Evan Smith Interview

FOUR-BILLION YEARS AGO, errant meteorites slammed into the lifeless lump of stone that is planet Earth, sprinkling their cosmic crud like so much dandruff and sparking what would eventually become Orlando, Florida (and the rest of life as we know it), though all of that took a hell of a lot of time. It was there that a young Evan Smith picked up a skateboard toy, his instant mastery of which leads us to believe that he’d somehow absorbed a little more than his fair share of that original space gunk. Or maybe it was just concentrated in the Orlando city drinking water. Florida’s notoriously sloppy with issues of infrastructure like that. Either way, dude is out of this world. Or more specifically, he’s got a little extra-terrestrial-ity about him. He’s like us, but with a touch of something special—something weird and wonderful. Endlessly curious, freakishly good at whatever he tries, possessing relentless PMA—looks like a goddamned ET too, come to think of it. Star. Head. Body. Evan Smith, folks, live from outer space! Where’d you go? Where are you going next? This year has been fucking mental. I’ve been all over the globe, which is such an awesome experience. We went to Barcelona for a month, we went to Australia, went to South America multiple times, just went to Brazil with DC. The reason why we’ve been traveling so much is because Element is making a video and I’m trying to put out a Thrasher part in January. With the combination of those two things, I’ve been going nonstop. What goes through your head when thinking about your own shoe? I’m just stoked that I have a shoe. Having the opportunity to sell something that you like with your name on it is humongous, you know what I mean? Obviously with DC’s technical support and my idea for sort of a classic hightop mixed with a boat shoe type of thing, we’ve combined some really cool technology with some really relaxed features. Those were the things that were going through my head, like, “How can I like make a comfy shoe that lasts a long time that skates great?” You know what I mean? It’s, like, I want kids to be stoked on skating, regardless. If I can add to that in any way this is an opportunity for me. I was all, “Yeah, let’s make a shoe!” I already had a hundred ideas ready to go. Let’s just say I had a couple ideas because my brain works way too quick when it comes to creating. So I’m lucky. That’s how I feel at this moment. That’s how I feel at this exact moment—I feel extremely lucky to be able to contribute to our skateboarding industry.