I first went to Japan in 1999, I got to meet Chopper for the first time. I’d been a big fan of his skating since I saw his tricks in the 1996 FESN video by Takahiro Morita. I always looked for photos of him in Ollie Magazine too whenever I saw copies of that. When I finally met him for the first time it was at Spotaka, the local Osaka shop. He was so nice and courteous to a Northern English skateboarder with a weird little British company.
Every time I seemed to go to Japan after that I would meet Chopper, either coincidentally at a trade show, or I’d call him and go skateboarding with him. Our Japanese distributor at the time were the ones who connected us and got him to officially ride for Heroin. He said he liked the first video we had made “Good Shit” and so I was stoked to have him as part of the squad. He was actually the first Pro for Heroin Skateboards. When it came to filming his part for EGTBA, it’s a mash up of footage that he’d had around for a while that hadn’t been used for anything, and some filming trips to the UK where he would go out with Chris Massey and Alan Glass. I’ve always loved his unique style and creativity in skateboarding. I feel like I just wanted his style of mashing around the streets of Osaka to be brought over to our dirty British pavements. Alan Glass hit the nail on the head to use this Crass song, and I think it goes perfectly with Choppers skating. I heard this song the other day and it reminded me of how much I liked this part and made me think I should upload it to our Vimeo channel.
