Either skating breeds obsessives, or obsessives are drawn to skating. It’s a chicken or egg sitch, but this passion and focus is usually applied to the additional interests of a skater. For Dane Barker, that interest is hardcore music. In both hardcore and skating, the insignificant things that the untrained eye or ear overlook become the most important things to those involved. Sometimes we love skaters not for their skating but for how their pants fall on their sneakers. Sometimes we love a hardcore band for a 3 second section of 45 a second song that gets replayed over and over. Dane’s passion for both lifestyles fuel each other, resulting in an extremely productive (and interesting) professional skater and musician.

Dane wore his Straight Ahead sweater for this heater

You and I both know that hardcore isn't just music. Skating is not just skating. Both are an identity and a lifestyle. You strike me as someone who is as deep into hardcore as they are into skating. I was wondering if people in the skate world really understand how deep it goes? Do they understand your obsession? Or is it kind of just like, “Yeah, cool, it’s music, whatever.”

I think some people understand to an extent but the obsession goes deep for me, and that obsession definitely came later. Like, when skating became more of a job, it was more of something else to zone in on.

Chad Bowers, who runs Quasi, as you can probably tell by the brand, is into a lot of cutty stuff and he understands it. I'm doing some bands now and when I ask, “Can I do this show this day?” trying to plan ahead he's like, “Yeah, I want you to do that.”

Bobby de Keyzer was just here in Richmond and he and I were getting coffee in the morning. I was like, “Oh, I'm going to go meet up with my friends, they’re not skate homies.” And he was kind of mentioning, “Oh, yeah, they're all really cool. If I was in Toronto I would have no reason to hang out with people like that.”

Hardcore has gotten cooler and more prevalent within the world of skating recently. Bands like Christian Death and Breakdown have been around forever and we've only seen their music in videos for the last two or three years. Are you happy with hardcore having this place in skating, or would you prefer if the two were more separate?

I don't want them to be separate — the two worlds have always gone hand in hand. Of course it has gotten trendier as of late so I just want the interest in both to be honest. I remember some smaller video where there’s footage of this dude shotgunning beers to Judge and I was just like… alright. Lotties, which I was obviously involved with, had a lot of involvement in popularizing hardcore recently, because whoever he'd rip off I'd see skaters fucking with. I'm not mad at it, it's cool, but you can tell when it's more fashion oriented for some people.

Right, these tastemakers make bands cool essentially by paying homage to them through their merch.

Yeah, and there's also obviously more wholesome ways of that happening. I think it's cool if people get deeper into music, and I hope that they get the same fulfillment that I get out of listening to music, or as we do, you know what I mean? I really wish people would go to shows though. Like I noticed that most skaters don't go to shows and they don't really dig for local bands. I met a skater one time who was really into hardcore, and I was so excited to nerd out with him and whatnot. And then he was like, “Yeah, I don't listen to any new bands. Like, there's just so much old shit. I don't really care.” And I was like, “Fuck. Really man? Alright.” It’s a sign to me of that true interest, digging for that one step further.

180 fakie manny fakie flip, in the Floorpunch tee.

I've seen you wear SSD, Be All End All, Pure Disgust, No Trend, Straight Ahead and Floorpunch shirts. Talking about the fashion element, are you kind of planning out, “Okay, I want to fucking do this and I want to wear the Floorpunch tee,” or is it spur of the moment?

I definitely have before but some days are more spur of the moment, I guess. I have a Biohazard shirt I like but I don't think it looks very pleasing because there's so many colors. So if I'm going to go try something scary, I'm not going to wear that.

Sure. I guess that'd be distracting when you're looking down.

So yeah, I'm a huge Stop and Think fan. I have a bootleg, and I have an OG I wore recently to film a line and I was all hyped on it. I’m straight edge but in skating it feels kinda corny to have a straight edge shirt or whatever, but with that one I was like, “Ah I don’t care, I like it.”

5050 the whole ass rail, in the Straight Ahead tee

Yeah they're definitely one of the best demo bands ever. I noticed you also have a few Straight Ahead items. Were those OG or are those bootleg?

I have the one bootleg that is like my oldest, most ran-through shirt. I've worn that for like six or seven years straight but no, I don't have many OG t-shirts, but that one just looks old as shit now because I've worn it so much.

I was wondering because that would be like a multi-hundred-dollar tee if it were an OG.

I have the OG Stop and Think shirt but other than that I don’t have much crazy merch. I have a 90s Judge shirt that I don't wear skating because it's too fucked up.

I 50-50’d that rail in Grand Prairie, it’s a white one that’s pretty long. I’m wearing a Bad Brains shirt in that — it’s not super OG but it’s old. My friend Dave English who is a tattooer and a huge shirt head, he has all the crazy shirts, just gave it to me so I didn’t really question when and where it was from but I was pretty hyped on that one.

Dane was hyped on the Bad Brains shirt, we were hyped on the 50-50

Not everyone was born with a deep cut hardcore record in their hands. What was your journey with getting into hardcore? Was it through skating?

Yeah, it was fully skating. I had a lot of older friends that were into music.

I really dove in during the last four or five years, but when I was like 14-15 I used to skate with these guys Logan Devlin and Riley Kerr. I don't know if you know either of those names. They had this crew called Just Nipples and one of my first parts is in their video, and they went to shows and Riley Kerr was in a band. I remember I would look at Riley’s shirts and patches.

Actually let me go even earlier. In the Northwest we had this crew called Sorcery that was basically the OG Welcome Skateboards dudes. And those dudes were all into punk stuff, but had, like, Conflict back patches and all that anarcho shit. I remember Zounds and Conflict were some of the first bands that I was really into. And then from there Riley and Logan would go to current bands shows. At that point, I wasn't like in-in. I would go to the shows and be like, “Oh, this is cool,” and I listened to it in my car. But back then I was also listening to, like, Young Thug mixtapes.

Also I love Ben K( Kadow). When I was a kid and saw his skating I was like, “This guy's sick. He's into hardcore and he looks like my friends.” I was like, “Fuck yeah!” So he was, as I'm sure he was with a lot of people, influential in getting into it. 100%.

Are Kontaminate and Grand Scheme your bands and what do you do in the bands?

Yeah, I front Grand Scheme. I play bass in Kontaminate. Grand Scheme is me and Autumn, my girlfriend — she plays bass in it. We live in Virginia and the rest of the band lives in DC. I have another new band that has a demo coming out pretty soon, Payload, that I play guitar in.

I was feeling the Grand Scheme demo a lot.

Yeah, I really like Kontaminate and all that stuff but Grand Scheme is more my shit.

If you're a skater and you have the opportunity to be in a band I think it unlocks a lot of the same passion and love that skating brings you. It's the same feeling as skating some days. Being in a band inspires me to skate and skating inspires me to play music. I don't know if you have that same feeling at all.

Doing music stuff came at a time for me when I was getting really involved in skating, where I had to answer to a magazine or answer to whoever and have deadlines and shit like that. So I would dive deep the way I do on music, but I would go read Chrome Ball for hours. Then I would text Chad Bowers, and I'd be like, “Yo, did you meet John Drake? Like, did you know him when you worked at Alien?” And one day, he kind of snapped on me. He was like, “Dude, shut up. Stop doing this with skating!” He basically was just like, “Dude, you’ve got to do something.” I was like, “Alright," and then I started playing guitar. It was something I could do in my house that took my mind off the tribulations of beginning to be a career skateboarder. So, I think I put a lot of my angst from skating into hardcore, because skateboarding is more of a…I don't want to say a ‘responsibility’, but, like anything that you start to do for work, it doesn't have that same amount of fun. It stokes me out to be able to do both, obviously.

As far as the music you've skated to — Cro Mags, The Mob, Lexo and The Lepers — has there ever been a song that you've wanted to skate to that whoever's editing the video is like “No fucking way?” Or do you have any dream songs that you'd like to skate to in the future?

I'm aware the public doesn't want to hear what I want to hear every time. So of course, I pick a middle ground. I will say a lot of those songs I didn't solely pick. I always give people a fat list. With the Cro Mags one, I wish I could take credit for that. But [Daniel] Wheatley was into the Cro Mags and he's like, “Oh, this demo version is sick, you should skate to this.” For Grand Prairie I sent like 30 songs or more but the Lexo and The Lepers song, Chad just chose because he's a really deep Guided By Voices head.

Do you listen to anything that may surprise people knowing that you're a deep hardcore head? Are you a superfan of any other genres at all?

I'm listening to a lot of hyperpop these days. Like, embarrassing computer music. I love that. That's probably the most embarrassing shit even though I like it. But outside of that, no, I listen to pretty stock rock bands.

Skating and hardcore come with this message to “be yourself'“, but both will shun members of the scenes who actually are being themselves if it doesn’t align with what you “should” do or be into. Whether it be for wearing the wrong gear or liking the wrong brands or bands. It's stupid, but I think we're all guilty of it. Which culture do you think is tougher to break into?

I'm a straight white dude, I'm not that weird, but I've always felt like an outcast in skating and I still do to this day. I like hanging out with music people where I can have more socially aware opinions about things. Then with skating it's like, “Uh, yeah, this is just like high school.”

I try to do my best to stay out of the bullshit just because I navigate so many different worlds. Both subcultures are really cliquey and nuanced, but music is harder to break into. If you go to the skatepark everyday, and are a decent person people will start talking to you eventually.

Another similarity between the two lifestyles is the folklore that comes with it. Hardcore heads will talk about moments from shows the same way skaters talk about watching wild tricks go down. So in that spirit, do you have any hardcore moments you'd like to put into the folklore universe?

Hardcore is much more accepting and playful about the lore. It's fun. Whereas skating is just a bit gossipy. I go on Slap, I don't post much, but a lot of industry dudes that I'll say that to are like, “What the fuck, how do you go on Slap? Like, how do you do that?” And I'm like, “Do you not love skating?” I get it, it's annoying, but it's not that weird that people go on there.

I don't have too many good show stories, but the spot I went to most LA shows at, East 7th, stopped doing shows for a few years because someone got shot in the face after a Warthog gig. This band Weak Tilt from DC just broke up, but they were all Freedom Plaza skate kids and every show they played went crazy. I wish they were bigger because there's a lot of good stories about them. At their last show a few nights ago I watched Kevin Augustine walk into the gig for about five seconds total and then turned right around and left, I loved that.

It's pre-COVID and some of your favorite bands are playing at a venue that you're into. Are you pitting?

Oh, yeah, for sure. I broke my hand skating really bad — I can't make a fist with this (holds up left hand) — and often I'm pitting and feel like I fucked it up again.

Any skaters who you'd love to see skate to hardcore who but never would?

I mean, my first thought was like Nik Stain or something. It'd be nice to see Kevin Rodrigues skate to hardcore, but he probably has or would. He’s into a lot of really cool music.

Even someone like Bobby de Keyzer, he could skate to Biohazard or something. Stephen Ostrowski skating to Biohazard was sick as shit, and he also skated to Type O Negative — that was really sick. I would love to see an AVE part to Life of Agony, but I don’t think anyone else would (laughs).

Who would you want to see skate to hardcore?

Dane wants to see Nik skating to hardcore - seems like it would work

My first thought was someone like P-Rod or something but that’s an obvious one. Anyone who jumps and goes fast and wears swishy pants. (Editor’s Note: Hyun Kummer is Chris’ final answer). Have you gotten anyone unexpected in the skate world into hardcore, even just into an album or a band or anything?

From time to time, but not really. I remember one time I was skating a spot with DeLa [Brian Delatorre] and he was like, “Oh, you want to put music on the speaker?” which I normally don't do because speakers bum me out, but I was like, sure. I put on this band Skourge and he was probably just being nice, because he's that kind of dude, but he was like, “What is this? This is really sick.”

One time, a pro was like, “Where do you get all your shirts from man?” I was like, “Ah, I just buy them at shows usually.” And he's like, “What do you mean? You just go to a show and buy a shirt?” I think his idea was like, “Oh it's this website bro, you got it.”

Also, nothing to do with me but Mike Anderson has an Icons of Filth tattoo, that would probably shock some people.

What do you think your favorite intro of all time would be? For example, one of mine is Choose To Be by Youth of Today.

Lately I've been really into Unified Right. That intro is really nice. This is a controversial opinion, but I don't love Chain of Strength. Like I think they're chill but on (their song) ‘Impact’, that intro is fucking really good. When I was really listening to that I remember replaying the intro a couple times.

For anyone reading this that's on the cusp of starting to listen to punk, maybe they're listening to Minor Threat, what hardcore releases do you recommend they check out to go deeper down the rabbit hole?

Top 5

Honorable Mentions

Are there any closing words or anything you’d like to plug?

Yeah, if you're into something, go do it. Go meet people that do it and start a band or a fanzine and all that shit. It's way more fun to be a part of something than it is to be a spectator. And that goes the same for skating. If you like skating, make a video. If it sucks, you'll still look back in five years and be like, “Oh, that was dope, I'm glad I did that.” That’s one of the coolest things I've learned from hardcore, I think, is just that drive to be involved.

Big Passion: Hardcore with Dane Barker