Pro Skater Fred Gall - Epicly Later'd - VICE

FRED GALL: See, if I brought some dudes to this, they'd be
like, are you fucking serious, man?
I don't know if I'm gonna be able to rig this one.
I'll try, though.

Fuck it, let's move on.
That's good enough, right?
PATRICK O'DELL: Hi.
Welcome back to the Epically Later'd show.
This episode, I went out to Jersey, met up with Fred Gall.
He took me around.
We looked at spots, incredibly crappy spots that you gotta
skate if you're from New Jersey or if you're from the
East Coast.
I think Fred brought something refreshing to
skating in the mid-'90s.
Those Eastern Exposure videos were just guys hauling ass
down the street, skating switch--
you know, pole jams and late shove-its and stuff.
[CHEERING]
PATRICK O'DELL: That's it.
This is a day in the life with Freddy Gall.
FRED GALL: So what's up, man?
Check it out.
You know, usually all these pro skaters, they got their
hot rides and shit.
Well, I rock my grandmother's station wagon, man.
Love this car.
I learned to ollie in this driveway, actually.
I'll show you.
I have a parking block that we stole when I was 10 years old,
and it's still there.
It's been in my grandmother's driveway for 18 years.
PATRICK O'DELL: You're still the skate whiz to her?
FRED GALL: Yeah.
28-year-old skate whiz.
We'll go meet her right now.
Hello.
Hi.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Oh.
Not me.
FRED GALL: Well, now it's a flower--

FRED GALL: It's all right.
I'm just showing them.
Yeah, this has been here for 18 years now.
Used to slide good.
I don't know, it doesn't look like it anymore.
No complies and stuff.
It's pretty funny.
FEMALE SPEAKER: He had a ramp right there.
And he would skate all day, all night, clunking away.
And of course, I took him to all the stores
to get him his clothes.
You see, I don't understand his profession.
I don't understand it.
And when he'd say, look it, I'm getting a sponsor.
Look at my picture in a magazine, or on the boards and
the sneakers.
I couldn't comprehend.
How could this all happen?
FRED GALL: This is my first board graphic.
Neil Blender drew it on, like, a napkin or
something like that.
And I was pretty hyped.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah, we're very proud of him.
Except get a job, Fred.
Yeah, we all care and love Freddy.
He can do no wrong in my eyes.
I'll tell you that.
You can lambast him once in a while, but--
PATRICK O'DELL: What do you mean?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Huh?
PATRICK O'DELL: What do you mean, lambasted?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Lambasting.
PATRICK O'DELL: What does that--
FEMALE SPEAKER: Just slapping him, you know.
JAKE PHELPS: Oh, I would say Frank the Tank, that's '94.
Switch 5-0 hubba hideout on the cover.
I think he came out here and he pretty much blew it out.
I think it was in the Eastern Exposure
vid, he did some shit--
Freddy, he's a really good skater.
He still is a great skater.
And he went for it.
I could see this look on his face that he genuinely had the
same stoke that he had when he was a little kid when he first
bombed a hill on his driveway.
DAEWON SONG: He's been around for a while.
He's one person you can say paid his dues.
Eastern Exposure videos, all that stuff, yeah.
He's one of the guys.
He's more raw.
He's kind of like a Ricky Oyola.
There's so many different types of skating nowadays that
it's good you got those guys around.
FRED GALL: I mean, I watch them till this day, and they
get my psyched to go skate and whatnot.
It's just a good vibe and that.
It's like, we never really had a legit filmer.
Dan was the first dude to come and film.
And we'd be so psyched, because it was so clean and
looked so legit that that's what actually got us real
hyped on film, was his style of filming and him being down
to just come down to Philly all the time and just film.
Other than that, we would just film each other
with whoever's camera.
Back then, it was just like everything was new, so you
could just do whatever.
And it was all tricks no one had done.
I mean, now I'll go out and fucking pull my hair out
sometimes trying to film video parts, because you gotta keep
it up to par.

PATRICK O'DELL: You think there's some way in that all
the Jersey skaters are similar?
FRED GALL: Yeah, definitely.
I mean, people who grow up in Cali and they got all the
perfect ground at the schools and stuff-- like, we're used
to skating shitty spots.
They always look great on film.
They always look cool and definitely different.

MALE SPEAKER: Damn.
FRED GALL: I bring people to some spots and
they hate them, man.
And they're just like, how the fuck do you skate this shit?
I don't know, I like that shit.

We would skate New York City a lot before Newark.
I mean, because it's always real ghetto.
But just search it out, and there's definitely spots.

Check it out.
Up here's--
this is Seth Boyden, some of the most
dangerous projects in Newark.
It'll be up here on the right.
Yeah I wouldn't--
I don't know.
If there was a spot in there--
FEMALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE].
FRED GALL: --I'd probably go skate it.
I've definitely put myself into bad situations before.
I actually got robbed in Albany a couple months back.
I got fucking hit in the face.
I don't know what he hit me with, but it wasn't no fist
because it fucking broke my sinus cavity right here, and
fractured this cheek bone.
PATRICK O'DELL: So how old were you when you were
skating, first starting to go to New York City?
FRED GALL: Like, 11 years old, I think.
It was in my first banks contest.
And my mom used to bring me and shit.
She would pull the car right up.
That's when the banks were like, you could do anything.
Just park at the banks.
My mom would drink tall cans of beer while
I skated all day.
My mom made me this shirt.
And it's--
what was going to be my-- it was a joking graphic, but she
just drew kicking down the Twin Towers.
And now look what happened now.
They really fell down.
It's fucked up.
It's kind of spooky, man.
This was given to me, dude.
I went to my friend's house.
He's like, yeah, I got a Hosoi board.
I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.
You got a original Hosoi board?
He's like, here, you can have it.
I was like, thank you so much, dude.
What can I give to you?
PATRICK O'DELL: Do you have any boards that you've skated,
like, old boards that--
FRED GALL: See, you could ask my grandmother about that one,
because my basement used to be stacked up with Alva boards,
every single board I had in my life.
And she likes to throw things out.
And I came over one day and they were gone.
And I go, no, you didn't.
Please tell me you didn't.
Yeah, she threw, like, 50 boards away.
PATRICK O'DELL: He seems like he's had comebacks over and
over, like he's one of those people that--
JAKE PHELPS: Well, I think that he can
do whatever he wants.
I mean, a lot of skaters are like that.
I mean, just because someone's not doing something-- do you
think Heath and Fowler can't still fucking ollie over your
fucking car?
Do you think Julian still bombs hills?
Yeah, probably.
FRED GALL: This is my backyard, basically.
Grew up hitching trains over here, painting them, whatever.
The freight yard's there, so it's like a
playground back here.

I don't know if you should put the weed part in, but you can
film it anyway.

Because Granny's gonna wanna watch it.

I mean, I've taken them far as hell this way, but I've gotten
really worked as a kid holding on to the back.
And it really starts hauling ass, and you gotta jump off on
to this shit.
I don't know, man.
I got severely worked, and I didn't do
it for a while again.
Just land and just cut up everywhere.