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MD:
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What do you think it takes to be a pro, to be a professional?
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LM:
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Ohhh kaaay...you have to bring to skateboarding what no one else brought. Simple.
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MD:
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Simple as that? What about signing autographs, and being there talking to the kids...
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LM:
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That just comes with it. If you’re doing something that no one else did...or skate a way that no one else does. But don’t want to perform...or
doesn’t really care...Then it’s hard to do it. You have to do all that stuff. That’s just...once you are one of those guys...if you do that… you can
have a longer life. Natas and Gonz Guy didn’t do that. But that’s a different time. Only the special few get away with that.
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MD:
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You mentioned that the reason you wanted to ride for Flip was that you wanted to ride for the best team. Back in the day Powell was probably the best team...
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LM:
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Yeah.
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MD:
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How do you see where they are compared to where they were?
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LM:
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They’re always going to be where they were. You can’t take away what somebody’s done before.
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MD:
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Where do you see where the top 3 used to be Powell, Vision and Santa Cruz? Two of them still exist but they’re nothing compared to what they used to be.
Where do see that the fall came and did you learn from their mistakes from having your own company and not wanting to do that?
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LM:
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So many questions! <laughs>
Times change. The reason a company stays on top, and some argue that a company can never stay on top, but the way a company stays on top is if they have
all the right pieces. You have to have all of the right pieces. Arguably no company has all the right pieces right now in my opinion. Powell at that time
I believe had most of the right pieces. I believe Vision took up the slack. Really I think Vision got big because they took up the slack on where Powell
didn’t ship. Santa Cruz always had a solid business. Those were the brands that were big. Now it’s...the difference is that...It’s the team. It’s always
team. It’s always been team. It starts with the team. It starts with talent. It starts with young talent that has the potential to turn other people onto
skateboarding and make other kids want to be them. And it makes you follow something. Then it all from there has to piece together and that truly comes
form a guy that can see, can just intuitively see what that potential in those young kids had. Stacy had that. That’s why Powell was good. Then they
had all the other pieces… they had the art, they had the advertising, they had the little spice with the videos, then they had the business side which was
George, he made good product too. All those pieces came together to make a good company.
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MD:
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Where do you see the pieces falling apart?
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LM:
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Oh!...when Stacy left.
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MD:
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You think that was it?
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LM:
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Oh yeah, when Stacy left we all left. It fell apart before that but that was just the culmination of it. We rode for Stacy. Stacy had reached a level...
I mean, I remember sitting there talking with Stacy after Animal Chin going “What are we going to do now?” And we were like "It’s the beginning of the end".
That was WAAAAY before ...that was 4 years early but we knew it was the beginning of the end.
Stacy went after and got some of the young guys. If we were able to keep those young guys and do the right things with those young guys it would still
all be up top. Maybe Powell would have had all these different teams and stuff...but we couldn’t keep those guys. And Stacy went ... you know...there were
just a lot of reasons why.
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MD:
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When you look back on when Stacy left, did you feel you were pushed into starting the Firm?
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LM:
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Oh yeah. Totally!
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MD:
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Did you want to?
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LM:
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Oh no. Not at all. I wrestled with it for 6 months or maybe more. I did NOT want to do it.
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MD:
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Your last Powell graphic...the top graphic was kind of telling. It was "How can I take your order" or whatever it was.
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LM:
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Oh yeah. "Welcome to my new job. Can I take your order?". My last Powell ad was 4 photos of 4 different ads. What the industry wants,
what the art room wants, what George wants, and what I want…. And what I wanted was a blank page.<laughs>
Everyone knew what was going on. I mean a lot of different things. There was this ad...It had Ray, Tony and I [all who left Powell shortly after]
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MD:
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"Me me me… scum bucket"...
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LM:
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And it was making fun of small companies. It was a direct thing against World and Blind and everything probably. And if I would have known that I wouldn’t
have done it. I thought Blind was great. When I saw the Blind video I was like "It’s over for us".
It was more...when we talked about it, we heard it was more going to be making more fun of clothing. I mean, if you look at it we were wearing crazy weird
clothes, and glasses and it was sold to us as if it was going to be a clothing stuff. I mean, why were we wearing those weird clothes if we were making fun
of small companies? I don’t know what went weird on it or what happened at that point but when it all happened I was like...I was so disinterested in
skateboarding right there anyways. I was just lost like ..."man… times are weird".
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