Talk to Lizard King for 60 seconds and you’ll instantly see why he’s the sh*t. The guy’s a non-stop explosion of good times and amazing stories. Plus, he’s one of the gnarliest dudes in all of skateboarding.

With that said, CCS is proud to Welcome Lizard King To The Team!

Watch the “Welcome” Video and read on for an extensive interview with the man formally known as, Mike Plumb.

LIZARD…what are you doing right now? Oh dude…I moved back to Salt Lake to try and chill and get my ankle better and I’m trying to get my license back now. It’s an instant anxiety attack. It’s pretty tight. Right now I’m posted up on the couch with a broken ankle.

That sucks. Yeah it’s been eight weeks, dude. I’m like, Come on! It still hurts too. I’m like how long is this gonna take?

How did you do it? Borrowed my friends board and tried to kickflip off a loading dock and tore just absolutely everything in my leg…it just completely let go and gave up on life. It’s so lame. 

That’s beat. Are you out in Salt Lake visiting your folks? I actually have a place here and I rent a place out in California also. I got this cool two bedroom apartment in Salt Lake with a fireplace and a giant goat head above it.

How are you staying busy? Oh god!…Direct TV. Yeah, just watching every movie on Direct TV. If you want to watch the funniest movie ever, you need to see Pirahnna.

Ha! I just watched that the other night. Dude, all it is is tits and death…it’s amazing! Whoever made is a genius!

Let’s backtrack. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, how did you get into skating? Both of my brothers bought boards back in the day and I used to just butt board around.  Then I seen somebody stand up on it one day….I was like, What the hell! This is what it’s for? You don’t sit on it? This is amazing. And after that I was pretty much hooked. I grew up skating, rock climbing, riding motorcycles…I had the most outdoors life ever.  I even quit skating for BMX bikes for a while and somehow managed to start skating again and fell back in love with it and now it’s my life.

How did you get on the map from Salt Lake? [Laughs] People just started coming to Salt Lake. My friend, this dude the Pumpkin King, he skated for Jamie…he was on Zero flow.  He would go out to California and just started telling people about me.  Then people started coming to town and I would show them around. And next thing you know, I moved out to California to Hellrose. It was right when I turned 18…I just dipped. The first day I was there. Shad Lambert showed up, I went into my friend James Atkin’s closest, grabbed out a shirt, a jacket and went and shot a photo doing a backlip on this gap to rail that ended up in a magazine. It was pretty tight.

Who were you riding for then? I was on Think flow for a minute and then they got a new team manager or whatever and he quit sending me boards. I was like, Alright, that sucks. And then I started getting Hollywood boards, and when they went and did Hellrose, I went to Beagle and I was  like, Beagle, put me on Pig dude. And he was like, Yep. Yeah dude, Josh Beagle’s the sh*t! That dude’s the man!

What’s Josh Beagle up to these days? I have no idea, dude! I haven’t seen him in years! Dude, I’ve heard he’s a plummer, a chef, a roofer…I’ve heard so many random stories about that dude. I’m like a plummer and a chef? Like, dude what the f^%k? Josh used to have the most amazing barbecues for us. We’d all go down to San Diego and crash at his house and get hammered. He’d cook us a bunch of food. It was rad.

The entire time you were Am were you just scrappin’ by? Did you have to get a job? My Mom would send me packages of food. Just anything you could make with water, so I didn’t have to buy groceries.  Anything water made. Like water noodles, pasta, Kraft, soup, whatever. It was sick.  And then every now and then I’d sell a board or some shoes or something.

So you never had to get a job? No, when I was in California I never had to get a job.  I used to do random work. My Dad’s a real estate dude so I used to do random work for him. I’d go out and destroy walls. I was the janitor at his office for a couple years. Every Sunday I’d go and take out the garbage, clean toilets, vacuum floors and sh*t.

What do your folks think of your profession now? They’re stoked, man! My Mom brings it up all the time. She’s like, I just can’t believe it! Like you’re in a video game, you got your own shoes, your own pants! Do you know how crazy this is? I’m like, Yeah I try not to think about it that much. I don’t want to trip myself out.

Are your parents bummed that you don’t use your real name? Dude, my Dad self proclaimed himself, “Poppa Satan” because I have all these Satan tattoos and sh*t. They’re both [my parents] always like, What’s up Liz! What’s up King! Half the time they don’t even call me Mike anymore.

Aha! That’s sick. Yeah, I have a whole family of weird sh*t! My oldest brother, they call him The Possom. And my middle brother, they call him The Big Fish. How nuts is that? Everyone has weird nicknames.

So where did the Lizard King nickname come from? That dude The Pumpkin King I was talking about…He was always my favorite skater and I was at the skatepark one day and I never really knew him…And he just walked up and goes, “What’s up Lizard?” I’m like, What? He goes, “That’s your name…Lizard King….you’re the Lizard King.” I’m like, Alright.  And next thing I know….It’s been like 8 or 9 years of nobody ever calling me Mike again. Dude, people will be yelling my real name at a bar and I’ll just be sitting there with no idea that they’re even talking to me.

So is Mike Plumb dead? [Laughs] Yeah, he’s a rare sighting! Sometimes you can catch him. But it’s funny when he comes out. I get weirded out when he comes out. I’m like, Holy sh*t. What am I doing.? I’ll instantly go do a couple shots and bring Lizard right back!

Now that you’re making money, you have a job. Do you feel like a productive member of society? No, dude. I’m just a rebel with a good cause, having a great time.

What’s the story with you and torturing people? I just love torturing people. It’s so much fun. What’s life without a little torture, man! I just like to be entertained so if there’s nothing going on I’ll just start f#%&ing with people…just poking them….slapping them in the face.

Who’s the best dude to torture? I’m trying to think of who is the most sensitive person. It can depend. Like some people really hate it and some people don’t. It’s a gene in my family…to just push peoples buttons. You just push it too many times until you piss the person off and then you’re like, Oh f^&K, sorry dude! I’ve gotten Ellington pretty heated a couple of times. Nuge, I got Nuge pretty pissed off. I live with him, torturing him a bit here and there. It’s always hit or miss, dude.

Does the torture have to do with you being up so early all the time? Dude, normally I’m up at 7:30 AM sharp, when I can skate and I’m cruising around. I’m up, I pace circles in my house until like 10:00 and then I start stomping my feet around the house so people start getting up so we can go do sh*t! When everyone’s sleeping I just pace circles dude! It kills me. I’m pacing circles right now on the phone.

Now that you’re hurt are you just loosing your mind? Oh dude, I go into a deep, deep, deep dark hole.

Do you think skateboarding should be in the Olympics? I’ll go and try to win a gold medal real quick. I mean, I could give a f&*k about winning a medal, but it would be pretty goddamn hilarious to get one [laughs]! But there’s no way it would ever make it. Nobody’s qualified to ride skateboards except skateboarders themselves.

What about people who call skateboarding a sport and refer to you guys as athletes? I think it’s hilarious, dude. If they hung out with me and saw how many cigarettes I smoke and what I do on a nightly basis…if you call chain smoking and drinking beer working out, then yeah it’s a sport. Maybe it’s like the rest and relaxation at the bar is good for your legs. I think it’s a joke when people say it’s a sport. Like I’m an athlete or a professional athlete. Yeah right. The best is when they say skateboarding’s an art. Skateboarding’s not art, dude. You can’t  paint a kickflip down a set of stairs, unless your painting it on a canvas….and then you’re just some idiot painting a dude doing a kickflip down some stairs.

How did you get on Deathwish? Those guys came to Salt Lake and Braydon hit me up. He’s all, “Dude, you got to get on this trip and meet Erik [Ellingotn] and everybody.” I was like, Alright. They showed up to Salt Lake and I got a bunch of tricks and then we went to Colorado. Erik was talking to me about Deathwish at the 303 Boardshop, killin’, drinkin’ beers out back and he [Erik Ellington] drew the Deathwish logo on my ribs. He was like, This is how I want the writing. I was like, ‘Cool…you want a beer, I’ll be right back.’ I went next door to the tattoo shop and got it tatted on my ribs. Basically, I tatted myself on the team!

What did Ellington say when you showed him? [Laughs] He came over with the tall can and goes, “F%$^ Yeah!” He’s like, What if we don’t do it [Deathwish]? I’m like, ‘F%^& it! I’m just glad you asked me to be on that sh*t’! I guess technically I skated for Baker for like a split second. I was skating Baker boards for maybe two months and then I went and tried to airwalk the Hollywood 16 and when I got there Erik was like, Check it out, fool! He showed me this Deathwish board and I just ripped the griptape off the deck I was skating and put it on the brand new Deathwish board. Then I tried to airwalk the 16. It was Ellington, Greco and Reynolds sitting on the roof too. I went like 10 times and then faked like I was hurt because it was way too much pressure. I told Beagle, “Dude you can’t invite Drew and those guys to come skate anymore until I get to know them…it’s too intimidating.”

You still get intimidated by your bosses? No, not at all. Now those guys are just casual, normal dudes.  They’re just straight up homies…those guys are the sh*t!

So with tattoos, do you ever think long about a tattoo or is it more spur of the moment? [Laughs] I don’t know, dude! Sometimes I’ll get an idea for a minute and then other times it’ll be like, F^%& it, dude! I’ll get random sh*t. If somebody has a tattoo gun and it’s out, I’m like, Gimme a tattoo, whatdaya got?

What’s your most recent tat? The most recent I got….You remember Justin Roy from Hollywood [Skateboards] and Foundation. I got, “J. Roy is my homeboy + Molly” on my hand….for his dog Molly.

Do you have any tats that you’re kind of bummed on? F%^K no, dude! I think it’s so funny when people cover up tattoos.  People are all like, Oh I hate this tattoo, I got it when I was 16. Well at least you remember the day of going there and what you did after. I have the sh*ttiest memory but I can tell you a story about every single one of mine.

How does one keep The Passion alive? Sh*t dude, you just got to put it in the air and let it loose and it’ll come back to you. It’s like a never ending cycle. When you hold it in and don’t show it to anybody, that’s why you don’t get any passion back and then that’s when it blows.

Did you get CCS Catalogs to your house when you were growing up? Yeah, Dude! Oh, man…I used to read it like a magazine, just circling things that I wanted and secretly leave the page open with it circled so my Mom could see me swoop in on trying to get her to buy me some sh*t [laughs]. CCS, that was my first introduction to like a magazine or anything like that. But it was pure torture. I got to see all this cool sh*t that I never got to buy.

How did your Supra shoe, the Bullit come about? I walked in [to Supra] and it was the shelf, in a section with stuff that wasn’t getting made. I was like, ‘You’re not gonna make this shoe?! This is the best shoe I’ve ever seen in my life! They were like, ‘You like that?’ I walked in right there, had a meeting and instantly came out with a pro model shoe….ready to go, made. Done. Like everyone else has to wait like a year for their shoe to come out, my just instantly came out. They were like, we can already make that. I was like, Make it, put my name on it. Dude, a month later I had a shoe with my name on it being sent to my house.

Check Lizard’s new site, Lizard’s Wild Kingdom. Portrait by Landi. Skate shots by Yoon Sul.

Get Lizard’s signature goods here.