CCS Rider Brandon Westgate has had a hell of a couple of years. He’s turned pro, put out two serious video parts and is on the verge of his Emerica pro shoe release. To celebrate Brandon’s heavy hitting streak, we’re bringing WESTGATE WEEK, straight to your screen!

Tune in to the CCS Blog every day this week for new EXCLUSIVE Videos of Brandon Westgate!

To set WESTGATE WEEK off properly, we caught up with Brandon at his new Wareham, Massachusetts home and picked his brain about some of this and some of that. Read on and feel the hype. Westgate Week’s only just begun!

So, how far is your new house from where you actually grew up? It’s on the other side of town, its like ten minutes away.

You can literally live wherever you want in the world. Why stay in Wareham? I just found a cool spot here and I know everybody in town. There’s a real good skatepark not that far away. I don’t know, I just kind of like here. It’s nice and quiet.

What was it like growing up in Wareham? It’s just like a real small town. It’s kind of like everybody knows everybody. There’s this one little skatepark that I would always skate, this little indoor one. Plus, it’s about 40 minutes from Boston, so that was cool. We’d always take the train up and just go and skate around the city, me and my friends.

How much time do you spend home? Lately I’ve been gone a lot but that was just because I was working on that Emerica video. After that, I’ve been home a lot, just chillin’. I’ll mainly go on like two weeklong trips or something like that and then I’ll be home for a week or two.

At 21, you’ve already been all over the world. Is it weird to think you’ve already seen more than most people 4 times your age? Yeah, it’s pretty insane. Especially since I tell people around here about my trips. A lot of people around here are just kind of stuck here. It’s pretty crazy. I’ve just been doing it for a long time, so it’s not new to me but I’m still stoked on it.

You still like being on tour? Definitely. I love traveling. When I stay home too long, I just start going crazy. And it’s so cool because you learn sh#@ that you’d never think you’d learn, all from just seeing other cultures.

What’ the sickest place you’ve been to? Probably the craziest place I’ve been to is South Africa. It was just really trippy there. They’ve got no rules or laws and it’s just really trife there.

Did things get sketchy? Well, we were at this one intersection and the tour guides were telling us that we were in the sketchiest part of the city where people would just get killed. They’d throw tires over people and the just light them on fire with gasoline and sh#@. They were just telling us these gnarly stories and there’s all these sketchy people around us and we look so out of place, shooting photos and filming. It was super sketchy.

You were a little kid when you first started getting coverage and now you’re a full-grown man. As you started to grow physically did you notice that your pop grew as well? I always really liked to ollie things, but I think as I grew I just started skating different things and really figured out what I like to skate. I don’t know if I ever realized that my pop grew or anything. Once I started getting up one thing, I would just try to go higher and high. I’d just go to the skatepark and just try to ollie up everything.

You pretty much had back-to-back parts, from State Of Mind to Stay Gold. Most people, film a part and then they’re done for a while. Was it a hustle knowing you were trying to film two parts? I would just basically go on Emerica trips or Zoo trips and whoever I filmed with, they would just keep the footage. At one point I was just always going on trips and I would just try to get as much as I could on each trip. And once the Zoo video finished I just mainly focused on the Emerica video.

Were you shocked with how much footage you were able to get? Yeah, kind of. I was really focusing on the Zoo part because I knew that was coming out first, so I was trying to focus going on a lot of trips with them. But at the same time I was going on Emerica trips. We were working on the Zoo video for 2 to 3 years, and the same with the Emerica video. Even at the end, it never feels like you have enough stuff, but there’s nothing you can do. 

Now that you’re done with Stay Gold are you filming for anything else? I’m coming out with a shoe for Emerica, so I’ve been working on this shoe video. So lately I’ve just been going out with [Jon] Miner. We did a couple trips and I’ve just been filming for that.

So when’s your shoe dropping? It’s coming out in the Spring.

Without giving away too many details, is there anything you were trying to do with the design of your shoe? I always liked mid-tops that were vulcanized. So it’ll have that. Plus, they’ve got this new insole that’s in it that’s really soft and cushiony that I’m really stoked on. I’ve been skating in the samples for a while now and I’m really stoked on them, they’re really awesome.

You’ve had a crazy couple of years. Turned pro, two huge video parts, signature gear at Zoo came out, now you got a shoe about to drop. Ever feel any sort of pressure? I don’t think so. I think that’s why I live over here [Wareham], so I don’t really have to hear anything (laughs). I just try to skate and keep coming out with stuff so my sponsors are psyched. I just try to do that and have fun skating. 

Photos Shot by Sean Cronan and Kyle Camarillo.

In celebration of Westgate Week, a ton of Zoo York & Emerica product are sale. Get’em now before the week is over.