just frontside flip it.
A stand out example.
Is there one that you've done that stands out? Do you have a favorite, or one that you know you fought the hardest for?
There's a kickflip and a frontside flip over the UCI rail in my 411 profile. I hadn't really done it like that, like kickflip or frontside flip over something in that way, until right then. I remember I had a big board, like 8.5, and they work really good on big boards. It just, like, smacks your feet. It’s more to catch. I remember seeing that footage from that day and just knowing like, oh, shit, I like how that looks. That looks really cool. So that one sticks with me.
And then, I guess, Love Park is cool. If I'm, like, full skate nerd, technically, the way it's done is super sketchy. But I guess that kind of makes it different.
There's one in This Is Skateboarding, I think, maybe? Either that or it’s in a bonus part. But it's over a 12 stair, with a gate at the bottom that shuts it off to people. It's a different one: it does almost like a straight kickflip the whole way and then 180s.
Kickflip the whole way and then 180.
Is there anybody else in skateboarding who comes to mind when you think about signature tricks? Who else has good shit that you admire?
Penny has all my favorite signature tricks: cabs, frontside flips, kickflip shifties. You can have more than one. I think it's good. Jamie Foy, obviously front crook. Neen, with his heel flips. Huf, just straight up ollies. Nobody ollies like Huf. Let's see. I kind of consider Ethan Fowler, like back lip and back tail tricks to be his thing. Ellington's switch frontside flip. Herm, hardflip for sure. He's got a couple: nollie inward heels and hardflips. Dylan, impossibles. I don't know. Those are the ones that just pop intp my mind.