Show notes
Episode 42 with Eric Swisher aka Chops, skateboarder, copywriter, creator of the Chrome Ball Incident. Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Ohio, starting a blog in 2008 to share scans from old skateboarding magazines and naming it « the Chrome Ball Incident » (a reference to Neil Blender), starting to do interviews with pro skaters in 2010, keeping it going until today and interviewing some of the most iconic pro skaters, photographers, videographers, artists of the last 40 years and therefore slowly but surely building Chrome Ball into a staple in skateboarding culture, his whole interview process, how he’s managed to keep doing it so consistently throughout the years despite a busy work life and not making any money directly from the blog, his collaboration with Jaime Owens’ Closer Skateboarding Magazine… Intro (00:13) Getting started (01:25) Work experience aside from doing Chrome Ball (06:51) Starting the interviews on Chrome Ball (11:32) Staple in skateboarding culture (17:25) Considering the monetization Chrome Ball (22:23) Most outrageous sponsor proposal (25:16) Preparing the interviews (27:57) Interviews over phones calls vs. in person (42:49) Favorite and least favorite parts of doing these interviews (49:15) Inspiration from other interviewers in skateboarding and elsewhere (54:34) Interviewing Street League/Olympics skaters (56:06) Most surprising guest (59:44) Who’s left (01:03:03) Closer Magazine collab (01:06:22) The future of Chrome Ball (01:09:25) Cinema version of Chrome Ball (01:13:04) Most valuable lesson learned from skateboarding (01:17:51) Friends questions (01:20:48) Conclusion (01:50:16) For more information and resources: https://linktr.ee/beyondboards
