An awesome opportunity came to our doorstep, a first look and first stateside interview with Japan’s riding crew T19 . You can get a sense of their spirit and inspiration for this culture. Inspiration can come from anywhere in the world and can come in any form, riding alone exposes one to various information during the experience. Discover what a hamburger symbolizes to T19, its an amazingly honest perspective on the US culture. Get to know them better, read below.
What is T19?
In the beginning, it was just a circle of friends. back in ‘84, there werent really skaters around in tokyo except for us(mino, skatething and me) then we were just saying we should have a team called T19. Don’t we all do that when you are kids? To have a team or some sort with your buddies? Then way later in ‘92, we started to make our own boards as a company.
We just like to create a scene in tokyo. to make skateboarding a rigid street culture in our city as its still making it its way to it, and we’d be to happy if we can share our local characteristic diversity with the rest of the world.
At the age of 10, me and 2 other friends of mine pitched in to buy one skateboard after seeing my bigger brother started to skate. On top of the board which was about 7 inches long/made out of glassfiber, there was of course the stars and stripes graphics. the area I grew up had the steepest hills around, so the only thing we used to do was to go up those hills with tictacs then down hills on the way back.
Do you plan to get into more than "streetlife?", maybe gear, street fashion?
Well, we’ve been shooting and editing videos here and there around the clock but it hasnt been actualized recently. At the same time, we’ve been going snowboarding and shooting vidoes for Burton’s promotion. It’s time consuming, but we’ll get something out there for sure specially skate video. Also, singo’s second signature board has been just released. To tell you the truth, I’d like to do well with our sales with the decks.
Do you plan to ever tour in the US? Will you let us know?
We dont have a plan to do a US tour in the near future at the moment however, yes of course we would love to do that. If we do so, I want jessica to be our guide.
いまのところは無いね。もちろん行きたいけど。行くならjessicaにガイドしてもらいたいな。
You have a hamburger tank, what is the hamburger for?
It was created by skatething at the end of the year 911 tragedy happened. Like how you guys were bombed by the terrorists, we’ve been assaulted by the american culture. Hamburger is an icon of america. To us its larger than the statue of liberty in a symbolic way. We added the wings of dog town to that and put it on top of Allan Gelfand’s tank!
Skateboard goods are and will always be our prior products. Singo’s new model will be released in june. It’s gonna be the skatething’s most heart putted design of all!
What would you like the U.S. skaters to learn about the T19 skaters and the skate/fixed gear scene in Japan?
I’m very happy about the fact that T19 had gotten lots of attention because of this bike movement. I’d like to thank whoever has interest in what we are doing before anything. and what pleased me the most out of this is I was able to connect with those people through the movement or just bike itself as a tool which is much popular than skateboard. I would like those people who had discoverd the joy of riding bikes or learning tricks to also discover the joy of skateboarding on the same level. And i feel like it is our duty to let them experience that. Paradoxically, riding bikes convinced me that skateboarding is the coolest street sport. And i have a feeling many skaters out there are feeing the same!
Thank you T19 for letting Fatlace get an exclusive inside look of who you all are and what you are all about. As mentioned above, the movement is incredible isnt it? We’re grateful to be connected in any shape or form; it allows us to think greater, look wider and discover beyond what is in front of us. We hope to see more of the crew ride the streets here in the US.
Kaori, Otaki and Igei
