DLX Known Associate : Grant Fiero – Part & Interview

Grant Fiero is a Known Associate from Slappy’s Garage and DLX is proud to put out his new video part and interview with our Social Media Coordinator Elad Magidish. Fuck Yeah Grant!

 

Elad Magidish: Let’s just start with the basics – age, where are you from, current city?

Grant Fiero: I’m 20, I’m from San Diego and I’m currently living in Los Angeles.

Photo : Eduardo Sanchez

Elad: You moved up there for school, right?

Grant: Yeah. I go to school up here to study Business Management.

Elad: What school are you going to?

Grant: The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

Elad: How’s school been?

Grant: Good, it’s cool. The program I’m in now, it’s a bachelors thing. It’s called Business Management, it’s pretty much a lot of how it would be to run your own business or running someone else’s, I guess. All my teachers work in the industry that they teach about which is sick, because it’s all practical stuff. I don’t feel like I’m learning pointless stuff too often.

Elad: You’re getting the real deal from the people, not some fake teachers that are just good at teaching stuff.

Grant: Yeah exactly, which is how I felt in high school. So it’s cool to not feel like that anymore.

Elad: You’ve been doing the Skate Fillet Podcast for a while now. How’d that all come about?

Grant: I’ve been doing that probably a little over three years. My friend Drew, formerly known as Drewdays on YouTube, he started the show – I knew Drew before he started it. I just hit him up one day and told him that I thought that show was sick and I’d been listening to it all the time and he invited me on, just as a guest, to come on for a week and talk about skating with them. And then, after that show, he was like “Oh, you should just do this with us all the time, if you’re this into following skateboarding.”

Grant: I became a part of it and then probably about a couple years later, Drew stopped doing the show to pursue career goals. So, since then it’s just myself and Mike Medina and we have guests come on here and there. We’ve had a few different pros, up and coming kids is my favorite – when they drop a part, trying to get them on.

Elad: That’s rad you and Mike were motivated to keep it going like that.

Grant: Yeah it was crazy cause Drew had a big following on YouTube just from trying to do what is looked at as YouTube Skater now but, it wasn’t like that at the time. He just filmed him and all his friends going out skating all the time.

So, he had a big following on YouTube which helped the show get started. We had to restart when Drew was done with the show, so obviously a lot of the viewers from Drew’s channel are still watching.

Photo : Josh Parker

Elad: Are you still working at Slappy’s Garage (San Diego skate shop) now that you’re up in LA?

Grant: Not since I’ve moved up here. I worked there pretty much until I moved here for school. But, whenever I’m back in San Diego I go through the shop. Jason who owns the shop knows I’m down to help with anything whenever I can. So, if there’s ever an event that they’re doing on the weekend, I’m super down to go back down to San Diego.

Elad: You still have a little birds nest left at home?

Grant: Yeah, for sure. It’s so sick I’m still in the group chat with everyone in the shop, so I still know what’s going on around there all the time.

Elad: Let’s talk a little bit about the part. How’s it filming for this part, what was the process like going out skating?

Grant: little over a year ago I decided that I wanted to film a video part and kinda just see what happened with it. I have a big crew of friends I’ve skated with forever in San Diego, and we don’t really have a filmer but, we have a camera in the crew. So basically whoever’s out skating will film each other. It’s not like there’s some legit filmer all the time. Most of it’s in San Diego, a little bit in LA, and we did go to Toronto for a week over the summer to skate and film with our friend Daniel that lives out there.

Grant: There’s times where I’m someone that wants to plan out a trick and go get it but, I think it’s just the best to go out skating and not even worry about where you’re going just skate and figure something out.

Elad: What’s the crew look like when you’re out skating, who’s on the sesh?

Grant: Billy Jackson, Jake Martin, Antonio – I don’t know, that’s just a handful of dudes I’m with all the time on the weekend in San Diego but, it varies. Daniel Policelli lives out in Toronto; He came out to San Diego for a week or two in winter so, we gotta film with him out here as well

Photo : Eduardo Sanchez

Elad: How’s it been at college, I know you’ve always been straight edged, has there been any temptations?

Grant: No, honestly my school’s pretty small and definitely not somewhere you would go if you were trying to party or be social. So my schools environment doesn’t affect that at all. But, in terms of being away or I guess in a new community and a new friend group and stuff, I never feel tempted to do that. I don’t know, I just love to skate and I’m just more focused on that and school than worrying about partying or drinking or anything. It’s just never really something I’ve been into.

Elad: Yeah, for sure. Was it a conscious choice or did the thought never cross your mind to drink or smoke?

Grant: I guess a little bit of both but I think a lot of it was more just never having a desire to get into it. There isn’t really a part of me that wants to drink or there isn’t really a part of me that is super interested in what it’s like to smoke. It just doesn’t mean anything to me

Elad: That’s rad, especially in skateboarding where it’s such a big part of the culture to drink and smoke.

Grant: I also think it’s so sick to see like Spanky’s Nine Club from a few weeks ago – where he’s talking about how he’s sober and how much better his body feels and getting into health and stuff like that. I do have some interest in health so that is always pretty cool to me.

Elad: Let’s talk a little bit about your dad, I know he was a firefighter. What was it like growing up with your dad as a firefighter?

Grant: He was in the Fire Department for 33 years. It was cool to know that my dad did something that positively affected a lot of people. Obviously, in the public firefighters are super loved by people cause people just view them as helpful.

Grant: It was also very important to me to see how hard he worked; he worked his way up the Fire Department very well. That was always something that stood out – the harder you work at something, how far you can get doing that. That was something that he really taught my brothers and I but also showed us firsthand through struggles.

Elad: Definitely dude. You can see that reflect in your motivation and dedication for sure.

Grant: Yeah, thank you. That definitely comes from my dad, I mean both my parents; but, specifically with my dad in the Fire Department. I think both those things came off into everyone in my family really.

Photo : Matt Lockshaw

Elad: I know you’re super into music. What are some songs and albums you’ve been into lately?

Grant: I love music. Songs and albums, I listen to Leon Bridges all the time, he’s like my number one favorite artist. I like Future Islands a lot, which is cool. I actually found Future Islands through skateboarding, cause Austyn Gillette has a part where he skates to one of their songs. Then I’ve noticed over the years that a bunch of dudes have skated to their music. It’s super cool how skating and music tie into each other. On my phone I have a playlist of music that’s all just songs that I’ve found through people skating to it

Elad: Some real skate nerds playlist.

Grant: Yeah, so, I like Leon Bridges a lot, Future Islands. I’ve been listening to a lot of old dudes like Charles Bradley and Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding. Who was I listening to this morning? Oh, Sam Cooke, his music’s so sick.

Elad: Sam Cooke’s tight. I have his CD in my truck right now.

Grant: Oh really, that’s so sick.

Elad: Are there any skaters you’ve been feeling lately? Who are some of your favorite skaters right now? I know you watch a ton of videos.

Grant: Bronze released a video this week – Nick Ferro, he’s the first dude in it, I love his skating. And it was cool that there was a bunch of him. Who else have I been super hyped on? Let me think for a sec. So much footage came out recently. Oh, Jacco in the Element video is so sick.

Elad: Yeah, his part was insane. Super quick kickflips.

Grant: It’s like tricks that don’t even make any sense.

Grant: Oh,Tanner Van Vark for sure, I’m so hyped on his new part.

Elad: Yeah, he’s similar, just shit you don’t see.

Grant: Yeah, Tom Karangelov is one of my favorites. What I think is sick about him is that he seems to put a lot of effort into finding spots that no one else skates. Especially in the LA area, which is so cool cause it’s so easy here to skate the same stuff.

Elad: I found one of his spots that I’ve never seen before in Oakland, I was just walking my dog and I found this crazy rail to another ledge, and I was like, “where have I seen this?” I couldn’t remember. it looked so gnarly and then, someone told me that Tom K did it. Double grind.

Grant: I was at La Cañada the other day, this School that has a few famous spots. It has that huge shoot out ledge that Reynolds did noseslide bigspin on. Griffin Gass wall rode it in the new girl video too. But there’s like a line that Tom K does in his last skate mental part that when you’re at that spot, he thinks of things that no one else would think of.

Elad: For sure, genius.

Grant: He’ll go to a spot that everyone skates and he just kinda looks at the things that are around them and skates it different or just skates some random alleyway spot that no one else would notice, I think that’s so sick.

Elad: Boss. Alright, let’s wrap it up before this turns into the Skate Fillet podcast. Just nerding out about skaters.

Grant: ‘laughing’ I can do that forever, it’s too hard to stop.

Elad: Shout outs?

Grant: Thank you to Jim, Christian, you, Pat, Luke Damon everyone at Deluxe, Slappy’s Garage, Daniel Policelli for editing the part, and skateboarding, and my family.