Pro Skater Henry Sanchez - Epicly Later'd - VICE

HENRY SANCHEZ: Oh, I was a punk, man.
I used to fuck with everybody.
Shit, when I was bored at school, I used to draw people
and then have little arrows pointing at different things
wrong with their gear and shit like that.
[LAUGHTER].
And then I would show everybody at EMB and shit.
You got to edit that out man.
[LAUGHTER],
PATRICK O'DELL: Hi, welcome to the "Epicly Later'd" show.
This episode is about Henry Sanchez.
Henry is famous for skating EMB.
It was this spot in San Francisco at the
end of Market Street.
It just was like the central point of skateboarding.
Almost every skater in the crew was
sponsored or became pro.
And Henry was definitely one of the most influential
skaters of that group, along with Mike Carol
and some other people.
Henry really brought in a new set of tricks to
skateboarding.
Like, sometimes people get really technical and skate
slow, but not Henry.
And I asked him a lot of nerdy questions.
This is me getting nerdy on Henry Sanchez at EMB.

It seemed like the ground's really rough.
Like the bricks.
HENRY SANCHEZ: Yeah, I don't understand how
we did that, man.
Because back then the wheels were even smaller.
And it wasn't a problem back then.
I guess when you get better you start getting pickier.
Tripping on little cracks here and there, but
look at this place.
It's a mess.
PATRICK O'DELL: Like each one of these
little holes is a axle.

HENRY SANCHEZ: I always wanted to do something different.
But not really try to draw to much attention
to myself, you know?
Just do me.
I was intimidated because everybody was
rude to all the newcomers.
And people were ignoring me for a little while.
And then I just started skating.
And if you're good, they're going to be
cool with you, I guess.
THORIN RYAN: You definitely had to be able to put up with
people talking shit to you.
You know what I mean?
You couldn't be fake.
Like, fake ass dudes just weren't allowed to hang out.
It didn't matter who you were.
You could be pro, you could be just some
300 pound black dude.
If you were straight up and was cool, you could hang out.
If you weren't, it wasn't going to happen.
Being a pro didn't mean shit down here.
You get smacked up just like everyone
else if you act stupid.
LAVAR MCBRIDE: And having your own board.
It's just about--
MALE SPEAKER: Gold teeth.
LAVAR MCBRIDE: Huh?
Gold teeth?
Oh.
AARON MEZA: There was like-- dude, you hear about Jamie
Thomas who was supposedly a dude who came to Barcadero and
had a hard time.
HENRY SANCHEZ: We had it out for Jamie Thomas.
He was a pro back then.
I have no idea why.
[LAUGHTER].
It was just a local thing or something.
Maybe because he came to California and we thought that
he was just trying to juice it too much or something.
I don't know.
It was really stupid.
I actually emailed him and apologized for whatever I may
have done to him.
[LAUGHTER].
That's just how it was.
We were assholes.
[LAUGHTER].
AARON MEZA: I think people have this whole idea that
anybody who went there that wasn't from there was getting
their boards stolen.
But they would also do that to each other a lot of
times too, you know?
JAMES KELCH: Yeah, yeah, I'd throw my board and break it
all the time.
Throw it at kids.
There would be posses of kids sitting there watching me
skate, and I'd think they were laughing at me.
They probably weren't.
I was just--
not kids, either.
I always say the word "kid" and people get it wrong.
People the same age as me.
I'd throw my board right at their whole crew.
Smash right into them without them looking because I thought
they were laughing at me.
But yeah, yeah, no doubt.
I probably broke a board every day.
HENRY SANCHEZ: It all started with skating.
I was a kind young man.
I never really stressed out on anything before skating.
Then I started skating and I just started stressing out.
And then it started going into my personality.
Like if someone would say the wrong thing to me, I'd be
like, what, grrr.
THORIN RYAN: He was the original tantrum kid as far as
focusing boards, and dipping boards, and screaming at your
board, throwing your board, he was the original
dude to start that.
ROB WELSH: He was a little stress case.
He would just skate around and be better
than everyone, basically.
He was really good, even then.
But he would stress real bad.
He'd fling his board around and freak out.
We called him "Hen-Punt." He was a little
asshole, but I loved him.
THORIN RYAN: There'd be like literally 400 kids
skating in the park.
And Henry, and Mike, and sometimes Javontae would come
through, and everyone would sit down because they would
just want to watch.
I mean, even people who could skate and who were down here
everyday like me, you'd just want to sit down and just
watch what they were doing.
It was ridiculous.
Like the switch stand stuff and the nosegrind stuff.
AARON MEZA: He would just be like, hey, let's
just try to film this.
He wouldn't be like, hey, I want to do this.
This is the trick.
It was just like, hey, grab the camera, let's
get this, you know?
But it was just that thing where every day he would do
something that you'd never seen.
Or one thing that I really remember that he did first,
and I was really tripping out pretty hard and I was like,
wow, that was super gnarly, was he did a fakie.
Filoed a fakie flip out.
And you just see him getting close to it
right away, like, whoa.
And it probably didn't take him that many tries.
But he had that terminator board.
I remember just seeing it like--
[CHUCKLE].
You can just see the graphic.
He just did it completely perfect.
MIKE CARROLL: We skated a lot together when we first met
each other.
And it's weird because I remember him.
There was a point where he was trying all kinds of shit.
He was trying and trying and sometimes he'd do it.
And this was when we were skating together a lot.
And then, it's the same summer that I went down to San Diego.
And I came back and it was just like, holy shit.
Dude, this dude got fucking sick.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROB WELSH: The best way to describe Henry's skating is
he's kind of like a bowling ball.
He was just plowing through ledges like
there was no tomorrow.
And I think Henry's part of the main reason they skate
stopped all these ledges here because they're so round and
gouged out.
It's pretty sick.
It's like, oh, if it got skate stopped, it got skate stopped
for a reason.
There's no more ledge, anyways.
He just used it up.
You should go to a clip right now, if you got one.
MALE SPEAKER: I think when they do that, it's uglier than
any skate mark possible.

DAEWON SONG: He skated just raw.
He was like the raw guy.
Raw street.
He always did the newest shit that none of us could do.
He came down and you were like, how
can you be that good?
You know what I mean?
And then we were all like the guys who just watch and going,
all right, what's Henry going to do now?
And then he would do it and we were like, fuck.
How's that?
MALE SPEAKER: How's that?
DAEWON SONG: How's that?

HENRY SANCHEZ: I hooked up with Guy Mariano and Daewon.
And Guy was really cool and he was like, come stay with us
and blah, blah, blah.
Stay down here.
And that was Guy Mariano and he was like one
of my favorite dudes.
So I was like, hell yeah.
And then I went skating with Gonz one day.
And then Guy was like, do this trick, do that trick, like
tricks that they saw me do before.
[LAUGHING].
And then I did a couple tricks and Mark's like, you're on.
It was the best day of my life in skateboarding, man, to be
accepted by him.
If Mark was happy with my skating, then that's all that
mattered, you know?
And he was happy with it, so I guess
that's all that mattered.
JAKE PHELPS: I mean, after he did the backside noseblunt,
that was his pinnacle moment.
It was like, wow, who's this dude?
And then everybody wanted it, but skating was so small that
there was no way that people could--
he's the guy, I want a zillion of his boards or whatever.
There was no marketing behind any of it now.
Now it's like if some guy does some mega trick, that's the
guy for that moment.
And then until that time or somebody ups it, guess what,
you're out.
HENRY SANCHEZ: Those were some dark years for me.
I wasn't too into skateboarding and improving
myself at that point.
I was just sad.
I don't know why.
In reality, I didn't have any worries.
All I had to do was ride my skateboard.
[LAUGHTER].
But I was young though, so, oh well.
But yeah, this is the place where I could've proven
myself, but I didn't.
I proved to be a drunk.
[LAUGHTER].
I would sit on that bench right there and drink
all day, with Geez.
It's like the cool thing to say you don't have regrets.
But yeah, of course.
I could look back at a lot of things that I
should have done better.
I should have took advantage of the skill that I had.
And I didn't realize that until my skill had diminished.
And yeah, when I look back and I'm like, fuck, why didn't I
just skate?
I could've took more advantage of the opportunity that I had.
I didn't.
You know Girl skateboards, I should've rode for them, too.
I had a lot of bills because I was making
good money with Blind.
I couldn't sustain my lifestyle or even keep my car
or my apartment.
If I were to ride for Girl, I would have had to take my car
back or something drastic like that.
And I didn't want to do that but I probably should have.
It was a dumb mistake.
I should've went with those guys.
PATRICK O'DELL: So what have you been doing lately?
HENRY SANCHEZ: A lot of people just totally counted me out.
And there's a lot of lost time, and a lot of
making up I had to do.
And I just felt the flame from inside get heated up again,
and I was on a mission to prove myself once again.
I didn't like where I was standing in terms of my spot
in skate history.
I thought that I deserve more.
You know, more recognition.
So I had to prove myself again.
I'm already happy now.
I'm in a new career.
I'm a auto body tech at a auto body shop.
It's good man.
And I'm going to be making my own hot rods
and shit like that.
So if you're a pro out there and you want a hot rod, holla.
Because I'll hook it up for cheap, dog.
Like a sick one.
No rust buckets.
[LAUGHTER].
PATRICK O'DELL: You can fix up Brady's van.
HENRY SANCHEZ: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
I could definitely hook that shit up.
I saw it.
It doesn't look like it needs much fixing.
But under the carpet, you never know.
It could be a lot of rust and shit like that underneath.
But all the trim and the interior exterior looks clean
on the shit.
I was actually stoked to see somebody invest money into a
old school vehicle like that.
It was tight.
I like that.
[CHUCKLE].