Chris Oliver
December 01, 2006
With 10 GCSE’s, four A-levels, a degree and four Microsoft professional qualifications you’d be sorely mistaken to think that this young – Oh, wait – Chris Oliver. Right… I don’t actually think there is too much need for an intro to sketch out what kind of a person Chris is. This interview tries to cover a fair bit of history, along with the other usual stuff. I guess we took this route because as soon as we started to ask around, we realised that for someone who shouldn’t be on the fringes of the public eye, he was. People don’t seem to know too much about his recent history and only have the vaguest awareness of the pre-injury Chris Oliver from the first time he went around the block as the obnoxious, hyper-active wonder kid he started out as.
I guess that the best way to start this would be to say that there is a whole lot more to Chris Oliver than the immediate impression that you get in the first five minutes of meeting him. Give him a while to warm up and there’s a clued up character in there, and someone who really seems to look out for his friends. Mucky hands, clean flips and a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, repeatedly: read on and find out more.
Who are you?
A ginger gypsy from the sticks to da city.
It’s been a long time since your old Haunts. How long?
Well I had curtains back then so, yeah…been a while, I feel my haunts was kind of early anyway…
Yeah, those were the days when you’d shoot an interview over a weekend...
Yeah I rushed it in a weekend in a Dorset primary school. Man, standards have risen.
It was good for the time. Times change, though...and some people don’t get the chance to shoot another interview. Did this occur to you when you were shooting this interview? You haven’t done a full interview for any magazine since that Haunts have you?
Nah I’ve just done bits and bobs here and there from tours and stuff like that, but then again I’ve been traveling a lot in those times a not in one place for too long, and ever since the Alai thing started is was non stop - not to mention contests and stuff.
Yeah, I know you’ve been busy with shooting photos on trips. In fact, I think I’ve seen more photos of you abroad than in your own area...
I think it’s due to living in the cabbage patch for too long and only leaving for trips and tours. I’m surprised I ever got out of Bridport.
Have any of the other people you used to skate with left Bridport or are they just stuck in the nine to five?
Yeah, firmly stuck in the ‘port. I see them now and then and they seem happy, they just look a lot older and have started receding...
Something I want to get out of the way - as it has kind of become another little skate myth - what was the deal with Flip?
Lot’s of people seem to have heard the same story
What went on?
Well there was never any deal of any kind, I think Jeremy Fox saw my bus shelter sequence back in the day and was asking after me based on that, but he thought I was about 14 when I was actually coming on for 17 and puberty. I was quite a late developer, (laughs); I looked 14 until I was about 20….
It has been said.
I wouldn’t want that weight on my shoulders anyway; I’d probably be dead by now.
So, there you were - Heavy hitters sniffing round, an interview shot and a few proper sponsors. I even remember someone saying that you were like the ‘Frontside Bastien’ back at a Radlands comp...It sounds like stuff was happening. Without sounding like a dick – what happened?
Well I had a very low-key couple of years after my horrific knee snap in Australia: I thought that was the end. F**king caveman boardslides now haunt me on a daily basis. I paid £3000 for a private ACL reconstruction straight away, waited a year for repair, started skating again and it felt like I’d never been on a board in me life, horrible, then a month later I severed my ligament completely again, went to the doc and he said to just see how it goes for a while and let the surrounding muscles build up, and still to this day there’s no ligament but it’s been sort of fine. It’s only when I jump off big shit that it tweaks now and then so I just chill on less strenuous stuff. I just never wanna go through that hideous healing stretch again. F**k that.
But you still seem to be skating pretty big rails...
Yeah. I love my mellow rails, the stuff you can sort of play with, but f**k the twenty stair vertical rails that pile-drive you into the ground, you know you’re gonna die!
Does the thought of the knee sit in the back of your mind all the time, whatever you are skating, though? I’ve seen you pull it out dropping off a bench.
Not so much anymore, I guess the muscles have built up enough to take the strain, I can move it out two inches without touching it though, but I just see it as a party trick.
How old were you when you did it?
Well I’m 25 now so I was around 19-20 when it happened the first time.
Two years out for a skater who is coming up isn’t exactly the best thing. 19-21 is a pretty critical age on deciding which way you are going.
Like I said, I could’ve been stuck with the cabbage patch kids for life
Yeah, I guess you still got out of Dorset, but what about taking it further? Do you reckon you kind of missed your chance? By this I mean heading to the US or being one of the bigger Euro names.
Well, I wasn’t aiming high and wasn’t really bothered about U.S. to be honest, I was content just chilling in the UK with friends you know, but getting onto Vans and Billabong pushed me to travel to Europe and stuff which I was all for. Plus I’m banned from U.S. for matters I’d rather not discuss. Next question…
If I am correct, the first trip away after your knee was sorted resulted in a cover on this mag, right?
Oh yeah, the Italy trip, that was sick. Yeah, that rail tickled me taste buds man. It’s a rare breed rail. No spots anywhere and this perfect rail with slight twist on the sea front surrounded by ancient buildings and bewildered tourists/fishermen, (laughs). It needed some TLC, so I gave it some.
