JEFF BRUSHIE | POWDER & RAILS | VICE

JEFF BRUSHIE: Snowboarding started out as basically a way
to get down a big powdery face.
And then all a sudden, kids like myself and some others
that were in the skateboarding and that kind of scene and
style and tricks, kind of adapted over into
snowboarding.
DAVE DRISCOLL: Right out of the
gates, Jeff was a standout.
Like I mean just that he pushed the whole look and
style and snowboarding into a whole new level.
Just from his attitude and the way he carried himself, to the
dreads, to DJ-ing and then on hill, obviously, he was one of
the first people to really bring that skate style into
snowboarding.
There could be other people credited too, like Noah
Salasnek and others.
But yeah, he definitely pushed the limits and style went
along with it.
PAT BRIDGES: People were getting big airs but they were
traveling the pipe.
Brushie actually brought it really high, above the lip of
the halfpipe.
The tricks he was doing were like skateboarding at the
time, like lip tricks.
He was doing airs to disaster and revert and stuff like that
in the pipe.
Brushie really brought the tweak into it.
PIERRE WIKBERG: Brushie just had a different style.
He would just tweak more, and he had his alley-oop threes
that he would grab, like mute stiffy and like poke
[INAUDIBLE].
He just thought differently.
I thought he had--
more interesting to watch than like Terje.
SHAUN WHITE: I always watched him, and I don't think it was
ever like, will I ever get there, you know what I mean?
It was always just like, how?
How can I do that because I have to.
I have to go as big as him.
How do I do that?
TREVOR ANDREW: He really was the first one to me that was
in the pipe, like busting.
I don't know.
He had that whole hip hop kind of flow.
It was kind of crazy.
He was kind of the first one doing that, it seemed like.
Yeah, just his style was like nobody else's you know.
TODD RICHARDS: In that old video, Chill, it was like that
first Burton video.
Like Mike Jacoby's like, well, they got Brushie, this killer
rapper dude.
And it was like, from that day on, he was the rap guy.
At first, he just had this weird Tony Hawk--
remember the old flop, like the face flop.
He had that-- but to the extreme.
It was this big long like thing.
And that just all of a sudden turned into
dreadlocks at some point.
And then he was the dreadlock dude.
Like right at that time was N.W.A, Eazy-E. Public Enemy
was really big.
And Brush was the first guy who kind of
like rolled with that.
TREVOR GRAVES: He'd always have his tongue out, and he'd
always have a runny nose.
That was always a good signal for Brush.
I don't know what it was.
Just always snot running out of that kid's mouth.
KEVIN ENGLISH: Brushie'd get you thinking about your facial
expressions.
When you're in the air, you know, he'd be like, [GROAN],
like some sort of crazy face while he was doing it.
TREVOR GRAVES: What Jeff would do is he'd come up, and he'd
look right at me.
Throw a stalefish right into the lens.
And land it.
When you're always concentrating on the landing,
you're thinking about what you're doing.
He didn't have to.
It was just he's like a cat-- he knew where he
was going to go.
Whoop.
Boom.
Done.
KEIR DILLON: Everything he did, he did with
just so much style.
You'd see him at the US Open.
He'd go up, and he'd be like, I'm buying that pant, I'm
buying that jacket, and I wish I could buy that board.
It was just crazy to look back and to think that he had that
power or control over, I think, style and the influence
of kids or us.
TREVOR ANDREW: Yeah, the first time I saw Brushie was at
McDonald's, and I was just like so geeked that he was
sitting across from me eating fries, you know what I mean.
It was like, "Damn, that's Brushie."
He was totally chill.
And it's amazing when you have somebody that you feel that
way about when you meet them, and they're
actually cool, you know.
He was like, all time favorite for me.
For sure.
JEFF BRUSHIE: I remember, I don't know what it was, '87,
'88, and I went to the US Open.
I was probably only 15 or 16 so I had
to race in the Juniors.
My dad brought me there the first year.
BOB BRUSHIE: It was kind of new.
And he harped on us for weeks and months or whatever.
KAREN BRUSHIE: Umhmm, umhmm.
BOB BRUSHIE: For a long time.
KAREN BRUSHIE: [INAUDIBLE].
BOB BRUSHIE: We caved in, and I took him down.
And he did pretty well.
KAREN BRUSHIE: Bob calls me up and goes, this thing is really
big, he goes.
There's people here from France and Japan.
And I'm like, what, really?
JEFF BRUSHIE: I totally blew it.
I didn't do good at all.
So, practiced up for the next season, and then I came back.
Maybe this was '88.
And I did the slalom and just went as fast as I can.
And I ended up winning by like eight seconds.
And I remember Jake Burton was down there near the finish
line, and he came up to me and shook my hand and stuff.
And that was kind of the beginning.
Maybe like a year or the next season after that, I was
traveling around with the Burton team.
JAKE BURTON CARPENTER: Yeah, Brush was a local kid that
we'd see at Stratton, and he'd come to the Open.
You couldn't miss him.
He just had so much style right from the beginning.
He went big, you know.
And he went big sort of beyond his limits.
And so it was when you'd see Brush flying through the air,
there was sort of this, well, is he going to
land this or not?
[LAUGHS]
I don't mean that as a dis at all.
The guy was incredible.
He just had a lot of style and attitude.
And he had N.W.A playing--
blaring-- out of his car I think all the time.
He just really made things fresh and had just a great
spirit about him.
JEFF BRUSHIE: The guys out west had halfpipe and
freestyle contests for probably a few years or more
before we ever had any of that.
We all just raced gates all the time on
icy, East Coast slopes.
We didn't have our first halfpipe 'til like Tenney
Mountain in New Hampshire in like 1987.
TODD RICHARDS: That Tenney contest was like the first
time that any of the people from around New England that
had never--
Everyone had been doing the same thing, but we were all
brought together in one place to see everyone else ride.
It'd be like OK, so this is what's going on in Vermont.
I'm just from New Hampshire.
I don't know what's going on.
And you made all these friends.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Andy and Jack Coughlin.
Chris Carroll.
Todd Richards showed up.
Pfft, it might have been like six feet high at the most but
mainly just banks.
And it was really cool because at the bottom they made like--
it bowled out so you could just come down, do your
tricks, and then point it kind of like a
quarterpipe at the end.
It was sick.
I remember doing big old suitcase methods at the end.
TREVOR GRAVES: He just barrelled straight down middle
of the pipe.
Hit the cul-de-sac at the bottom and just boosted.
So he popped out, you know, by that time, six or seven feet.
Which is a pretty big suitcase air.
And landed it.
That won the contest.
That's all you needed to do.
TODD RICHARDS: Burton had the foresight to be like OK, we're
going to put some effort behind this kid.
And next thing you know, Brushie's
traveling with the crew.
And he's with Craig and riding with Craig all the time.
And he just got better and better and better.
And we were like, holy shit.
This kid.
Like, what happened?
Like he got really crazy good.
And you're like wow.
OK.
Well, we need to kind of step our shit up.
JEFF BRUSHIE: There was a time when people wanted you to race
and freestyle.
There was a few guys like me, Craig, Terje.
We just wanted to freestyle.
We just wanted to ride pipes and stuff.
And there's actually a photo of me doing a method in the
middle of a race course.
I had to go through the race course just for overall
points, so I just messed around.
For a while, they just kind of looked at us
like we were the oddballs.
Then a few years after that, freestyle's the thing.
KEIR DILLON: There's certain people, I think, and he's one
of them, that literally dictated where a sport could
have gone or where it ended up.
And just his style and attitude and keeping it fresh
and fun and very kind of standoffish of the mainstream
at the time, really dictated where the sport was going.
It's people like that that showed you can make a living
and have fun and live your expression and dreams through
the freestyle aspect.
And that racing doesn't need to be a part of it.
JEFF BRUSHIE: It worked out for us.
I think the popularity with the freestyle growing after
just the first couple of years hooked us up, and we got what
we wanted, you know.
No more racing.
KAREN BRUSHIE: I am Karen.
I'm Jeff Brushie's mom.
BOB BRUSHIE: And I'm Bob, Jeff Brushie's dad.
DONNA CARPENTER: His mom was always on his side,
cheering for him.
I think she was the first snowboard mom.
[LAUGHS]
JAKE BURTON CARPENTER: I think she was like one of the first
sort of snowboarding moms, but he ran the show.
I mean, he was funny.
He called his own shots.
Nobody was really telling Jeff what to do.
KAREN BRUSHIE: And this is his old room.
It was his cave.
He had all of his bibs, all the way around.
A waterbed he would not get rid of.
I'm serious.
[LAUGHS]
Pretty boring room with a lot of junk.
Those, I believe are Trevor Graves' shots.
And this was the first competition.
This was 1990.
And this was '91 was the year I believe--
BOB BRUSHIE: Yes.
KAREN BRUSHIE: --he did the over cup--
the overall World Cup.
Yeah.
I was cleaning out this snowboard bench, and I just
happened to open a drawer to see what was in there.
There was a hacky sack and a bag of dreads.
[LAUGHS]
Honest to God, I will find those.
I will find those for you.
I went, Jeff, I have your dreads.
I did.
I told him I had his dreads.
He goes, nice.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, the dreadlocks.
I'll take them out for you.
I don't know.
I probably need to wash my hands after I do.
I cut them and years went by.
Years.
Here's the dreads.
Right.
Nasty dreads.
Or natty dreads?
Whatever you want to call them.
And it took him a long time to get those perfect.
The wall is his collection of stickers.
I've changed a lot of things, but I will not change this
wall until we move.
I won't.
It's got meaning.
It's part of the house now.
And all his stuff has stayed where he has hung it.
There's Craig Kelly.
He idolized Craig.
He really did.
And there's Shaun Palmer's balloon.
And he just kept adding to it.
BOB BRUSHIE: He loved McDonald's.
KAREN BRUSHIE: Loved.
That.
That came from Japan, I think.
He loved McDonald's.
But these are some of the checks.
This Nissan Snowboard Tour.
What position I'm not sure, because it
doesn't have it on there.
They stuck him on there obviously.
And this was in 1992 when he won the national--
BOB BRUSHIE: The trophy.
KAREN BRUSHIE: --the national competition, and his prize was
that truck.
I'm assuming that these were first places, because he won
it overall.
No, the $1,000 ones could have been like second place.
World Pro Snowboard.
Tour.
"Get twistedd." That was fun.
[LAUGHS]
1998.
It was fancy.
JAKE BURTON CARPENTER: It was tough for him, because he was
not really a competitor by nature.
He was just almost too sensitive, too nice a guy.
And I know like the Open was a really tough event for him.
All of his friends were there.
He never won there.
He never rode particularly well there.
I think it was just too much.
You get wrapped up in all the social stuff going on and
everything.
KAREN BRUSHIE: And a lot of people actually thought he was
an arrogant person when, because he wouldn't really
sometimes acknowledge things.
But he was actually shy.
So that was a real misconception about him.
What we did was when he first started winning contests, we
basically said to him.
Because he'd been known to like, I want to be a BMX
biker, you know and all this.
And he did well at that.
But he never did any competitions.
So we said to him, well, we didn't have a whole ton of
money at that time to send him all around the world.
But we said, well, you set some goals, and when you
achieve one, you can go after another one.
So he started winning all these contests.
And then when Burton picked him up, obviously to me, I
mean, if this was his calling, this was his calling.
He didn't have to become a doctor or a lawyer.
He was making more money than his teachers.
And I knew it was short lived.
But I knew he could take it far too.
But we were very proud of him.
Yeah.
It was really fun.
I miss it.
I miss having Jeff here.
So we have to get him to move a little closer.
Bring the kids.
[LAUGHS]
TODD KOHLMAN: Yup.
This is one of my personal favorites.
The 1993 Jeff Brushie.
Very classic Vermont style with the trout and,
of course, the base.
There's a skeleton of the fish.
KAREN BRUSHIE: And it's still in the place that he hung it.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Well, one of the most popular is
the very first one.
That was like my least favorite graphic, too.
My mind wasn't like totally working in the
graphic mode yet.
And I think somebody kind of pitched the idea to me, and I
went with the fish because I was a Vermont kid.
So it's kind of like the country and fishing and stuff.
So I kind of put the fish on there for that kind of thing.
And then the bottom was my kind of deal where I did the
fish skeleton on the whole base of the board and my name.
I kind of got influenced with that from Mark Gonzalez
skateboards back in the day.
JAKE BURTON CARPENTER: There was a great story about one.
I remember some dealer was coming to our booth in Vegas.
And he's ordering.
I'll take 14 customs, this and that.
And he goes, give me 50 of that one with the fish on it.
And it was like, that's what dealers-- they didn't even
know who he was.
It was like, that board with the fish on it.
It was a very popular sig board.
The sig boards were really happening at the time.
But just this rainbow trout.
Great board.
It was super well made and designed.
And very light.
Lighter than anything else that had been made at that
point in time.
And it was a great shape.
And he was riding incredibly well.
And it just reeked of him and of Vermont.
It was just a winning graphic.
A standout for sure.
JEFF BRUSHIE: See.
On the original, that's where my name was.
Somebody did it up for me and sent it to me.
JEFF CURTES: That's the cool thing about Burton.
They really do a good job of listening to the riders.
Letting the riders take whatever ideas they have and
scribble them on a napkin.
And literally those ideas turn into product development.
If it's Brushie.
I'm sure Brushie--
his first shape that he made.
It's probably better for him to talk about his first board.
But it was entirely different than anything that Burton had
put out before.
TODD KOHLMAN: Look at the shape.
You know, there's a very blunt nose and tail compared
to like this here.
You get more of a twin.
Yeah, it's just breakthrough. '93 was when we went to the
three-hole--
the 3D.
So you had here, the five-hole, you had limited
stance options and a whole new ball game.
And Jeff was a huge part of that with rider development.
JEFF BRUSHIE: This is like my second snowboard I ever owned.
First one didn't have metal edges, so this was kind of
like the first real snowboard I had.
I think I won the Junior Slalom on it at the US Open.
TODD KOHLMAN: This cruiser '86 here.
Jeff later in '95 had a pro model that was the same
graphic, but if it was more of a twin shape.
But it's awesome.
Definitely.
JEFF BRUSHIE: An old one of my pro models and the
board that we copied.
The original.
It was really probably one of my favorites.
DAVE DRISCOLL: Jeff just kind of always figured out what was
cool, and his graphics were always like the
hot shit for sure.
KEIR DILLON: My memories of Brush was like, you know, the
first fish board that he had, which was just ridiculous.
And then he came out with the graffiti art board and then
the dice board.
JEFF BRUSHIE: My very last board with Burton was the
craps table.
And then I kept the gambling thing going with ride.
I always liked to gamble.
I've always been into playing poker and stuff, so I think
that has a lot to do with it too.
But I just think a lot of people like that kind of vibe,
and I thought it would work cool on boards.
Burton made this-- the board-- into a real
craps table with sides.
And I was like, can I take the craps table?
And I had this idea.
I got my buddies bow ties, and it ended up being a cool shot.
This is like no Photoshop at all.
That's like the actual dice.
That shot's just a different shot of me somewhere in a
halfpipe, but it looked so cool they made it into an ad.
KEIR DILLON: Noah and him would gamble in his classic
shots, like the ads of like the Rat Pack around his board.
And I'm a big gambler, and he's a big gambler.
And he'll get us into some celebrity tournaments and
stuff with Phil Ivey.
It's dope because he's like--
just to see him kind of like how he's moved on.
He's like shooting photos, but still the same Brush.
And you hear his voice and you're like, ahhhh.
It kind of brings you back.
DAVE DRISCOLL: The craps board's kind of like a
foresight into like him being into gambling.
He's not like a heavy gambler.
He's really smart with his money for sure.
But he definitely enjoys going to the bright lights of Vegas
and playing some cards.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Rob Gracie.
He used to shoot me a lot.
Way back in the day.
That's how we met.
And he met this guy who had the contract with Harrah's
Casinos to be the official photographers of the World
Series of poker.
They took me on, and I got the hang of it right off the bat,
and it was fun.
I love poker.
So you're around all the biggest poker guys around and
checking them out, seeing what they do, shooting them.
It was fun.
I did that for a couple of years.
And this year, I actually didn't do it.
A little harder now with the little kids running around,
but it was really cool.
Here comes little Mini Brushie.
Come here, Mini Brushie.
Come here.
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: Hello.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Aww.
You got boots on?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: Yes.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Come over here and sit with me.
Hey, Arabella, do you want to snowboard?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: Uh-huh.
JEFF BRUSHIE: You do?
Oooohh.
INTERVIEWER: How old does she have to be to snowboard?
JEFF BRUSHIE: I don't know.
She has a snowboard.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah?
JEFF BRUSHIE: Just a little one.
But she was scared to stand on it in Tahoe.
But she finally standed on it.
And because I told her I'd give her candy, and I wanted
to take a photo.
Right?
Remember that?
You stood on the snowboard and I gave you candy?
This year, you got to put the bindings on it and go down the
hill and fall.
And then I give you candy.
OK?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: I fall down.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Yeah, yeah.
That's what happens-- you fall.
You gotta fall to learn.
Right?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: [INAUDIBLE]
[SQUEALS]
JEFF BRUSHIE: Oh, you fell down?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: Yeah.
JEFF BRUSHIE: Kind of like you were snowboarding huh?
ARABELLA BRUSHIE: [SQUEALS]