With their new video KITSCH (finally!) released for mass consumption, we chatted with Pass~Port founder Trent Evans as he and the team were touring through the states premiering the fruits of their labor.

Jason Rainbird thinking outside of the box. Gap to lipslide.

Being an Australian brand expanding in the US must be insanely hard - shipping is expensive and you’re a step away from the industry here. Why are you guys going for it?

We are bloody lucky in the USA, our good friend Grant Yansura (who runs WKND) also has a distribution company out there, Hyperion Distribution. They distribute, WKND, Pass~Port, Butter & Frog for all of the USA. All the crew is on the same page & we just really respect each others brands, ideas & jokes :)

What was your initial foray into the US market like? We seem to remember a collaboration with the now-defunct (I think?) Permanent distribution, with whom we collaborated as well. Also, was Billy McFeely getting boards from you at one point?

At the start, we didn’t really have much of an idea on what to do…especially when it came to getting our things overseas, the USA being the big bastard it is & so far away from us. We are lucky that a lot of our soft & hard goods are produced over that way, so it’s a tad easier now. Originally we shipped gear directly to a few stores…but it was just too expensive not worth our while…we set up with Permanent Distribution, which was working for a bit, but went a tad pear shape overtime unfortunately :(

Kelly at Permanent did introduce us to Billy McFeely, our first US rider. He rode for us for a year or so, he ended up moving over to his friends company Bronze / Jamaica, which was totally chill & made sense! I actually bumped into Billy & the Bronze crew in Tokyo the other day, they all came to our premier out there, was very lovely of them.

Jack O’Grady, half cab flip into the world’s least functional wheelchair ramp.

Stepping back - how did the brand get started?

I was working on graphics for another skateboard company out in Australia, was a tad tacky to be honest…so I approached the guy to start my own thing! From there I developed graphics & a small little range of hard & soft goods. The scene out here is pretty tight knit, so I just started calling around to see who was keen to ride for my new company, luckily enough some of my good friends & just guys whose skateboarding I really admired were all about it, they either jumped on board or called up there current sponsor & said ‘Hello & goodbye’ (laughs).

Dean Palmer, nollie backside flip to fun ride.

How did you guys find Dean Palmer? Was it as easy as scouting him out after skating to a chainless jammer of a song?

A few guys had mentioned ‘You should try get Dean!’ I guess it must had been pretty good timing, as I think he may had been feeling a little disconnected to DEATH (the board sponsor he had at the time). So after a few conversations between the two of us we made it happen.
He surprised a bunch of the team when he turned up on our New Zealand tour, then later in that year we surprised him with his first Pass~Port pro model deck at our Xmas party, he was already pro for Death of course…but he we still surprised him with his own deck! It was such a fun night of Xmas cheers, beers & a comedy stand up from our mate.

On that note, tell us a bit about Taylor Square. We have our own plaza spot that we’re rather fond of…

A lot of our crew hangs out there. You can go there nearly anytime & have a beer / skate / chill with someone, be it a friend, skateboarder or local piss head. It’s situated in the middle of Oxford Street, so it’s a pretty central spot to meet up & go hit the city or wherever from there.
Its definatey not the easiest spot to skate, but Dean was really up to the challenge to film a part there….nailed it.

Who’s all involved on the brand side? Do you have a dedicated filmer, photographer, etc?
In the studio day to day is myself, Sammy, Mikey & Isaac. Then we have a few filmers & photographers that are always down for the cause! Cameron Sparkes, George Kousoulis & Geoff Campbell film a bunch. Thomas Robinson, Sam Coady & Bryce Golder shoot photos a bunch. Bunch of other heads too, everyones always up to document something, which is a very good thing, keep busy.

Callum Paul’s part is in the running for VP’s favorite of 2019. KF BS LS Shove.

Speaking of, we have our own reasons for generally eschewing VX footage but we’d like to hear your take on the now-famous Good~Bye VX clip, in which a VX1000 camera is ceremonially burned on a clothesline-turned funeral pyre.

I was just over it, absolutely fucking over the VX, (if) it breaks in the city…$200 to fix or send it back to Japan…it just wasn’t worth it in the end. Don’t get me wrong I know it looks the best & always will, but we literally just could not keep up with the fuck ups. We had that many broken ones that were literally not even close to repairable, so I said ‘Burn baby burn!’. Lots of people were not impressed online, but hey, it’s done now. RIP VX (well for us anyway).

10/10 art direction is in KITSCH. Josh Pall fakie heelflip.

The brand’s visuals are extremely unique (in a good way), both in videos and on boards / clothing. They’ve established a strong visual presence for the brand. Any art school grads in the crew?

Oh thanks for those kind words, I guess just between myself & everyone involved we have had a very clear idea of what we wanted the brand to be about & look like. Having people like Marcus Dixon on the illustration side is seriously so integral. The amount of times I have approached him about ideas, he totally gets the idea, look, feel we are going for. I studied graphic design, so that has really helped with 1001 things we do within the company be it production, graphics, video, etc. A lot of things have been self taught, but that’s really the best way to go about it, experiment & do things in your own creative way. Sammy in the studio has grown 10 fold on the animation side, lots of stop motion & so on, it’s all very time consuming, but for us we wouldn’t have it any other way, we know what we want to convey visually.

Jason Rainbird getting gnarly during one of the videos silly bits.

What should we know about your new video, Kitsch? Who’s all in it? Whole team? Name inspiration?

Hmmm its pretty long (laughs), well, long for today’s standards! To me I really just wanted to make a classic skateboard video, the ones that I grew up watching that inspired me to make a skateboard company in the first place! People have full parts, some people share parts…I want titles, I want drama! I want silly bits, I want a strong soundtrack, I want an over the top introduction! I want curtains (laughs), I want too bizarre animations, I want people to really watch it start to finish & feel ‘Oh, that was a full degustation, a very yummy & satisfying experience.’

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