Mark from Heroin Skateboards always has the best designs and graphics and they always seem to fit together so well. Everything is in it’s place. The originator of the egg shaped board now presents a new wheel company: Snot wheels. Armed with a amazing team of curb destroyers: Dead Dave, Jake Snelling, Vinny Delfio and more – Snot wheels are quickly moving to the top of the food chain. Remember don’t eat the snot, skate it.
I heard you on The Nine Club – great episode! So, I know how you came up with the Heroin skateboards name – but, how did Snot come about? You always have such amazing designs and brand identity. How do you get the colors, the fonts? Do you think of a name first?
I had a few names in mind. Played around with all of them a little bit, but when I came up with Snot it seemed super fun and like it had loads of potential and I drew out the little booger guy and it was a done deal from that point forwards really. I suppose there’s a sense of irony too, with it being started in the middle of a pandemic and being called Snot.
How did the Snot team get started? Is it a lot of the Heroin guys? Or this more of a stand alone thing as far as the team goes?
Quite simply, Dead Dave didn’t have a wheel sponsor and I was pretty shocked that nobody was hooking him up, so that was really where the whole idea started, and then we got Jake Snelling on too and a few of my favorite skaters who didn’t have wheel sponsors. I didn’t want it to just be Heroin wheels. It had to work outside of that a bit.
Going back to the design theme – all of your wheels and merchandise have such radical colors / graphics and some unique shapes. How do those all come about – is it just you or does everyone kind of help out?
Just me, I come up with everything. I design them, pay for them, invoice and ship everything myself. The idea at least from my point of view is that they’re fairly small batch wheels, once they sell out then I tend to move on to the next idea I have for something in that size. I’m really just having fun with it all and I just want to make wheels that me and the riders are excited about. We use good quality US urethane for everything.
A big part of Snot is that they (wheels, merch, etc.) are only available at skate shops? Do you think that’s how all brands should operate? Are they any downsides to this way of selling?
When I started Snot, I felt like I had two choices really, either work with the shops, or focus on direct sales instead, but I see that as working against the shops in a lot of ways, so it’s something I’m reluctant to do.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this – any new wheel shapes, new team riders, cool surprises coming?
Always working on something! I’m finishing filming and editing the Swampy and Nolan video, they both ride for Heroin and Snot, that should be out soon.
Thanks.
Fos
Paul runs Give Praise Records and is the Editor at Shackle Magazine. Paul hangs out on Cape Cod in Massachusetts with his wife and son, Christopher. He also has been working at a offset print shop since 2003, and still tries to get out and skateboard on very small curbs.
