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"For Skaters - By Skaters"

In case you don't know, THIS is a method air

In the House of Kasai
10/28/2008

Lester Kasai Interview By Hitman

How does the average day in the life of Lester Kasai go?

The day starts out with french toast and the internet... Myspace, Facebook, gmail, socalskateparks, Concrete Disciples, Skate Daily and sk8 Session. I guess I'm a little bit of a computer geek too. I use to repair pc's for work.

Well, there's not much to my average day. I pretty much just skate everyday. Some of my favorite southern California spots are Culver City, Etnies and Encinitas. I've been skating a lot of vert lately but I feel most comfortable in a pool with tile and some good bull nose coping. I don't know, there’s just a gnarly bite you get when skating a pool. There's nothing else like it; it's very fulfilling. When I'm not skating I spend a lot of my time with my dog Dexter, he's a little chocolate beagle. He's a cool little dude.

Some of the guys I skate with a lot are Pat Ngoho, Bennett Harada, Jesse Martinez, Dylan Taylor, Lonny Hiramoto, Monty Gibo, Adrian Demain, Austin Poynter, and Jon Jon Byran.

What was it like for you in your early days skating with such amazingly talented people like Neil Blender, and Tony Hawk?

Dang… the early days were a blast. Neil Blender is the ruler. He was the cool local pro in my neighborhood of Anaheim California. Neil would come over in his Volvo and take me skating a lot. That must have been around 1983 or 84. He would also take me grazing sometimes. Neil would like to go into the bulk bin food stores and just start eating from the bins, not paying for anything, hence the term grazing. Just like grazing cattle. Neil was so much fun to hang out with.

Well, what can I say about Tony Hawk? He's is just such an incredible skater. He was always way ahead of the pack. Tony could do practically any trick he could imagine. That dude paved the way for all of us. We were really close friends back in the 80's and I still see him every once in awhile. He’s such a nice guy and a total standup individual… very cool dude indeed.

You took a long time off of skateboarding. From watching recent footage of you, it seems like you never quit. In fact, it seems like you are better than ever. Why did you take this break, how long was it, and what did you do to occupy your time?

I quit skating transition back in '91, when I was mainly skating vert ramps and places to skate vert were starting to get hard to find. I got a job at Sportmart and then I drove trucks for DHL Airways. I also went back to college. I always had a skateboard in the trunk of my car but rarely used it except a few times for transportation or just to fiddle around on a curb. Thanks to my friends Cholo from Scum Skates and Jim Gray from ABC, I always had a deck to skate on. I also had a lot of fun when I got into skim boarding, surfing and snowboarding.

I couldn't help but notice all these new skate parks being built and the designs were amazing. We never had stuff to skate like this back in the days. It was 2005 and I was 37 years old. I knew this would be my last chance to ride my skateboard in these amazing parks so, I grabbed my board, hooked up with my old Sadlands friends Donnie Spada, Keith Cote and Steve Leistikow and got back into skating 100%. Once I did my first carve I knew I was back where I belong.

I think I seen footage of you back in the day skating with a mustache. Why did you cut it off?

Ha-ha... that's so funny. I had a full mustache in middle school. I should bring the "stache" back but maybe a "Fu Manchu" style. I think I grew the mustache just to look older back then. I shave my whole face and head these days.

From the little time I've spent conversing with you on the internet you seem like one of the most laid back, positive people that I've ever met. Is this an all natural, mental thing, or do you smoke bud?

I'm not into bud, maybe some bud lights though. I guess I'm pretty mellow, it's just the way I am. I do come from a Hawaiian background. My mom and father were both born and raised on Maui. Maybe I'm always on Hawaiian time or Island time.

What different attitudes and terrain do you see at the skate parks of today that are different from the ones you’ve seen 20-30 years ago?

One thing that is cool about skateboarding is that we have so many generations skating at one time. I mean, skateboarding is such a young thing compared to something like baseball, it's just a big melting pot of various generations out at the skate parks these days. You got early generation cats like Duane and Salba still killing it. Then you have the next generation skaters like Mountain, Cab and Miller still having fun and ripping it up out there. Add the next generation guys like Rune and Omar then you add all the new school hybrid generation skaters that can just about skate anything (from street to vert) into the mix and you got such a versatile groups of skaters covering all the different areas in skateboarding from style to technicality. It's a complete package and as long as the concrete parks stay intact it's going to be a lot of fun. It really is a great time to be a skateboarder.

As for the terrain, it's just completely overwhelming these days. I can't believe all the parks that are being built. I live in Orange County, California and there are three of four new parks opening up in the vicinity every year and the parks keep getting built better and better and a lot of them are free. Back in the 70's and 80's we only had a handful or skate parks and most of them required a membership card fee and a hourly rate to skate so I personally appreciate all the free parks there are to skate these days.

Before we sign off could you tell me about the House of Kasai, and your current sponsors?

The House of Kasai was a company I started back in the mid 80's with the help of Tracker trucks. We had to close our doors in the early 90's.
When I started skating again in 2005, many people asked me to bring back The House of Kasai and with the help of my friends I decided to bring it back. I have a cool little team of really cool kids and some old school guys like Adrian Demain and Jon Jon Byran who use to ride for my team back in the 80's. Hopefully, we can inspire some skaters with our products and friendly team.

My current sponsors are S-ONE, Hurley, Black Flys, Tracker, Salonpas, Socalskateshop.com, Attic skate shop, 187 pads, Gladiator knee gaskets, Asterisk knee braces, Bones bearings, Crooks rails, and Beyond Costal.

Right on… thanks for the talk. Love and Gratitude friends!

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