Wedge was amongst some of the first crew I meet when I began bowl riding 5 years ago, when I first met him he wasn’t dropping in but boy o boy what a pump he had he would be dishing out backside carve grinds all over the shop, He’s been back to dropping in for a long while now and I still can’t match his pump, in fact I learnt the hard way that I shouldn’t even try….but that’s another story. He runs the MOSS Foundation which is an awesome project and he runs a skate sessions and an auction night once a year which brings skaters old and young from all over Australia for a day of Radness
Here’s his Bio
· Featured as the skateboarder on the main stream poster in 1975.
· Left home, moved to Sydney and instigated the Pymble Pool era with Adrian Jones in 1978.
· Australian champion 1979.
· Australia’s first professional skateboarder.
· Started Melbourne Old School Skate Sessions in 2000 with Bret “One-T” Connolly.
· Founded MOSS Foundation and funded about a dozen permanent clean water schemes in Swaziland, serving a few thousand people.
· My special (stupid) superpower is I that can probably still do more 360’s than anyone in Australia.
Q: How old are you?
57 years old! The fact that I turn 60 in less than three years doesn’t scare me as much as the fact that I’m due to turn 70 in 13 years. Yikes!
Noel Forsyth said if I play my “carves” right I could keep skating as long as Peter Rowe.
Q: How long have you been skating for?
I started in 1975, 42 years ago, but I had the 80s and 90s off trying to be a grown-up. That didn’t work out, so I took up skating again at the age of 40 in the year 2000.
Q: Where did you first start skating?
I first started skating in the street outside my house. My older brother had just got back from a surf trip with his mates, they threw their thongs out onto the street and we gleefully carved in and out of them on a Webcraft with chalky wheels. Surprisingly I could do it better than all of them and I was hooked from that moment on. It was all about putting a skateboard down on the street just going a bit too fast. I reckon that principle still applies now.
Q: Who has or was the biggest influence on you?
So many influencers… Stacey Peralta & Russ Howell, Johnny McGrath, John Tez, Adrian Jones, Sac Reynolds, Gravel Burns, Nelson Mandela and Albert Einstein for coining the phase “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”.
Q: Where’s your favourite spot to skate?
Where the crew are skating is the best place on any day, but I have a heap of favourite places, like Mt Eliza, St Kilda, Noble Park, Bar Beach, Saddo’s and the slalom path at Fawkner Park.
Q: Rules to live and skate by?
Roll free. Do it your way. Everybody gets a run – and a drink of clean water. Opportunities in life come to those that “attend” – so show up, go for it and find a way to make it happen.
Q: Epic skates.
Sooo may epic skates have taken place. Here’s just a few; finding Pymble Pool with Adrian Jones in ’78, all the MOSS Jams & CAOSS Jams, The Ring of Fire early days, my 50th birthday at Geehi Dam, coming 2nd last in Bondi Bowl-a-Rama 2011, Sac’s outback pipe adventure and the Ride Ya Stash weekends away with the crew.
Wedge thanks for your time and for being part of this project
Click on Wedge to see a gallery of other skaters featured in the Skaters At Home Series
MOSS Foundation HQ