Interview with Dallas Skate Company Geezer Skate Co.
With this being my first interview after my relaunch of Shred Social, I can’t imagine anyone better to do it on than local Dallas skate company and YouTubers, Geezer Skate Co.
I first met Josh and Nate, the owners, in early 2019 via Twitter. Since then, we’ve always kept in touch and plan on collaborating on content soon. I love how upbeat and informative their channel is so when it came time to launch this website, I knew I had to get an interview with them. To me, this is an interview on their long-time friendship as much as it is the company they now run together.
Since I asked the same questions to each of them, I formatted this article with the questions followed by both of their answers, separated. They hit it out of the park with this one, (pun intended when you read their responses to the first question.) Whether you’re starting your own skate brand, curious about how they started theirs, or you’re just a geezer looking to learn more about a company that puts out awesome skateboarding content, look no further than this article. Enjoy!
First things first, how did you guys originally get into skateboarding?
“I don’t feel like I can answer this without answering the question, “How did you guys meet and what led you to skateboarding?” Let me start by answering this and then it will make more sense overall.
At the young age of 9, Nate and I met playing baseball. My dad was the coach; however, I wasn’t really too athletic. When Nate joined the team, he was one of the only kids who wouldn’t hurl the ball at me 90mph during warm-ups, so he and I would often warm up together. Nate and I both played outfield. Nate played center field and I played left field. (I know this is about skateboarding; bear with me) He and I were not the best players on the team and we would often get benched at least a couple innings, which was fine because then we didn’t have to bat. We were both nervous batters. Alas, sitting on the bench we became friends at 9 and 10 years old respectively. We were always...and I mean ALWAYS creating something. It’s just what we did.
We created fake baseball cards, magazines, newspapers, drawings, radio shows, and videos from borrowed camcorders (see where I’m going now). Around late junior high or early highschool, Nate had a neighbor that was a skateboarder and he mentioned it to me that he had tried skating. I would skateboard on this old school fiberglass board at my grandmother’s house and Nate would skate with his neighbor. As we started skating together, this became a habit, a passion, something we could not stop - we did not have much concrete and the asphalt was pretty shitty, but one of Nate’s neighbors had a decent concrete driveway we would occasionally skate and then my parents had a 6x8 patio in which we would build little crappy ramps on while trying not to break my parents’ sliding glass door. Fortunately, that never happened.
Once we were a little older, we would skate in town and around the schools...and as much as possible, we would have our borrowed little (actually really large) camcorder with us to shoot what the kids now call “clips”. This is where our skate journey began.”
“Through older kids in the neighborhood. Before I met Josh, I lived in an apartment community in Mesquite, TX. There were a couple of guys who skated and I thought that was the coolest. They had T&C Surf Designs shirts and I became obsessed with them, drawing their logo and characters (the famous Da Boys as drawn by Steve Nazar). This was also the time of the giant Sears and JCPenney Christmas catalogs, and in each of them, there would be skateboards, so I would circle all the ones I wanted, while also drawing the graphics.
When I moved to Wills Point, I met Josh and after a couple years in Little League, we moved on to skateboarding. We had a couple of cheap boards and no one to really show us what to do on them. Then a guy moved into my neighborhood who used to skate. He gave me his old set up, which was a Tony Magnussen H-Street deck, with Gullwing trucks and I don’t remember what wheels. It was pretty worn, but it was better than the setup I had, so that became my baby. Even more importantly, he taught us the basics - how to ollie, boardslide, manual, etc. This was huge for us!
A year or so after this, two guys from California came to my church and when they learned that I skated, came and skated with us. One of the guys, Gary, was on a flow team and was really good. He taught us a lot more, and he and his buddy, Jim, gave us another setup, which we skated down to a nub!”
Where did the idea come from for Geezer Skate Co and when was it's inception?
“Between high school and college, we started a band called “Deflicted” (trust me, you don’t want to hear the music). We skated our freshmen year in college and even drew up a petition to allow skateboarding on campus as it had recently been banned. We even ended up on the local school news channel skateboarding … it was not impressive.
While Nate studied photography and I studied theatre, creating together and skating together drifted into doing our own thing. We still played music off and on, but were never consistent enough to become one of the big 90s bands (hah).
We literally lived about 2 miles from each other once we moved to the Dallas area, but saw each other only a handful of times. That was dumb. Life just got involved and we drifted even more like so many friends do. I got married and moved to Fort Worth, (Nate was already married).
After moving farther apart, we finally skated a couple of times, and it was just like old times and it felt rad. However, it didn’t last and we continued to get older. Finally in 2014, we made a plan to start skating together again...now, being older and wiser and actually having a little bit of money, we could buy full set-ups without breaking the bank. This is when our YouTube channel “Josh and Nate Can’t Skate” would begin.
We did several reviews of parks and such, but did not take the channel too seriously. After doing this a while, we started noticing there was a whole generation of skaters our age getting back into skating. A lot of times, it was how they were connecting with their kids or maybe they were like us and trying to relive some old times. Once we started, we definitely started creating some new times and we surprisingly improved quite a bit over the course of a couple years.
We decided to rebrand “Josh and Nate Can’t Skate”. When I told my brother Austin about possibly changing our name, he said you should make it about old skaters - he suggested some other names like Fogey or Old Guy Skaters, but then I remembered that during the radio shows we made as kids, we would often joke about how nice it will be to be a Geezer because then we will have the freedom to do what we want, whether that’s wear our socks up high or wear mismatched clothes. I reminded Nate of this and he told me there’s this “wave of skaters” who identified as skate geezers. Since we identify with the “Skate Geezer”, that’s where Geezer Skate Company was born.”
“If memory serves, Josh and his brother, Austin, came up with the idea. Josh and I had a previous YT channel - Josh and Nate Can’t Skate, where we did reviews of area parks and displayed our lack of skate abilities. It had a decent following, but wasn’t growing at the pace we were hoping. Geezer seemed like a way to niche down and create something we could sustain over the long haul.
We were becoming friends with a number of the older skaters in town and wanted to present the rich heritage of OG skaters, in addition to skatepark reviews and how-to videos. Once we got the co-sign from Al Coker (the Grindfather), it really took off.”
2019 - L-R: Mike Crum, Nate, Craig Johnson, Josh at 4DWN
I know a lot of skaters out there are interested in starting a skate company or getting involved with one. What advice would you have for someone just starting out in the skateboarding industry?
“I’m really glad you asked this because I’ve wanted to share this and will likely share my thoughts on this on our YouTube channel at some point.
First of all, here’s my advice for skaters wanting to start a company. Don’t expect to make money...at least not initially. Be wise, take business classes; learn all you can about marketing and try not to be a sell-out while doing all this. Do it because you love it, because you love the lifestyle and be open with people who are interested in learning to skateboard. If you isolate yourself and potential skaters, you may not have anyone to sell to in the future.
Secondly, for skaters trying to get sponsored, do not randomly ask for free shit and show how awesome of a skater you are. Most small skate companies do not make money and they don’t have the resources to give everyone something for free. However, the way to do this is by engaging with the brand, if possible, offering free help for whatever it is that they are doing, whether that’s videos, stocking shelves...just whatever. There’s a guy in Australia who reached out to us and has NEVER asked for anything. He just wanted to know how he could help in his country because he really liked what we were doing. Yep, we sent him free shit and he’s not even a “great skater”. Every brand is different, but definitely engage with the brand often and make yourself available if they ever ask for help. This will get you on their watch-list at the very least.”
“Get friendly with your local skateshop. Chances are, they have their own line of skate Merch, (apparel and hard goods), and so they can give advice on sourcing, pricing, etc. They can also point you to local skate companies - contact them and see how they are doing it.
Internet research will help too, as there are so many options for apparel and accessories now. Most everyone knows someone with some kind of design skills - ask them to help with names, logos, color schemes, etc. Get a social media page - IG is probably easiest, but don’t count out FB or Twitter - they can really help build your brand. Then get a website - this will help you stand out from other companies who may just have a social media presence. Websites are pretty cheap now and really easy to design with templates and social media connectivity.
Next, get stickers - they’re easy, cheap and skaters love stickers! Sticker Mule is where we source ours from - they run deals every few weeks, so take advantage of those. Be prepared to put a lot of work in and wait a long time to start seeing profits. Read “This is Not a T-Shirt” by Bobby Hundreds - it’s a wealth of knowledge about starting a brand.”
We're living through a very interesting time in history. How has the recent pandemic affected Geezer Skate Co or you guys personally?
“As far as being able to skate, we have not had a chance to skate much or shoot video together since this pandemic started. It’s not necessarily the social distancing thing, but it has affected my schedule with my family. My kids are in daycare one day and then they are not the next because of some covid case. We literally had time scheduled on July 1st to skate all day and possibly shoot a few videos; however, I came into contact with someone who had covid and had to be honest about it with Nate. He lives with someone who has a vulnerability and while we hadn’t quite made the decision on what to do, the daycare closed down and I had to watch the kids that day anyway so that decision was made for us.
It’s difficult to plan much right now. It’s just chaos, but fortunately Nate’s photography skills have helped us keep up with Instagram. As far as the company, we have made several more sales through our shop; however, since we use a Print on Demand company, they were very delayed and it has forced us to start using a different vendor (also POD - we try to automate as much as possible and focus on content), which I think is going to be pretty cool in the long run...so some good is definitely coming out of this. It’s about adapting, adjusting and adapting again.”
“We aren’t getting out as much to capture content, which is frustrating. It has yielded a fun video for us though - [Video Below] - where we recorded a fun pandemic-themed session with the Crosseyed Skates team and future Olympian, Will Cortez.
One positive, is that with the lockdown earlier this year, we have been able to work on new designs, which we are debuting on a new storefront. We have also been researching new ways to market our brand and coming up with creative ways to capture content. I’ve also used this time to set up a couple of new rides, taking extra time for custom grip tape jobs. One of the best things to come out of this is that it has forced us to reconsider our strategies and to make us more fluid for the future.”
Do you guys have any upcoming videos or events you're especially excited about?
“I wish I could say that we had an awesome event we would be live streaming soon; however, that is not the case. I think our record live stream is around 6 hours, which helped us get one of the YouTube metrics we needed to get monetized. We love live streaming events around Dallas and showing other states and countries what we are all about. People really dig this and it’s fun to see their reactions...short answer is that we do not have any events currently planned. Thankfully, Nate has put in some hours over the last couple months and we do have a video coming out, which I think will be cool. It’s a mini-ramp session in someone’s backyard. I have plans in my house to semi-convert my garage into a studio and start shooting some reviews, so I’m excited about possibly having more content in the future that we can film from home during times like these.”
“Good question! As far as events go, it all depends on the pandemic. For the past few years, we’ve covered the Craig Johnson Bowl Jam at 4DWN - [Video Below] - this was our epic 5 hour stream from last year - I’m hoping it will take place this year, as the skating is amazing, but even more so, just the legends coming together (Craig Johnson, John Gibson, Todd Prince, Mark Abrook, Mark Roach, Jon Comer, Anthony ADX Armstrong, Billy Smith, Mike Crum, etc.) is awesome and so fun to hear their stories! They are really invested in the next generation of skaters and so stoked to cheer them on!
Any event at Guapo is a must too! If you haven’t been to Guapo, you gotta go. Besides an amazing skatepark, they have the Texas Skateboarding Museum! There are hundreds of boards on display - everything from the first skateboards from the 60s through the modern pops of today. They have the largest collection of Zorlac pieces this side of Jeff Newton (founder of Zorlac). While you’re there, look for Glen, Al or Mad Dog - they have stories for days of what it was like to skate in the 70s and early 80s - the ditches, the Pepsi and Clown Ramps, long-gone skateparks like Wizards and Bachman Lake and heroes like Jeff Phillips and Craig. And they just put in this crazy half-mini ramp/half bowl that has to be seen to be believed!”
Interviewing the Geezer Skate Co. guys was such a blast and I learned a ton from it; a bonus from doing interviews with great people. I’d like to thank Nate and Josh for taking the time out of their busy schedules to speak with me. Please go and check them out and support these dudes. They deserve it! Links are below:
