In skateboarding, style is everything…and CCS Rider Brian Anderson has got plenty of the stuff to go around. But the thing about Brian is, his style extends to anything and everything he does as a human being. The way BA walks, talks, thinks…it’s all part of one big package of legendary style.

Since Brian handles CCS’s newest catalog cover, we tracked him down for a long overdue interview. Read on as BA talks about an upcoming move to New York, his future as a designer, the Toy Machine days, Nike and more. All style, all day long. Classic Brian Anderson.

So you’re in New York now. Are you visiting just for fun? No, I’m moving here in October. I’ve been on the East Coast for about 5 days now. I needed a break…I’ve had a busy month or two. Basically, I want to skate for like four more years, I hope. I’m trying to slowly move into the design world and New York is a good place to do it. I am so stoked. You don’t know how sick I am of being cold in July. I’m like, ‘This is wrong, I should not have a hoodie on right now.’ I mean I love SF; I’ve been there for 10 years. I love the weed and avocados, but other than that, I’m out.

New York is the best, man. I’m from there and I miss it daily. Are you moving to Brooklyn? Yeah, most likely. I’ve been looking around at a couple different neighborhoods. It’s just been good to be on the train and see how far out the stops really are in person. It’s like I don’t know if I want to be too far out in the middle of February, not living close to friends, but I definitely don’t want to live too close to Sesame Street…like Bedford Avenue. I mean, do you. Teenagers, people in their 20’s, it’s rad to experiment, but I’m getting older and I don’t want to be around a bunch of hipsters everyday.

So want kind of design do you want to get into? I’m starting to learn footwear design now with Nike, which is really incredible. That’s what people pay a lot of money to go to school for. I had a big meeting with [Nike SB] where I went to them to ask for a signature shoe. They were like, ‘We have way too much going on and we can’t give you a signature shoe.’ I said, “All right, cool. But can I design a brand new shoe for you?” And the main guy, Sandy Bodecker, was like, “I’ll shake your hand right now, Brian and I’ll tell you yes, you can design a shoe.” And it kind of went from there and I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t need a signature shoe anymore because it’s really an honorable thing to do design work with Nike.’ It was flattering. And they’re really serious about it and so am I. I’ve been drawing a lot and I got a new computer, and I’ll be taking some classes to learn Adobe and sh*t like that. I worked with Savier for a while and those people kind of sucked the life and blood and soul out of me, and I kind of didn’t want anything to do with that kind of sh*t for a bunch of years. And now I’m ready again.

Do you still do a lot of artwork? I want to. I always have my sketchbook and stuff. And that’s another reason why I look forward to being here (New York). I want to share a decent sized space with some friends and be able to paint and leave your stuff out on the floor. I have a tiny studio out in SF and I don’t even go their because it’s so small. And I know it’s small here too, but I think there’s more opportunity in New York. SF’s kind of sleepy.

You think you’ll stick out the New York winters? I think I’ll last til about New Years and then I’ll hightail it to LA and SF. A lot of times we do trips to Australia with Girl and Nike because that’s their summers. I’m not tripping, I’ll probably be back for a week or two here and there between January and March and by April I’ll be back here, ready go rope swinging and sh*t in Connecticut.

So you have a big family, do they trip on what you do for a living? Well, they saw me skating growing up. I mean I used to work in a kitchen. I was going to go to culinary school. I wasn’t going to be a skater. I wasn’t like, ‘Dude! This is my dream, I’m gonna make a sponsor me tape.’ It just ended up working out because my friends Donny Barley and Judd (Hertzler) were involved on a sponsored level. But yeah, my brothers and sisters, they don’t trip off it. They’re like, ‘Of course that’s what he’s doing.’ And you know, not to get too deep, but my Dad died a while back and my Mom sold that house we grew up in. Now there’s all these nieces and nephews and grandchildren. It’s pretty hard for all of us to keep in really close touch. We try. I have a bunch of sisters that I’m closer with than others and some I haven’t seen in 4 or 5 years. And every summer when there’s a family reunion I’m on tour. So I’m like, ‘Sorry. I can’t go.’

It seems like your entire pro career was just chance. Was it almost a shock to you when you got hooked up with Toy Machine and things starting working out? Well, not really because towards that point I really started to focus on it. I wasn’t like, ‘I don’t give a sh*t.’ I was like, ‘Dude, I’ll f%#*ing try this. Hell yeah!’ Cause my friends were like, ‘You should go to California one more time and stay with Judd in Sacramento. You just got to do it!’ And I was like, ‘You guys are right. Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.’ I’m glad it was there, in Sacramento. I mean I don’t have anything against San Diego, but a lot of people ended going down there and it could kind of f&*k your head up. Especially in the late 90’s, everybody was pretty f*&#ing hungry down there. So Sacramento was a great place to do it. I was good friends with Mike Rafter. He was sponsored, but also filming. Then he had some injuries and started filming more than he was skateboarding for work. So it was cool. I had Mike Rafter and this guy Domingo and they helped me film the best things I could. And a lot of people know the story. I was like, ‘I want to go Frontside Bluntslide Hubba Hideout. Let’s go to San Francisco and try it.’ This was after I had driven around SF for a couple days with Jamie Thomas and Muska and Donny Barley and Ed Templeton and skated with them. They basically gave me some old boards out of the back of the van and said, “Hey dude, you were pretty sick today you should make us a tape.”

So that’s when I went back to Sac and they sent me a few Toy Machine boards….2 or 3. And I was broke. I was borrowing weed and trading boards to pay that back and then I’d have one left and I’d break that. So it was so f#$%in hard (laughs). You know, I don’t want to sound like a total derelict. I was an average kid just being 18 or 19, sitting around, skateboarding, smoking weed and drinking beers. So I did make an effort for sure with that sponsor me tape and it worked out really good. I mean I was pretty sketchy. I was just some kid from the East Coast, skating rough ground and crappy spots so, if you landed something you were psyched. I had never tried to land something with a clean rollaway (laughs). So I skated pretty wild back then. But that kind of made me who I am. I kind of learned to do things a little bit smoother. It feels better to roll away clean. So Jamie was a little bit skeptical and I think some people talked some sh*t on him for that but, of course, he should be. You’re running a company. You got to make sure the people you’re gonna put on are worth it. So they all wanted me to come to San Diego and that’s when it started to unfold. We stayed at Jamie’s house with Donnie, Chad and Elissa was there, with Adrian Lopez. And we skated for maybe a month and a half more and then we made the video (Welcome To Hell), finished editing it, put it out. And then we went out on our U.S. Tour.

A lot of pros never had to work a regular job before. Has the working of normal jobs before your skate career took off given you some perspective at all? Yeah, I think it does even more now. I have plenty of friends who are doing great back home in Connecticut and I have plenty of friends that aren’t doing so great. You know how small towns can be. There’s nothing wrong with a small town, but if you have a big personality and ambition and you get stranded in a small town, it can ruin you. If you have an addictive personality…we all have friends that got into drugs or ended up in jail. Working for a living and earning money and sweating and doing long hours and not sleeping enough and going back to that damn restaurant where it’s hot and you just want to be outside with your friends…yeah of course it taught me a lot to cherish this job of skateboarding. But you know the grass is always greener. I don’t want to be a whiner, but like Rock n’ Roll bands. People are like, ‘Oh my god, you get to go to Paris!’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah we do but you know what, you see a hotel lobby, a tour bus and the venue.’ You’re not going to Paris and wining and dining and going to all these awesome places. It’s pretty raw and especially with skateboarding. And that’s why I love it, because it ain’t easy. I like to think that’s why I’ve been in it for a while because I feel like I have some good insight. I mean, you got to be able to be polite when you’re in a bad mood when you get off a flight and some kids are like, “Oh my god! I want your hat, I want your board, I want your life!” And you want to punch them in the face but you got to go, “Sorry, we’re going to the hotel, I’ll see you at the demo tomorrow.” That’s not easy for some people. I guess some of that comes from working because I learned a lot of social skills working at a grocery store where I had to talk to people that I probably didn’t want to at all. But I didn’t want to get fired, so you learn to be polite even when you’re slightly grumpy. Having a job, I always recommend it to kids when I talk to them or do an interview. Try to get a job dishwashing or entry level sh*t when you’re 15 or 16. Go to a grocery store and bag groceries. It’s really good and it helps you through life.

Like you said, I think a lot of kids see skateboarding as a dream job. But there’s some serious pressures, whether you’re on tour, putting on a demo or working on a video part… Yeah, and that’s why I’m really glad that I was really patient. Toy Machine was great and it was wonderful. It went through a lot of changes and that’s why I left, but because of my patience and my sort of knack for what’s right, I kind of waited. And I ended up at a place at Girl where it’s not annoying to be on tour and we are really careful about who we sort of invite on trips to see if we’re all gonna get along. We have a really solid group of guys. Nobody thinks they’re the sh*t, nobody thinks they’re too cool for school. But when you know what you want it’s important to have the right people around you. So yeah, it’s hard and it’s stressful, but being with those guys (Girl), it’s the best. We don’t have to babysit unless somebody gets hammered, which is normal (laughs), but you know, I’m really lucky with those guys. And that’s another reason why I keep going. Because when I go on tour with them it’s not like, ‘Oh god! This is so forced! I wish I was with my real friends’…because they are my real friends. We know everything about each other and we’re totally supportive of each other. So I’m really fortunate to be in that place.

You’ve been around to see skating change quite a bit. Do you feel like you’ve fallen into a place in your career where you’re comfortable skating the way you skate and not feel the need to jump down the biggest set of stairs? Yeah, I mean I didn’t necessarily invent anything, but from where I grew up, skating my friend Jason’s mini ramp and skating a ditch, a firehouse and then flatground and a couple of vert ramps…seeing that whole Providence Rhode Island Skate Hut crowd of like Fred Smith and all these gnarly East Coast vert skaters; I mean I learned so much diversity from all that. But I still do push myself and do want to try my hardest, of course. But you know, you get to a point on tour, and you see this happen with college basketball and the NBA. It’s like those college kids are hungry and the game goes so fast. And then they get into the NBA and they’re like, ‘Ok, I got this stuff I got to do this season, but if I feel something off I’m gonna be careful because I don’t want to get hurt.’ I see that in a lot of sports. Sometimes it slows down with the pros because you’re trying to be a little careful and you want longevity.  A lot of days when I was coming up, I’d try something even if my feet weren’t feeling right or if I was cold. Because you’re like, ‘F*&# it, this is my chance, I got to do this sh*t.’ And now, I wouldn’t say it’s laziness, it’s more experience where if I feel a little bit off one day I can look at the photographer and the filmer and say, “Dude, I don’t want to try this. It’s too windy, my toe hurts.” Like, “I don’t trust my legs today.” And I’ll go and skate some flat, and I’ll go to the gym a lot too so I can keep my legs even. And then I’ll get myself pumped up and go back to the spot and be like, ‘All right, today I’m f$*&ing ready because I want to have a good video part.’ You just get more careful with certain things, but I’ve never ended up at a point where I feel that I’m lazy, because otherwise I would make those guys take my name off my board and I would retire.

I’m not tripping off it at all. We just did a tour in Florida for this Chocolate/Girl video and I got some clips. I got like three clips that I’m proud of, that are totally worthy of the video. And I’ve got a bunch of other clips from before that. I’m still really focused and I’m trying to push myself really, really hard this year. And it’s really cool because Nike knows that this video is really important to me and to Nike and to everybody. I mean people are gonna want to see the Girl/Chocolate video pretty damn bad because there’s a big ol’ list of rippers. And Ty’s an incredible videographer, filmer, editor. I mean, I’d want to see it even if I wasn’t on Girl.  I mean I can’t even wait. I feel really good about everything right now. It’s a real good time for me…knock on wood (laughs).

You mentioned you go to the gym, do you do stuff that helps your skating? Well, I stretch a lot at my house. Some of my sisters are into gymnastics and sh*t and so I was taught young. A lot of people in my family were into jogging and cross-country. And I was always really physical. I liked playing basketball and soccer. But now at the gym, I just stretch a lot when I get there for a good 15, 20 minutes. You get those cylindrical foam roller things and roll around on the outside of your legs and on your back and it helps crack your back. And I just lift a mild amount of weights. Nothing crazy because I don’t want to be top heavy. I don’t want to be some big beefcake cause then I wouldn’t be able to skateboard. I want a little bit of strength. I mean I wish I could learn inverts, dammit (laughs). Then I’ll do maybe 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer because I have a claustrophobia and a little bit of achiness in one of my knees…so if I ride a bicycle at the gym I can’t do it. It’s funny, I joked about hating on fixed gears and I really don’t hate them. You know you just hate a bunch of posers in any city. But it’s a fact, I could never ride one because I’m so claustrophobic…I can’t keep peddling. I lose my mind. It’s like, ‘What? I can’t stop, I have to keep pedaling? No way! I can’t do this!’ (Laughs) I need to free wheel or take my feet off for a minute. But I really respect it, I’m sure it’s really fun if you’re cool with it. I know Gabe (Morford) and all that started it in the city, at least before it was popular…When I see Cardiel and Julien it’s like next level skating, I get it. I think it’s rad.

Since this is for CCS, which Nike SB’s are you hyped on? In the very beginning I rode Dunks, because that was the most major thing they had. And then I got more into the Blazer. Your foot sits a little bit lower in the footbed of that particular shoe and I realized that I enjoy that more. With a Dunk you’re kind of more on top of your outsole. I like being down deeper into my shoe, so the Blazer’s, I love it. It’s not the most kind thing to your feet if you’re jumping down stairs, but you can certainly do really good flatground and manuals and you have a lot of control over your board with that shoe. Then when Stefan’s shoe came out, it felt kind of tight at first and I wasn’t really sure I was gonna be able to do it, but after you wear them for a day or two they start to expand. The suede starts to move and I tell people…to me it’s like a baseball glove. So that shoe’s really tight at first, but I just walk around in them and go to the store. And when you break that shoe in, it doesn’t last incredibly long, but that’s a damn good skateboarding shoe.  He (Stefan) is psyched, he got what he wanted with his design and I’m happy for him because it’s a pretty good shoe. So now I mostly wear the Stefan’s. And he just came out with a Mid, which I didn’t think would change anything…but I put those on and they actually feel really good around my ankles. So, hopefully I’m going to say that the Stefan Mid is my new sh*t right now.

You’ve been riding Indy’s for a while, right? Yeah, I’m terrible with numbers. When I was little it was like, 136, 146 and now it’s like 139, 149. I don’t even remember. Now I go into the store…I ride an 8 and half inch board because I’m 6’4 and have a size 13 foot. So an 8 and half inch board is perfect for me. Everybody’s always like, ‘Damn, an 8 ½ inch board is huge!’ And I’m like, ‘Well, look at me (laughs).’ So I kind of find the trucks that match that width. I’m not sure, I think they’re 149’s.

What do you like about Indy’s? I like they way they look. And I don’t need the light ones, I like that they’re almost heavier, they feel more substantial. And I love the Indy turning radius. I think Thunder’s look cool, I think Venture’s look cool and Aces. And even Royal’s look pretty damn cool. Personally I love Indy’s, I love everything about them.

Get Brian’s newest Girl Decks and the goods he rides from Nike SB & Independent.