Hey Aaron! I saw you've been giving a lot of interviews this year.

Yeah, I've been busy this last year... I’ve had three video parts, which has been cool. And maybe a fourth before the new year, but probably not.

What’s up with you now, you're still in New York, right? I’ve heard you're about to move though, right?

I'm still in New York. I've been here for coming up on like 15 or 16 years now. I'm kind of getting into that stage that everything feels far. The train isn't fun anymore. I don't go as far away as I used to. I don't explore as far as I used to, because it's not new anymore. In the beginning, I told myself that I’d avoid going back to the West Coast. I never went for the holidays or birthdays because I just enjoyed being in New York so much. Around 25 I started visiting home again and I had a lot of fun at those times, and I was like, “Oh, I'm always going to move back.” Then maybe around 26, I was like, “At 35, I'm going to move back.” I just turned 35 back in June, so it's that time. I have a wonderful girlfriend. We have a condo together, which we purchased, a permanent living space in Portland. I have just been bouncing back and forth now.

How did that plan become more of reality in the past few years?

Basically, once I got injured, I started spending more time in Oregon. It was cheaper to do physical therapy out there. And yeah, as I'm getting older, I like the accessibility, and the size of Portland compared to how large New York City is. I can get more done in a day there. I can skate more, depending to the weather. I can hop on my bike and get to a skate park that's not far away. I have a good rapport with a couple of friends who shoot photos and film. Like my buddy, John Colyer, and Joe Brook lives there. There's good opportunities and ways to stay productive. I've been focusing on skating, focusing on trying to stay healthy with my knee and then just kind of doing these adult things lately. It's kind of a slower process. It's not like on one weekend you move your things and you're in another place again, you already know the place for a long time because you're from there.

I've been back in New York for about a month and a half, and I've skated street skated like five times, and only filmed two clips. But everyone is kind of in that stage. I feel like right now, or at least with my friends, we're in our mid-thirties and are all kind of figuring out our next moves in life. Skating is always going to be my priority, but with friends of mine that don't do it professionally or don't work in it, like as a contractual filmer for some brand or something like that, they might not be on the same page. It’s a little difficult to stay productive.

I mean if you are like a soccer player you join a team, and it doesn't matter. While skating is so different because you're mostly with your friends and filming clips with people you are close to, having to count on them if you're not going on a tour with a team. So, it's kind of natural that it gets more difficult over time.

I mean, it's funny too, because if you stay traveling with your sponsors, you film on tour or on
trips. Your time at home is more for relaxation. But I don't travel as much as I used to. So I must try to be productive wherever I'm at, you know? It's good though, because I guess it gives me the opportunity to always try to be filming. It’s interesting on Polar, we’re an international brand, everyone is all over the place. When we're all together filming, it's such a privilege. A lot of the time I'm like, “man, I just wish we could all just be together all the time, eating and filming”, it's such a good time and productive. That's just difficult with everyone being all over the world.

So that will be a cool thing going back to Portland and being together, with Dane and Emile, and Rios is also there?

Yeah. I mean, Rios is out there and my buddy who I film with, he also films with Dane, and with Emile a little bit. There's a good scene. Just the only downside I would say is you're trading the New York Winter for the West Coast Winter, which could just be like more rain, it just depends. Kind of both the winters are shitty.

So you’ll change the puffer jacket for a windbreaker and some rain, probably?

Exactly, yeah, that's the thing.

Talking about getting back from that gnarly injury that you suffered from – How did that process go, from the beginning of the year up until now, at the end of the year?

I was doing my PT and there was like a couple last things that were preventing me from going and pushing around on my cruiser board. I did this stretch, my knees popped, and I was like, “all right, I broke through the scar tissue. I'm good to go!”

That day I went skating, flat ground was good. Everything was working out. But as skaters, what we often do is we neglect the things that we know we need to be doing on top of just skating. Stretching, eating healthy, water. When I started skating again, I stopped doing my exercises. The main thing I've learned is that my ACL injury will forever be something I need to work on, work through, deal with. Stability, exercising, strength and conditioning, all that stuff. That's just kind of how it goes. I even saw my surgeon about a week ago just to make sure. And he was like, “Dude. Stop worrying. Your knee is so solid.” He says ‘normal people’ need from six to nine months or a year to recover. But for an athlete to get back to the same number of yards or however much they ran before, that's like two years. He told me I won't technically be 100% until June. I started getting funny about that. I'm like, “nah man. check this footage out. This is what I've been filming last week.” He asked, “wait, when did you film this? And you think your knee is fucked up? You're fine. Just keep exercising and keep stretching. Foam roll, like every single day.” I mean, it's been nice. Injuries always suck, but you learn a lot about yourself through them. It's humbling.

You were on that Polar UK trip this past Summer; how did you feel over there?

The Polar trip was in June, and I started skating again around March or April. I had my injury a year before, in April. When I went on that UK tour, that was a year exactly after I had surgery. So I was skating again pretty quickly. By the time June came around, I was quite tired.

That trip was difficult because we walked a lot, we pushed a lot, and we took the tube a lot. And I'm not going to lie, I got to a point after maybe like the fourth or fifth day where I was like, “I can't keep walking. I haven't been walking and pushing yet this much.” I was sore and tired so that was also a learning experience. Going on that trip and kind of seeing that I need to be conditioning myself.

You’ve been on Polar from early on, right?

Oh yes, since August 2011. 13 years! I remember when 2012 was coming up and that whole conspiratorial Maya calendar thing was being talked about. That evening Pontus posted this photo with him wearing a gas mask, so I just I remember the
timeline well.

You’ve seen the brand and the team changing over the years. Pontus brought in Sirus, some people moved on and now there's the younger guys like Dylan and Kiki. Tell us about that?

I think Nick Boserio and I are the two oldest individuals on the team. Brass being my team manager is one of the sickest things ever. He's actively a pro skateboarder and a father, and a husband. All these different things. I can come to him for a lot of advice, or I can even come to him just for general
questions or ventilation. I met him back when he skated for Zero, in LA, so I've known him for quite some time. The other guys are not super young though. Dylan, Emile & Kiki are all in their 20s.

The aspects of a team changing and things like that, could have negative impacts, but I haven't seen that. I love where it's at. When I go on trips, or when I was in Oregon and those guys came out for a week or two it was great.

I think Sirus is a great individual, I think he has a great eye for Pontus’ vision of Polar. I feel like now I've had the opportunity to spend a little more time with these guys. Unfortunately, when I was a big drinker, I didn't go on as many trips as I should have or wanted to. I'm kind of developing many of these delayed friendships now.

Would you say that after 13 years, now more than ever, it’s a fresh vibe for you and a new dynamic for yourself?

Yes, that's a great way of putting it. I would say I didn't prioritize bonding or getting to know my teammates. I've always bonded with Oski, always bonded with David because I spent more time with them earlier on. But certain things I just never put the effort into, which has bothered me and still does. But having these team changes and certain riders coming, it's keeping it fresh for me. Now if go to Paris I'll call Roman to hang out, and not just to see him to go skate. I'm putting in that effort now, which I would have put in years back, but unfortunately
alcohol sucks and it changes your priorities at times.

In the sense of just not always getting to travel a lot with these guys, now I'm getting to do that more and I'm super grateful for it because I feel like I'm making up for some lost time. I hate that I didn’t always have the best priorities, but it is what it is. I am stoked about being a part of this and that Pontus allowed me to continue to be a part of it even though there were times that, you know, I maybe wasn't doing my job in the best way.

When it comes to the new video, where did you film most of the footage for your section?

Well, there are 12 clips in total and 6 are in New York, then 5 are in Portland and 1 is in Seattle. So it's kind of perfectly mirroring my situation right now.

Looking back, your previous sections or parts were often filmed mainly in one place. Does having your base make it a lot easier for you?

Many of the previous parts I filmed have always been New York based. I was proud of them, but I haven't been this very diverse skater, which is something that I now think about since being injured. When I'm working on projects now, I want to diversify. I want to do different stuff. Now that I'll be living in Portland full-time my focus will be skating there, because I have a different level of productivity. I skate differently and I fix a lot of stuff, and I try to build stuff or whatever to make spots better or more skateable. I'm very excited for future projects.