17 Dec The long awaited Chris Silva interview.
It’s not news to anyone that REPSET has had a wrench thrown into its engine. Without diving into weirdo reasons and excuses for halting the flow of Canadian BMX news, I’d like to quickly mention that I haven’t forgotten about this (excuse me if it sounds pretentious) important part of Canadian BMX history.
I wrote and curated this piece with Chris Silva nearly a year ago. We worked together and did some back-and-forth over a week or two to get it all sorted out and I ended up just sitting on it. With the decisions I made to slow down the content on the website, and with The Embassy launching, I thought I was going to forward it to that project but for various reasons it got put on hold again and again. We had originally planned to release Silva’s recently launched (online, at least) DVD section from the latest ICC video, but Silva’s much-accepted impatience led to the section dropping before the interview for relevancy’s sake.
Regardless, this is a piece that shouldn’t go unnoticed and unread. In the next few eye-watering feet of web-page you can read Silva’s story about each of his many monumental DVD sections that he’s put together over the years.
The following appears as I wrote it almost a year ago. Excuse some of the ‘news’ that is a bit outdated. Enjoy.
Here we go. Chris Silva holds a certain status in and around Toronto and I consider him one of Canada’s pioneers of street riding. He’s held himself down in several video sections over the years and while that will be the focus of our conversation today, he’s also had some new developments with his sponsors. He now has team pages up for both Animal and Canada’s very own MacNeil Bikes, so we decided it was the perfect time to look back on his extensive history in Canadian BMX. The humble and modest Chris Silva is a wealth of information and this is my first chance to really pick his brain again since our interview with him when REPSET was even smaller than it is today. I’d like to start on my end by thanking Silva for being one of Canada’s greatest BMX ambassadors. Anyway Chris, tell us a bit about what’s new. There’s been some changes for you in 2011 with MacNeil and Animal. How did that come about?
I don’t know what Chris Silva you’re talking about but I know it’s not me, haha. Ya, I’m stoked on everything that happened. I have never been the type of guy to go out of my way to look for a sponsor or try to tell a sponsor what to do but in this case I went against my better judgement and sent MacNeil an email just putting the idea of me being on the “Team Page”. I really didn’t want to do that but I kinda got sick of kids asking me why I wasn’t on MacNeil “Pro” or whatever when I was on TenPack and TenPack owns MacNeil. I didn’t understand it much either. I more or less just emailed Darcy joking around with that exact reason. A few emails back and fourth and we wrote up a million dollar contract, now I’m set for life… Animal, I don’t even know what to say. Ralph Sinisi is the raddest guy out there, he knows what BMX is. He’s not looking for the newest trend setter to hookup and get on the team, he’s all about hooking dudes up that are in BMX for life and people he knows aren’t going to leave Animal after a year or so for the next best offer. I didn’t even know I was going to be put on the website or anything. Just went on one day and saw my team page and shit my pants.
The limbo about your flow / pro situation with Macneil was on my mind a bit, too. It’s good to see you getting sorted out, even with small details like the team pages. Is there anything else on the table for this year? Specifically, are you filming any more sections, or just sticking to web stuff?
This year is so up in the air. I know I’m going to film like crazy, I have about 7 video projects/DVD’s I want to film for so thats a lot of work. I just don’t see there being much room to make web edits this year… we’ll see. It all depends on how well the riding and filming goes and if I can stay healthy. Web edits are fun and a good way to get footy out there that you feel is getting old by the week, haha. But I think I’m going to save everything I get this year and work on all those video projects cause seeing a final DVD video section is so much more worth the effort. If and when I do web edits this year I’m sure it will be random fun stuff, nothing serious or crazy. Just a few mix edits here and there.
Seven video projects? That’s a ton, even for you. What are you filming for? You grew up almost an entire generation ahead of me. I’m sure we (and everyone) can agree that BMX has changed a lot over the years. Where do you feel DVDs stand today compared to when you were filming for your first ‘real’ section?
They’re short and long term projects, things set in stone and things that are just ideas, I just want to be prepared if or when someone asks for footy like BMXFU, ICC, Landozine, TenPack, MacNeil, Animal and Sour Fever. I know all those companies will have videos in the next year or so, just want to be ready for it and not rush filming over a month or something. It’s a lot I know but it’s a goal I’m aiming for, we’ll see what happens. I have been riding a while now but nothing compared to others I know. BMX has changed a lot for sure, I may be wrong but I see DVD’s being one sided these days, street based videos are the normal thing today when I started riding in 1996 that wasn’t the case, it was the opposite. Every video had a good mix of everything. Compared to my first section in 2003 I really don’t know? I think around that time there were still a ton of videos that had street, park, dirt and whatever but around that time Animal started to change things and street videos were popping up everywhere. It was good to see cause aside from my backyard there was no skateparks near downtown Toronto. I always rode flatland, ramp, dirt and street but around 2002-04 is when street became the #1 thing on my mind so the way DVD’s were going around that time fit what I felt like riding and made for filming interesting street stuff. There’s nothing wrong with dirt, ramp, flatland or whatever kind of videos but I really enjoy watching street videos just to see interesting new spots and what people do on them.
There’s still a certain amount of respect going around for guys who shred everything and you’ve definitely proved that over the years. 1996 and Stand Alone [Silva’s first section] still leaves a pretty large gap, though. Was filming ever on your mind before that, or did the Airwalk situation sort of push you in the direction of filming more? Tell me a bit about how the Airwalk deal and the video came together.
There’s a ton of footy from 1997-2003 I have on VHS but just never thought of doing a video before “Lock N Load”, just didn’t think there was anything cool to film cause its mostly me riding ramps and flatland along with a bit of dirt and street. I wouldn’t say after Stand Alone cause that video was never really released and I never saw the video till about 3 years after, haha. CHC Represent was a video by Peter Miller and I had a part in it that was basically Peter filming me a few times when I really didnt even know why he was filming. He put together a real DVD and I got a copy late spring of 2004 and I showed it to a few of the ICC guys, Butta and (E) said something like “fuck those guys lets make a DVD”.That saying had nothing to do with Peter’s video it was more of like “fuck, why the hell can’t we make a DVD if they can” you know? So ya Represent was what started the fire under us 3 guys and from videos after that all the ICC guys started to have parts cause I guess they all got stoked on “Lock N Load” that Butta, (E) and myself made. Airwalk was a funny long story… ever since I got into BMX I loved Airwalk cause Jay Miron used to ride for them back when I started and he is the best rider ever! I always had Airwalk shoes and shirts for the first few years I rode. Around 2002 I got a job at a local bike show and Ryan Senechal worked there and was on the Airwalk MTB team(he kinda took me under his wing for those next few months taking me out street riding and all that, thanks Ryan!). I also knew this dude in my hood Ian miller who rode MTB and was a cool dude and shot a few pics of me… months pass, I always rode with Ryan and hooked up with Ian to shoot pics randomly and then one day Ian called me out of the blue and said “hey, do you want to ride for Airwalk?” I was like “YES!” so he says “I’ll pick you up at your house in 5 minutes and well get you to the factory and get you set up”… got to the factory and I guess Ian Miller’s brother(Adrien) was the main man for Airwalk Canada, we sit down and have a funny chat… about how Adrien grew up in the same hood I grew up and live in now, he asks me what the guys at the corner store do all day, I say “hangout and sell drugs”, he asks if I hang out with them, I say “yup”, he then asks if I do that shit, I say “no” and that was that I was hooked up, haha.
Who else was in CHC and how much time passed between that and Lock n’ Load?
Can’t really remember but I know Peter Miller had a part as well as Will Fisher! I know Will doesn’t want anyone to see his section but it’s still pretty good. It was just a bunch of people Peter was friends with from around southern Ontario. I’m pretty sure from the day I got the Represent video in my hands and showed Butta and (E) we started to film the next week, haha. I think I got Represent around May or something and I think we started filming Lock N Load in May or June throughout the rest of the summer and it was done around the end of September. Pretty quick video, we had no clue what we were doing, hahaha.
It turned out awesome, though. I sing its praises on here all the time. I bought a copy from Leland at the Hogtown booth. How many copies ended up getting printed?
We did a video premier for it around october and had no copies except the master copy which I remember got printed about an hour before the premier, that was so sketch, haha. After the premier we made 25 legit copies with DVD screens burned on top of the disks. then I made another 10 or so with printed stickers on the disks. 35 to be exact, 25 OG and 10 2nd print I guess you can say, haha. Anytime I see one of those OG 25 copies at some random persons house I get super stoked cause I’m not even sure if I have one…
I definitely have an OG copy buried at my Mom’s house somewhere. Your next section was in an issue of Landozine, right?
Ya, Landozine-Illusion of Man(2005).
What’s the story with that one? How far along in the Landozine series was it?
Oh man, I’m not 100% sure but I remember the winter of 2003-04 Chris Chitaroni brought one to the ICC warehouse we had and that must have been the first issue cause it was on VHS! so I think Illusion of Man was the 2nd-4th video…not really sure. Landozine videos always got me stoked to ride, lots of good local Sudbury talent. The story with that video part was basically a bunch of scrap footy I wasn’t going to use for the upcoming ICC video, stuff Chris Chitaroni and Jeff Bedard shot of me during the year. There is some drunk footy in it too that I’m not super proud of, hahaha. It’s funny though. Got wasted in Sudbury at Chris’ backyard drinking JD for the first time and got black out drunk, I don’t remember any of that footy at all. I was told I fell asleep in the front yard then was taken into Chris’ house where I threw up a bunch in a bucket,hahaha, oh that was a horrible hangover the next day! I still don’t know why Leland was in a Superman suit…
Unsolved mystery, haha. Your next section is one of my favourites. Tell us about that one. There’s lots of clips from outside Toronto in this one. Did you go on any trips specifically for this?
Man, it’s for sure my favorite section to look back on and think about what was going on at that time. It’s about 6 years old by now and that’s not really a long time but my mind state on BMX is so different from then, I was just a crazy kid trying to bust out! Now I look at it and think, wow you’re a fool and could have died… This video part was ICC’s “That’s What I’m Talkin’ About”. Everyone in the ICC was stoked to film from getting hyped from our last video “Lock N Load” but again It seemed as if it was Butta and I riding all the time and instead of looking for rails to double peg we were going out looking for rails to do moves down. I say I could have died cause in my head I had done all the rail moves already but just needed to find the right spots to do them for real. I’d find a good rail and be like, I want to hangover tooth it… but I’ve never done a hangover tooth on anything but a flat rail so I’d just go for it and it worked 90% of the time. I had a horse shoe up my ass for sure, I’ve lost that now. My luck is more like 10% now, haha. A lot of those rail moves were first timers; Hangover tooth, X-up, over pedal and a few more. Thanks to Leland having a car and him Patrick and I going on an epic road trip for a month to Ottawa, Montreal, NY, NJ, Boston and so many more places we came out with a bunch of great clips for the video. I really need to get back to all those places cause they were all so good.
Were you already on Animal when you were in NY?
When I was in NY in 2005 with Patrick and Leland, no I was not on Animal but we did end up riding with Vinnie Sammon so that was super cool.
That’s definitely worth mentioning. Vinnie is one of the best to ever do it. After that section you had another Landozine part, right? The banger is absolutely insane and appeared on a poster for 1664. How did that move come about, how long had you been on board with the brand, and did you know it was going to end up on a poster? Anything else interesting about this section?
Ya, after the 2005 ICC part I filmed for 2 years and worked on a ton of pegless riding. I really didn’t see much more I could or wanted to do with pegs so one day in the early spring of 2006 I went riding with Patrick and put on jewels instead of pegs or axle nuts and wanted to grind a rail that day to see if it would work. I did 2 rails that day and a BB grind as well, both those grinds are in the 2007 Landozine part. This video part along with the next one(ICC 2007 part) were weird cause it was filmed during 2006-07, 2006 I was riding for 1664BMX and 2007 I left 1664BMX to ride for TenPack- Animal and MacNeil(as well as Little Devil witch is no longer a company anymore). Weird because there is a lot of mixed footage in both parts, for people watching the videos the silver bike is all of 2006 and the blue bike is 2007. I had no clue it was going to be a poster till it was in print, 1664 basically told me they made it into a poster and that was that, haha I was stoked! Kids still tell me till today that they have them in their rooms. I only rode for 1664 for a year and a bit, it was good times but things weren’t moving where I wish they were. I was getting fed up with how things were there and around that time I got a call from Jay Miron to ride for him and stuff, no questions asked I said yes 100%, that was that. Colin Field and I used to drive around shooting pics all the time in 2006 and one day we drove past that rainbow on the DVP and I said “man that would be an amazing curved wallride” that’s all it took for Colin to want to shoot it so we drove around looking for how to get to the damn thing and after about 2 hours found it and it wasn’t what I thought. There was no way to do it without putting dirt at either end so I pretty much said fuck it lest go. Out of the corner of my eye I see Colin bringing over a huge dead tree and from there we started to build piles of logs at each side. We ended up going back 3-4 days building up the sides with logs and dirt as well as cutting out about 100 feet up horrible bumpy grass run up to make everything smooth. On the 3rd day the dirt was still a bit soft but I wanted to take a run at it so I did and I was just testing it and got about 3/4 of the way and bailed and my bike landed on my back but I was ok. I knew it was going to happen for sure… Came back the 4th time and had a couple video cameras and Colin shooting pics. Went for it and that was that, haha. All that work for about 10 seconds of riding. but we were all stoked for sure. Not many people know but a week before that my grandfather died and I did that in his memory.
That’s an awesome story. Seeing that spot while cruising down the highway and seeing how insane it really was always made it stand out to me. Your next section is Jane Strip to Scartown, right? What’s up with the title? I always thought this was a great section that pushed pegless riding in a rad direction. What was it like filming for this one?
Ya, JaneStrip to ScarTown was the next one released in 2007. It was the same deal as the last Landozine one, filmed in 2006(silver bike riding for 1664) and 2007(blue bike riding for TenPack, Animal and Macneil). I was so focused on trying to not watch BMX videos at this point, I tried to watch BMX videos that had really different and good riding like the T1 video “you get what you get” was a video I watched all the time so I could watch Paul B. and the rest of that video was amazing. I don’t know I really just tried to take my riding somewhere different, tried to look outside the box into what could be done and see what people weren’t doing or what very little people were doing or haven’t done in a while. So many rad tricks I remember seeing in videos then never really saw them again. Filming this video was hard, because I was pegless I had to go to spots and find something to do besides grind or whatever. I would always be looking for a good rail to do tricks down cause again all the pegless grinding was new to me and I really didn’t want to go killing myself on setups that I didn’t think were perfect for the trick, although that did happen too. I’m pretty happy with everything in this part in terms of how far I took my pegless riding for that time. I do wish I hadn’t hurt my wrist in the early summer of 2007 cause it put my filming to a stop for the whole summer then when the DVd deadline was coming around I really needed a few good enders so I went out and filmed some… nothing I was really happy about for an ender but it’s what happened so I’ll live with it.It’s not like the ender in this part is shitty, at least I don’t think so…
I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. Definitely a worthy ender. How did your next section [FUTU] come about? Was it a conscious decision to take a break from the ICC videos and take part in a scene video from a bit further south?
FUTU pretty much fell in place without me doing anything, that’s what I like about this part. Chris Orbell called me up one day and said that the FU guys were going on a trip to Montreal and for some reason he told them that he wanted me to roll with them so I did not thinking anything of it except that I was on another trip to Montreal but this time with the FU guys. It was a fun ass trip for sure. I had known most of those guys for a long time but never spent any time chilling with them or anything so that was cool. It was the first time they all got to know me as well and I guess they thought I was a cool dude and I clocked some clips that trip and was asked by Charlie if I wanted a full section cause they had enough clips from that trip for about half a part. 2008 I had just got a new camera and I’m always stackin clips for whatever reason, it didnt seem like there was going to be an ICC video that year so I sent Charlie a bunch of clips from that year that I had filmed and together with the clips from the Montreal trip I got a full part together. It seemed so weird to me watching it cause I don’t even see it as me, it’s like watching someone else ride. First off I was brakeless all of 2008 and I never have my brakes off, had 2 pegs and that year I was learning all those oppo spinning tricks like grinds to 180 and ice to 270’s and stuff. Looking at the part now I’m glad I changed my riding a bit for that year/part. I had a lot of fun with it but don’t know if ill ever take the brakes off for more than a few days…
Do you think it marked a permanent change in your style? Your FU3 section seemed like another step forward in terms of your riding. Not to say that your riding wasn’t anything but awesome before, but to me the progression is obvious. Do you think you’ve settled in now, or are you still chasing new rails moves down bigger setups?
FUTU? Yes and no, what came from riding brakeless was a few new tricks and maybe cleaned up my style a bit, I don’t know… Was my FU3 section the next video part after FUTU? Damn I guess it was, doesn’t seem like it was, haha. FU3 was fun, it’s maybe my favorite part to watch my riding. It seems clean and complete. To say the truth I wasn’t super happy with the end result when I first saw it. I’m so used to editing my own video parts and this one Charlie did it and I remember asking him to change so many things before he made the final DVD. He changes some stuff but it was nothing close to how I wanted it done. Charlie thinks one way and I think another, the way he edited it and how it turned out is amazing it’s grown on me and I’m king of glad it didn’t end up how I was asking cause it would have been shit, haha. This section was a lot of random riding when the FU guys came through Toronto and a bunch of clips I had stuck in my head for a long time that I was stoked to get done and in the FU video. Every year I think I’m done then I go out riding and get the itch. I’m not as nuts as I used to be I know that for sure. I’m learning that as you get older you change and so does your riding. what you saw a year or 2 ago you see different now that’s the greatest thing about BMX or at least how I ride. I like to find interesting setups or try to think of a new trick then search forever to find the right setup for it. So to answer that question, no I haven’t settled at all I’m still out there looking and searching for new stuff everyday.
Have you been finding anything lately? In past interviews you’ve mentioned some ideas you’ve had, so what’s on your mind as of recently? Anything you feel like calling out? I think you actually did everything you mentioned last time. Are any injuries holding you back right now, like your sunflower-seed-shoulder and the back pain you acquired from trying you counteract it?
I haven’t started filming this year cause I know ones the camera comes out its turns into a bad addiction filming every day or every time I go out riding. I’m really just enjoying riding with no backpack right now cause I know in the next week or 2 I’ll start filming and it will be like that till the end of the year or till I get hurt, haha. I hate calling out tricks but I don’t mind saying what I have on my min in terms of moves I’d like to do. I really want to get back on my crooked game. I got 3 pegs on now and I’ll have them on all year so crooked’s are a must. I really want to x-up grind a rail again but I will just be something small nothing like what I did in ICC’s “That’s what I’m Talkin’ About”, that was a pretty big X-grind. Besides that just want to film some new rails tricks I’ve learned that I haven’t got on film before like Luc-E grinds and stuff like that. Also bringing’ back the pedal icepicks, I got spooked with those a few times in the past 2 years but I feel good about them again. As for tricks that nobody has done I’m really all out of ideas, haha… I’m just still looking for the perfect setups and the tricks will come to me for that sort of stuff. I have a pretty shitty ankle but I have a brace and I took some time off the bike this winter so the ankle is doing better and with the brace it’s all good to go. no other real injuries to report, haha. I still eat seeds like they’re going out of style but I’m all healthy from those past injuries, haha.
So all in all would you say you’re 100% happy with this collection of sections? I think you might be in/near the lead for most DVD sections out of a Canadian.
Yeah, of course I’m happy with everything as a whole. Seeing it from the start to the present is awesome to see progression and just how I was riding at that certain time and what I was thinking filming for the sections. I think thee is a good variety of different styles of riding throughout all the sections which makes them all a good watch. I don’t know about the second part of that question, some people may say yes and no, they may say they are all local scene videos and not big time production videos. I’m stoked on all the video projects I’ve had parts in. They all helped me grow and learn from the past ones. So much fun and good memories from random videos I didn’t know what was going on with from the start, making our own ICC videos and getting sections in Landozine videos which I’ve always been so stoked on, to sections in the FU videos which have got a lot more exposure than all the rest. I’m stoked on everyone who gave me the time of day to film stuff for their videos.
Any specific shout outs to dudes who have helped you out along the way?
Yeah, every one of these people have helped out in one way or another… Lee Allen, Ian and Adrian Miller, Peter Miller, Enrique ‘Butta’ Abarca and Adrien ‘E’ Ellis, most of all for being there with me from the start of all the ICC videos. They’re like brothers to me ’cause of that. Omar Abarca, Patrick Kryzanowski, Leland Nightingale, George Carijutan, Chris Orbell, Charlie Crumlish, Brad Hill, Justen Soule, anyone who had filmed me and gave me the footy to use for video parts, showed me some good spots in their hometown and gave me a couch to sleep on for a night. Every one of these people helped make all those video parts happen and I’m really thankful. And a big thanks to you Cory Beal, and REPSET for doing good things for Canadian BMX.