We saw a great video called 23 show up on Thrasher that was supposedly made in Boston, but didn’t feature a lot of locations we recognized as being classic Boston spots (or even looked like they belonged anywhere near Boston). We wanted to know more, so we tracked down the video’s creator Tim Savage and talked it out.

Will Mazzari, frontside tailslide, backside bigspin.

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t recognize a lot of the spots in your video as being Boston spots. Were you guys traveling a lot for the video?

That’s definitely sick that you noticed that, that’s what I was going for. For me, I need a change of scenery. I can’t go to Eggs every day. I love Eggs, it’s great, but I can’t get stuck there. Even downtown, I’ve been to every spot, so me and my buddies just started venturing outward. Luckily Boston just has so much untapped potential, that once we started finding these spots it just sort of became an obsession. I started filming with dudes who had a niche of just skating really crusty, cutty spots, and you can only find those in the outskirts here, and only if you really search for them. It’s just part of the adventure, it’s like a scavenger hunt.

In Will Mazzari’s part especially, with all the handrails, it just has a different look from what I’d expect to see coming out of Boston. Are you guys going out to the suburbs for those clips?

Definitely, a lot of those handrail spots are outside of the city, some are just in random towns. I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life and moved around here and there, so I have a pretty good grasp of the spots here. In random towns there’s always a couple gems you can stumble upon.

Nickodem Rudzinski, switch backside 180 to drop.

So everyone in your crew is on that wavelength?

I definitely have different approaches with different skaters. Luckily, with 23, a lot of the guys in it skated similar shit – a lot of handrails. We could go to a spot and they’d just vibe off of it. I have this app that I use called GPSlog that saves all my pins. If we’re in some random town like an hour outside Boston, I can be like ‘Okay guys, these spots are all here’. I’ve seen skate spot apps, like Skate Savant. Those could definitely help if you were in a place you don’t know at all, but they just have the basic spots in a city, the ones everyone knows.

I guess I want to go to the spots that haven’t really been seen, or resurrect some spots that only got skated like one time ten years ago. I didn’t want it to be a video of all downtown spots. There’s more to it than just downtown or Eggs. If you’re out with me, we might drive to two or three spots, and that’ll be the day. One or two might even be kick outs, luckily the crew I’m with is down to do that.

Where did the name come from?

I did my first video a few years ago called Gem, and then I did the Corner Store videos, which I didn’t really consider ‘my’ videos because I did them for a company. So this is really my second video. I just wanted something simple. It’s my second video, and there’s three main dudes I’m focusing on – 2 and 3, it is what it it is, 23.

Do you ever get in on the action?

I was a skater first and then became a filmer. I find these spots and I think, ‘Damn, this thing is sick. I don’t have anything for this, but one of my homies might.” It kind of completes my vision when I find a random spot and then have someone get a trick on it. It’s still a satisfying feeling.

So can you do the straight eight?

(Laughs) Yeah, I can do the straight eight. I can do all the tre flips too. My flatground is one of the things I’m proud of. I’ve beat a lot of skaters playing SKATE and they’re like ‘What the fuck?’

Did you come up watching local Boston videos?

Wonderful, Horrible Life was like, my childhood. I must’ve watched that one 500 times. Besides that, I was more into West Coast type videos when I was younger. My group of friends who I grew up skating with, we were just into whatever the big companies put out. Because I grew up kind of outside of the city, we didn’t have access to stuff from the smaller local companies.

I didn’t really get into the local videos until like 10 years ago, once I was up in the city. But now, I’ve definitely seen all those Boston videos. I’ll go back and watch City People and Blackout.

Were there other filmers in the scene who helped you out?

Yeah, one of my good friends who has since moved, Elliott Vecchia he made a bunch of local videos here. He was working on a project called Natural Selection that I helped with. That’s how I got my foot in the door, before that I would just go down to Eggs and be like ‘Hey, I’m here to film skateboarding, let’s do it.’ I was really just down to film anyone at that point. Once I met Elliott I got my foot in the door with some rippers.

Getting something on Thrasher is a pretty big plug for an independent video maker. What are you planning to work on next?

I’m super grateful for the Thrasher post. I’m actually working on a New Balance part with Brandon Westgate, we’ve been going out a lot. I was filming a bunch of local stuff with him for the Element video, most of the Boston stuff in his part I filmed. Once we has done filming for that part in June, we just started filming on our own. He lives out here, too. He’s just been coming out with our crew and he’s been stacking, so it’s turning into a New Balance project. I’m trying to focus on that and end strong before the winter comes.

Tim Savage talks 23