ITW CHASE WALKER
Last May for the Parisian launch of Asics, we had the chance to spend a bit of time with Chase Walker. At the end of the day, on a Saturday, not far from République and its usual riots, we sat around a coffee latte, without ice because according to the waiter with his french accent “here, we don’t put ice in ze latte!” “. But that didn’t dampen Chase’s enthusiasm to tell us about his journey, his role in the Quadrennium project and his Late Nite Stars crew.
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Chase Walker. Skateboarder & filmmaker from Houston, Texas. SugarLand for those who know. I currently live in New York City.
You started skateboarding in Texas?
Yes, when I was maybe 12 years old. I was playing a bunch of other sports before then. I played a lot of baseball and tennis. I played those sports a lot and met a couple of friends in baseball that skateboarded. They introduced me to skateboarding one summer and I kind of fell in love with it. After that I ended up quitting all sports and focused on skateboarding as a kid. It was the most exciting outlet for me, for sure.
In what sense it was more exciting than the other sports?
You grow out of them or something. You’re just a kid, it’s not that serious. But skateboarding instantly felt very serious, like this was something I wanted to focus on. So yeah, I never stopped skating. I’ve been skating since I was about 12 years old.
How did you get into filming?
Kind of instantly, as long as I could learn how to skate and do tricks, I wanted to also record them. Me and my friends would take turns recording each other on our handy cameras. At some point I got this JVC Handycam for Christmas and I would film with that all the time, making skate videos at the skatepark, around our neighborhood, or in front of our houses. I don’t know, we were just figuring it out and we all liked to do it. I was like 13 or 14 years old.
But some of my friends progressed in skating a lot as I got into it. So, as they got better, I got more into filming. And we would start working on filming parts together or filming edits with everyone. My friends Andrew Williams and Eddie Seigfried were my two of my closest friends growing up that I was filming a bunch, along with all of our other friends in SL that we grew up with. So, the time that went into filming just kind of grew over time, I would say. S/o all the homies from SLFP.
What was your first project?
It’s hard to pinpoint what that was, but my first video I ever filmed was a full-length when I was from the ages of 16 to 18 years old.
At this age, what pushed you to make a full length?
The local scene was really inspiring growing up in Houston. There was a lot of really good people at skateboarding and that also meant that there was a lot of wild crews making full-length videos. Like John Danielson or Ben Ly. The dudes that made Corridor of Shame, Steady Rollin’, the Southside videos, etc. Select’s video, “Bango” was a classic that I loved. All these videos were really inspiring to me as a young age. I saw them all doing it and I wanted to try to make something myself in Houston. I didn’t even know these people super well at the time, but me and my friends would kind of do the same thing & go out and film all over once we could drive. It made me want to film full-lengths as a younger kid. DIP was my first project and it premiered at Southside Skatepark.
What people thought about it?
I think they liked it. A lot of people came. I was really shocked when all those people showed up. People I even looked up to. The local scene really put on and made me feel embraced. That honestly was enough to make me keep going with filming skateboarding. It gave me the validation within the scene that no matter how good or bad or new my video was, people were going to watch it and they wanted to watch it. I felt very warm and welcomed by my local scene growing up and inspired by that matter.
Beyond skateboarding, what are your inspirations to make your videos?
Honestly, the world, the architecture, the way people move around, music. Music especially plays such a big part beyond skateboarding. Sounds and rhythm are a really big thing for me.
All of those things tend to inspire me a lot. It’s kind of just like being present in the world and feeling what’s around me and seeing how it looks visually. And that inspires me to skate. Because if you take that and I see a skate spot or something, or have an idea and want to make a video or something, I take those factors into consideration. I also try to be a pretty optimistic person about the world and what I see when I’m somewhere new or even at home inspires me. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. It’s cool.
That’s a great answer. Can you introduce Late Night Stars?
Actually Trung started Late Nite Stars, he is one of my closest friends, and Zak Anders for that matter, too. I feel like we are the three pillars that made Late Night Stars what it is today. But ultimately it was Trung that started it. When we all moved to New York, we made a video.Trung filmed it. And when I came around to making my next video project, I wanted to do it with Late Nite Stars, because that was our crew.
So, we just kind of ran with it after it was a graffiti thing. We put videos out after video.
It’s also a clothing brand?
We have a studio back in New York where we make clothes and work on projects together.
We’ll make clothes sometimes. But just with our hands, nothing crazy. It’s not as big of an operation as people may think it is. It’s really just our crew at the end of the day skating and going on trips together.
What’s the secret to maintain a solid bound in the crew?
LNS is a collective of all of us so we all try to hear each other at the end of the day. We all have a voice. I wouldn’t say there’s ever one person running the show. It’s all of us including every person’s input. We all collaborate on these projects together. It requires a lot of listening & as a filmer I try to be very in touch with the ideas my friends bring up along the way when working on projects. We all try to respect each other the best that we can when we disagree too. We like to hang out in New York and go on trips. That’s the crew. That’s family.
How did you connect with Asics?
It was crazy, I was not expecting it but I got a DM from Rob Sissi one day in January. I didn’t even know that Asics was moving to North America or doing anything like that. He hit me up and said we’re looking to put Late Night Stars on Asics. For us, this was a bunch of good news. I thought it was going to be a really amazing opportunity to help build something from the ground up.
Back home, I was already wearing Asics to go to work. Asics is big in the fashion world & I work on fashion sets, so i see them a lot. Many of my homies were Asics fans for years prior.
A lot of people talk about Asics. Since living in New York, I learned a lot about the brand. To me, they’re one of the coolest shoes. When I came to find out that they were doing a skate program and they approached me, I instantly called Trung and the rest of the crew and said, this sounds crazy, this sounds cool, let’s do this. Everyone was down. It was a no-brainer.
They started to support you for Late Night Stars. How did the idea to film their video project Quadrennium come?
They’ve gone really far with giving us lots of love and helping us with travel. They helped us with some money to film the Circle. Ultimately, this Europe project, it was a couple phone calls. Mainly, they asked me if I wanted to come and film a video for Europe. They wanted to connect LNS with Victor and all the guys down in Marseille. I’d never met Victor, Val, Tony or Ernest. Apparently, they were showing interest that they wanted to skate with us. I had watched their footage before and I’d already liked their skating.
I think they’re super sick, especially once we met. The trip we went on was too much fun to even explain. Linking up in Marseille was an instant bond with all the guys. Everyone feels very welcome, I would say. That connection made it really natural to come out here and film a video.
It felt like taking another step with Asics and doing something that was actually just for Asics. It was a little nerve-wracking at first but usually, when you’re nervous, it means you’re doing something good.
What’s the difference between doing an independent project and something for a brand?
The only thing different about it is the structure and the organization. You have to get more things lined up. You have to take care of more logistics and take care of people in a different way. Ultimately, it’s not too different than getting in a van and going skating. When we came to Europe, we just got here and went skating.
The rest happened on its own. Big props to the dudes at Asics that hold together the backbone because they do a fantastic job.
Can you introduce the project Quadrennium?
The project more or less is kind of like a summit for Europe skateboarding. For the people that are involved with Asics: the shops, the riders, lots of representation from Japan. They got the whole crew out, and all the rest of the people that are being represented here in Europe along with the shops.
I feel that the event itself is more of an experience for everyone to get to know each other and build relationships with each other & have some good times skating. There are several people here that are from Asics Global that I’ve never met before. I found pleasure meeting them.
We all have ideas and it helps us all bounce our ideas off of each other easier being in person with each other. Being able to have fun things set up like staying next to Republique and going to Créteil and having a contest at Bastille is a lot of joy to be a part of.
Putting ramps at Bastille is really cool. The people will probably enjoy skating those.
-Davis Torgerson passing by to grab a coffee-.
Hi Davis! That’s my TM walking by. Davis Torgerson is actually the best TM ever. When I was really getting into skating , the video “Since Day One” came out that I would watch a lot.
You talk about what’s inspiring for skating – I remember the song that Davis Torgeson skated to in his flow trash part that inspired me as a kid to go skate. I remember going to the skatepark with my headphones on listening to that cover of T.I. “whatever you like” (cover) and as a 14-year-old I just loved it. It had a female vocal cover on it and I just loved it. And now he’s my TM so I feel pretty spiritually connected there. He’s a good guy.
What’s the difference between filming in New York and in Paris?
It’s actually a lot of the same. I would say there’s more similarities than not. The sidewalks are crowded, the streets are busy. You can’t skate a spot without having someone watching for people or watching for cars.
In New York we drive around with our cars a little bit more. We actually go out to the suburbs in our cars or we drive even in the city with our cars just because we want to hang out with each other in the car. It’s a more isolated environment. I wouldn’t even say that that reflects New York skateboarding, that’s just something we do. New York skaters, like Parisian skaters, take the train, skate around, ride bikes.
It’s a lot more similar. I would say, if anything, Paris is different than the rest of America. And it’s very much like New York.
I’m trying to think if there’s anything different about it that really stands out. If you’re about to get hit by a car here, you actually might get hit because the drivers don’t really stop. In New York the drivers kind of pay more attention, I feel like. We drive slower, the Parisian drivers are very aggressive.
What’s next for the future?
I think I’m going to really just focus on enjoying the summer and want to skate a lot! I’m going to work on some smaller things, like maybe just putting out more clips out into the world of sessions that happen or just skating. I’m working on a couple parts with the homies. Zak’s working on a sci-fi part. I’m helping him with that. Later in the year, we’ll see but we all keep talking about going back to Texas for a trip! Since LNS became a thing, we haven’t taken a trip back to texas together to skate.
In Late Night Stars, there are actually three filmers. It’s me, Trung Nguyen and Nico Marti. Lately I have taken on the main role as the filmer, and I have been for a while because I’ve been filming multiple videos back-to-back. But just the other day, I was talking to Nico, and he really wants to work on a video!
I hear that, and I get really excited to get my own trick list together and try to focus on me landing a few tricks, because I like to skate, too. I only got to get three clips last year. It would be nice to get six this year or something.
For me, my focus is to sit back and relax and enjoy life a little bit, but I will always be filming. I’ll never leave the house without my camera. I’ll always be a filmer.
You got a few words in French?
“ouesh” that’s my favorite one!
