DAMIAN SANDERS | POWDER & RAILS | VICE | PT 2/2

CHRIS ENGELSMAN: There's the cover of issue number one with
Damian on there.

Kind of funny--
hard boots, stretch OP.
A lot of people probably don't realize that they did all
kinds of relief cuts in their boots and different things
like that so they could tweak them and do some insane stale
fishes and tail fishes and cross
rockets and lean Draculas--
tricks du jour back in the day.
TODD RICHARDS: Damian was a skater too, and obviously, he
had the whole correctional boot thing going--
weird correctional shoes, the Damian's hard boot thing.
And he was like one of four dudes that wore hard boots.
And he claimed it so hard.
But Damian was bananas.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Nobody rode hard boots
but our little crew.
And I really don't even know why.
I just started riding hard boots and it felt right.
But it really made me a more powerful rider.
I could really stomp things way more than I could when I--
because I went back and forth.
I tried every--
everybody was trying to get me to ride soft boots, thinking
I'm going to be a better snowboarder.
And it just wasn't the case.
I'd get back on my hard boots, and I felt I could ride
anything and fly off jumps twice as big as I could go
with soft boots.
When I had soft boots on, the board felt like a toy.
And when I had hard boots on, it felt like a machine, like
it was connected to me.
When I leaned over the board, instantly on an edge, and I
could rest on my boots to do half the work.
And so I get really get a good power going.
But no one ever caught onto that.
Koflach was the only company making the snowboard boots.
It was just Tom, Jim, myself, Bonnie, and Dana, I think,
that were riding hard boots back then.
And everybody else was on soft boots-- the entire industry.
But I'm glad I did.
They were kind of goofy looking, but I could get so
much air on those things.
I loved them.
JERRY DUGAN: He wore hard boots and that was his thing.
He was a hard boot guy.
Him and Dana were hard boot guys.
But he could tweak his board and tweak his body in ways
that no one in hard boots has ever been able to do.
They were behind the whole hard boot revolution-- yeah,
hard boots, it's the way.
Look, we can tweak everything.
That eventually caught up with them and didn't work out so
well as things got a little more
technical and more finessed.
But back in the days of just big, macho grassers and front
sides and stale fish, melon, back flip, whatever-- it was
all pretty OK.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I think if everyone would have followed
suit with us, snowboarding would have--
it's hard to tell.
With these guys that are ripping freestyle riders, they
might want that flexibility.
But had my boots so cut up in different angles--
I knew exactly what I needed to cut out
to do certain tricks.
It's like, chop up the whole inside of the boot so I can
lean away and do Japan airs and [INAUDIBLE]
and all those things.
I had to cut them up so much, they were
almost worse off boots.
But there's just nothing like that feeling of the toe and
edge response that you had-- was insane.
As soon as you thought it, the board was doing it.
It was amazing.
And now in my soft boots, I feel like I'm all
wishy-washy, swimming.
And I've gotten them clamped down pretty damn tight, and
they're still just not quite a hard boot.
JEREMY JONES: The thing that we got from Damien was balls
and back flips, pretty much.
The dude would just charge everything.
And we always tripped out that he could do it on hard boots.
That was a big thing for us.
It was always kind of mind-blowing.
How does he do that?
Because he would tweak so hard in hard boots, and
we never got it.
And so there's always the Damian tweaks.
And it was always in our things we talked about.
It was like, dude, you tweaked that like Damien.
And so it was speed, and it was size of airs, and it was
the balls he had to do things he was doing.

MIKE MCENTIRE: You can't ever front on Damian.
There's no way anyone can ever front on that guy.
He was the original rock star.
He was God.
There's no one like that.
And his lifestyle and his whole scene--
he had everything to back it up.
He had this Penthouse Pet for a wife.
I don't care if he wore neon green and orange or whatever
his thing was at the beginning.
I What he was doing was extraordinary.
He was totally way beyond anyone.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I was a snowboarder when I was with
Brandy, but that was-- god, I was 19, 20 years old.
And I met her at a nightclub down here.
And we started out, and the rest was history.
But that lasted for about 5 years.
That was a good time.
It was perfect for my snowboard career, because she
was a superstar and I was a superstar in snowboarding.
So it put us together, and it was kind of cool.
JERRY DUGAN: Damian was married to Brandy for years.
And Brandy was penthouse pet of the year.
And she for sure got way more press than we got.
She was way more attractive and was in bigger magazines
than any of us had been in at that point.
I do have one great story about Brandy, though.
Brandy told us that she spoke Japanese.
She was like, oh, I'm fluent in Japanese.
And we all look at Damian, and we're like, OK fine.
So we're all on the bullet train going to Hokkaido or
something, and Damian and Brandy have one of the
magazines out, and they're sitting there.
I think it was me, Tom, Burt, Damian, Brandy, and Sioni.
And this guy comes up to her, and he looks at her, and he
start going, [JAPANESE].
And he asks her something in Japanese.
And she goes, [JAPANESE].
It was clear he was asking, oh, is that you on the cover
of the magazine?
And it's like some nude, girly magazine.
And she goes, [JAPANESE].
And then he asks another question, and she just
answers, [JAPANESE], which means yes.
And at that point, he just reached down
and grabbed her boob.
And we're all just like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We jump up, push the guy off.
We're like, hey, no, no, no.
And our Japanese guide said, oh, he asked if that was you
on the magazine and you said yes.
And then he asked if those where your boobs,
and you said yes.
Then he asked you if he could touch them, and you said yes.
You Japanese is working really good for you, Brandy.
STEVE GRAHAM: Damian and Brandy were still an item.
And so I was supposed to meet them at the beach.
This is down in Huntington.
And I see this Mexican guy just kind of looking like is,
looking over.
And I'm like, man, what's that guy looking at?
And I'm just, huh, whatever.
And I walk up.
I'm like, hey, what's going on?
He's like, hey, I'm just checking out
Pocahontas down there.
And I look over, and it's Damian and Brandy and they're
both in G-strings.
And right then, I just--
oh my god, I started laughing.
And I didn't let the guy know that I knew them.
And I'm like, yeah, check this out.
So I started going down there.
And next thing you know, I see Damian just see me.
He sees me and just turns and runs around a rock, and
changes, puts his trunks on.
And Brandy just stays the same.
And she's probably topless at the time.
And so, I go down there.
And next thing you know, I'm giving her a big hug, and
Damian comes around and I slap his hand.
And homie on the hills, just, what the--
he starts to come down.
I'm all, beat it, dude.
So that was Pocahontas.
Sorry, Damian.
Cat's out of the bag now.
I held it, for all those years, I didn't tell anybody.
MIKE MCENTIRE: I got some really good ones, but they're
kind of X-rated.

DAMIAN SANDERS: Farmer and I were riding together.
We were filming on the Palisades at Squaw.
We were right underneath the chairlift.
And everybody on the chairlift's all, go, go!
It's 100 people watching us.
And so this cliff was already pretty big--
maybe a 45, 50 footer.
Farmer goes first, and he lands, and kind of digs this
giant hole an balances out and pulls it off.
And so they're ready for me.
I jump, and right when I went off the cliff, I saw that
giant divot, and I'm thinking, I'm not going to make anywhere
but right in that hole.
So I went upside down and backwards down the hill.
And everything caved in on top of me.
I'm stuck with this arm behind my back, this arm's holding
the goggles, and I'm trying to get the snow out of mouth,
because all this snow is just covering.
I was laying there, totally compacted with just my face
showing for about four minutes.
And one half an arm flipping around like this.
And I was in a full panic for 10 seconds.
And I'm just wiggling and screaming.
I can't do anything.
I can't get this arm free.
And the board's all twisted, and then I just compacted.
And so it was like cement.
So I wasn't able to move at all.
And so when I got just my mouth uncovered, I got to be
able to start screaming, help!
And they were so far down, they couldn't see me.
So they're all waiting for me get myself out.
And that's the worst part, because I remember sitting
there for about three minutes before they even started up
the hill, because no one knew I was really stuck.
INTERVIEWER: What were you thinking when you
couldn't see anything?
DAMIAN SANDERS: That I was going to die, and
just waiting to die.

And then my good buddies, Shawn and Dave
came to save my life--
first guys on the scene.
And every time I moved, more snow would fill in the hole
right into where my mouth was.
And so the goggles are all crooked, it's pitch dark.
I could see a little bit of light from the cliff.
And then every time the snow trickled off the cliff, it
went right into the hole, right into my mouth.
It was just like clockwork.
So I just stayed there watching the snow trickle down
this cliff, going, no more snow, no more snow,
I'm going to die.
And I seriously was waiting to die, because I couldn't get a
good breath.
And I was just panting, and I was freaking.
I thought they weren't coming.
And eight and a half minutes is a long time to spend
suctioned in there like that.
I was flipping out.
And so finally, I felt the snow move and I see Farmer's
head come out there-- big woolly mammoth, big bear head.
And he's all, you all right?
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm freaking out!
He's digging my mouth and my head and then he got my hands
and got me out.
So I really do owe him.
He pretty much saved my life there, because I was a snow
chunk away from suffocating.
And so that made me exhausted as all hell, but we did end up
riding the rest of the day.
And then every freaking night, I had that nightmare-- just
waking up, and going, fuck, I'm not
buried, I'm not buried.
It was a drag, but it was cool for the video.
It was good drama.

So it was about seven or eight good years of just really
power riding, and then five or seven years of just trickling
and doing it because I could still get paid to do it.
DON SZABO: Damian blew out his knee a couple times.
And he had it rebuilt one time, and then he blew it out
again and he didn't have it fixed again.
And after that, he started partying a lot.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I moved into this big-ass
house on the beach.
And it's literally right across the street from the
beach, so just up a few streets.
And started throwing house parties, because we had so
many friends in the industry, and with snowboarding and
motorcross and surfing all being down
here in the same area.
And the house parties were always just a blast.
And then I had this idea to throw the Pimp and Ho Party.
This was probably about '91, I think was the first
Pimp and Ho, '92.
And everybody dressed up like pimps and hos.
And back then, we didn't have a clue what that even meant.
It was so funny.
All the girls we knew were strippers from
the local strip clubs.
And so to have a Pimp and Ho Party just fit right in.
We all had these ridiculous outfits with the big hats and
the feathers and all that shit.
And then the girls dressed like total hos and
it was so much fun.

You bet.

[LAUGHING]

DAMIAN SANDERS: Welcome to Huntington Beach.
DON SZABO: Back at the house, he had crazy
parties every week.
And ran until 2:00, 4:00 in the morning.
And there's a lot of crazy stuff going on.
And I could say I was kind of worried for him, going, what's
he going to do?
He's spending his money and not making money in just
partying and whatnot.
And little did I know that he was going to turn that into
his career.
And he's doing really well throwing parties and doing the
whole monster stage thing that he does.
He's a super creative guy, and he's always been a
really great guy.
DAMIAN SANDERS: This is the front porch
that got so much action.
We used to have our 4th of July parties every--
hanging out out here, partying all over.
This was the hood.
And then right there's the beach, 100 yards away.
Can't complain.
When we first moved into this house, the first party I ever
had, I walked outside and Dana was riding the oil rig,
going-- brooo--

We had all kinds of-- you'll see later, the giant human
catapult we built in the backyard here that my buddy
got launched at the beach on.
Dana's got it in one of his videos.
And the guy flies about 15 feet up and then cracks his
head on the back of the catapult.
STEVE GRAHAM: It was a Halloween party at Damian's.
And everyone was there.
We were raging.
The ladies who were strippers ended up
showing up a lot more.
More of the LA crowd all of the sudden showed up for
Damian's parties.
The next thing you know, there's girls making out and
windows being broken.
It was out of hand, couldn't have enough of it.
We were just all dressed up in some stupid costume, and that
was, I think, in my opinion, the first Club Rubber.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I knew that night-- when that party was
over, we knew we were onto something huge, because
everybody had the time of their lives.
TODD RICHARDS: I know Damian used to do
that Club Rubber thing.
It was a really big moneymaker for him for a while.
And it probably just rakes cash, because people-- it's
legendary at this point.
So he's got a good thing going.
He's still marketing himself as being a weirdo.
It's awesome.
I like it.
DAMIAN SANDERS: The things that used to go down in my
house were phenomenal.
And Rubber, ecstasy was huge.
Everybody was on drugs.
And techno music had just come in.
So you go to that club, and it was almost like this great
hedonism orgy.
It was just nuts.
You go in there, you open the door to one of the VIP rooms,
and people were in there having sex.
And you're like, oh shit, sorry.
And you close the door and go party somewhere else.
And it was happening every single night.
And the cops didn't catch on for literally
four or five years.
People were walking in there with hats that say "X-man" on
it, because that's the dealer.
The Huntington Beach team had a great run for about--
six or eight years there were just phenomenal.
John Huntington I met through nightclubs down here, because
I was going all these house parties.
He was also doing night club production stuff.
We started going to Las Vegas, started doing clubs out there.
And from the clubs out there, we went into arenas.
And John was like the booking agent.
He would go into these massive casinos and get everyone to
throw a Pimp and Ho party in the casino--
at like the Mandalay Bay.
Somehow, he talked them into it.
Tommy Lee was our guest host.
Mini Me was one of our hosts.
Made a fortune.
It was like one of those movies where the drug lord's
laying on the bed playing with the money and shit.
It was just classic.
And then, we got 10,000 people on the dance floor and all
these huge DJs and everybody dressed like pimps and hos--
tons of fun.
It really fell into place--
from snowboarding to doing house parties to doing
nightclubs to doing production for other people's huge
parties now.
And I've lived a pretty charmed life.
I've been really lucky.

MALE SPEAKER: Thank you, Damian.