Thrasher Magazine

We invited Arizona’s Aaron Goure on the trip because we knew he does weird tricks and heard he travels with his own recording studio. We always appreciate the entertainers in skateboarding, but we love 'em even more when they bring the character out of the whole gang. After a hard day's work in the streets, yanking out of sketchy boardslides and flying around the parks, he'd get Ish in the booth for a freestyle session. Every scene needs its own Aaron. While we had him, Bublitz got Goure to explain his intersecting interests of skating, making heavy rap tracks about Chick-fil-A and producing his own reality TV show. A true original, the flowin' Phoenician reps Welcome, Krux, Orbs, Nike and Pyramid Country.

Photos by Michael Burnett

What were your thoughts on the Am Scramble going into it?

Just being the gnarliest skating—giant rails, big stairs. A lot of people were freaking me out about it saying how gnarly it was gonna be and I was getting a little nervous.

Yeah, what were your impressions of the first two? 

I dunno, just kids skating like their lives depended on it, pretty much. Just putting it on the line, that’s what I got out of it. But it also looked like a good time so I knew it was gonna be fun.

I swear going to North Carolina the first year kind of set it in this big-rail motion. But I feel like that was kind of just a happenstance thing ’cause Sinclair was familiar with the area. But now it’s just like this big-rail hucker fest. But it’s awesome; they’re the funnest trips for me to go on.
Yeah, it was cool for me to witness some of the rails getting grinded and stuff ’cause I don’t really see that. We don’t usually skate too big of rails on any other trips that I’m on.

I love how on the first day Jack backside grinded that big kinked rail and it was like, Oh my God. Were you guys tripping on that? 

It was insane to watch but at the same time he was so confident with it that I was like, Oh, he’s got this. I think I was on the other side and I saw him kind of grinding down and I was like, What the hell? Is he really about to grind that? Then I watched him grind one to the second kink and I was like, Alright, yeah. He has this. It wasn’t even a question.

We had no idea that he was so goddamn patriotic. Salute that doo-rag and pop shove to 50-50

He’s seriously a madman. Did it trip you out watching that, like, Oh fuck, I gotta step my game up? Or were you excited like, Oh damn, he’s getting crazy. I want to get crazy for this, too?

I think it definitely hyped me up and made me want to skate harder. But at the same time, I kinda know what type of skating I’m into and what I’m able to do. You’re not gonna catch me going down kinked rails like that but it definitely motivated me to find my own way to try to get some crazier clips.

I feel like random people throughout the trip would be like, “Dude, why am I here?” They’d always bring up big rails but I’m like, “Dude, everyone’s sick. You’re a skater. You know everyone’s different and sick in their own way.” Griffin was tripping and I’m like, “Dude, you don’t even get it. You’re sick; don’t worry.”
Yeah, totally. You don’t need to be doing that; you just gotta skate however you do. It just happens like that when you got those type of people out on a trip and you see those big rails and hubbas they’re going down.

Dude, I just watched the first episode of your reality show, Crumple + Flow. It’s so sick. Does that take awhile to edit?

Yeah, especially ’cause I’m doing most of the video on my phone. I have this app that’s pretty decent and I can do a lot of layers. But I’ll export the video and put it onto my computer to do the audio and then if I want to change something all the dialogue and everything is on one audio file with the music so then I have to chop it and do all of these weird things. It’s like a magnetic timeline so if I move something then everything is off, so it takes awhile to make adjustments but it works.

I feel like that’s how I edited my first video. I swear if you were to use a computer it would be so much more intuitive for you. But it’s cool that you’re learning the longhand way of doing it.

Yeah, I have Final Cut Express on my old computer but it makes HD files look so crappy ’cause it’s the computer I had when I was a freshman in high school. But I just got the Creative Suite from Jason at Welcome so I’ll have Premiere and that’ll change a lot for me.

Flying by the flag while Breezy questions his restaurant choices

Dude, for real. What have you been up to since the trip ended? 

I’ve just been kinda working on the reality show, editing stuff and finishing that “Chick-fil-A” music video and doing other music stuff.

Tell us the story about the sorority girls turned security guards.
We were skating that green hubba and there was some commotion. Some frat girls were across the street ’cause their house was looking over the ledge. So the cops showed up and kicked us out. I guess they were the ones who called and were kind of just mean mugging us from the balcony with their arms crossed and stuff, staring at us like, Yeah, we got you, and we were just like, What the hell? What’s your problem?

I thought they’d be chiller, honestly. I thought that whole era of being a disgruntled person in public was kinda over.
Yeah, I thought it was kinda taboo to do that, to be that kind of hater now. Even cops are like, “I personally love skating.”

While the sorority girls across the street called the cops, Aaron snuck in a cheeky noseslide. Then we all streaked the quad

 

I just have my laptop and then my interface that points into my laptop so I can plug my headphones and microphone into it and then I had my new mic stand that I recently bought ’cause I was carrying around this really old one that didn’t really collapse so it was just this giant metal pole in the back of the van. But this one fully detaches and fits in a pretty small pocket, which is dope. It has the isolation backing so the vocals don’t bounce around the room as much. Then my microphone and my pop filter that you put in front of the mic so the Ps and the Bs don’t pop too hard.

How did you learn all this stuff? You mentioned that you went to school for this?

Yeah, I went to a one-year program, like a year-long trade school called CRAS, the Conservatory for Recording Arts and Sciences and that’s where I got my laptop and my interface. That comes with your tuition. So I did a year of learning how to record studio consoles and stuff. It was really cool. I haven’t used too much of the actual stuff ’cause it was for big studio recording, but it helped me get started, for sure, and I kinda went from there to learning stuff on YouTube.

So describe the reality show that you came out with recently? 

It’s called Crumple + Flow. It was originally gonna be called Big Fat Hick Crew’s Road to Flynn. It was actually gonna be a documentary when I first started writing the script for it. I wanted to make a documentary but then I had made a small reality show last Pyramid Country trip and I really liked it and the format was funnier, I think. So it slowly turned into a reality show as I was editing it. But then it’s kinda supposed to be a parody of this Netflix show Rhythm + Flow. I don’t know if you’ve seen that but it’s pretty much Cardi B, T.I. and Chance the Rapper judging a rap contest. They bring in people, they audition them and they make them rap battle. So it was gonna be a parody of that.

I just saw episode one and it was insane. It was so proper and felt so professional. It was comical but I was still emotionally invested in it. Seeing Jackson Casey—he’s like a washed-up rapper in the show, right?
Yeah, you could say that. That’s the narrative that’s kinda going on right now but he’s gonna have a comeback.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but who are some breakout stars from the show? Who’s a good sport about this?

Jon Pierce from Big Fat Hikaru, he’s the best with it because as soon as the phone is out, he instantly goes into character. He knows that I’m already gonna be filming a reality show so just whatever’s going on he just pulls it right out. And Rick, Big Rick, he has the best facial expressions or reactions. I feel like his facial expressions alone make the show. Then Jackson Casey’s character, Buck Einstein, is basically just modeled around him being grumpy and never wanting to be on camera, which is half true. So he just kind of plays into it and is always pissed every time I’m filming. I think during some points of the trip, especially this one because I was filming every day, people would actually genuinely get a little annoyed. But I think the more they saw the editing and the finished product they were like, Oh, this is actually sick, and they would get into it more. Like the last night of filming for the show I had a lighting guy and there were four people on set and a co-director filming music videos in the other room. It was pretty hectic.

Is this something you’d be interested in doing on the side of skating or maybe after skating?

Yeah, I’m just kind of going with the flow but I would love to continue to make skits and videos and then see where that takes me. It’s cool that making videos and music is something I can do after skating. After I can’t skate anymore, those are the types of things you don’t need your body to be in good condition to do.

Kinker boardslide to eggplant out. Mind the Hyundai, dude!

Okay, so we obviously have to talk about the song. From the get-go you were trying to get a song made on the trip. How did that get started? Have you always been doing that on skate trips?

I think after I graduated from that school I had a shitty mic that wasn’t very good for recording vocals and then my friend Richard gave me a good vocal mic and a stand. So I brought that on the next skate trip and I think me and Jackson were just drinking one night and I was like, “Yo, let’s try to record a song. I’ve got some beats.” He’s like, “Alright,” so we just got in the van, ’cause it was the quietest place, and we recorded a song. We were stoked on it and we were like, Damn, that was fun, and I just started bringing in more and more and every trip more people started getting involved. I like to get the person you would least expect on a song to rap or get on a track or something. So that’s how a lot of the songs come together. People have been getting more and more hyped and now everybody’s pretty down for the studio.

How did Ish do on the mic?

He did super good. I think he’s recorded before. I don’t think too many times, but he got right into it. He already had some lyrics that he had started and I think we worked from there. We kinda came up with the hook just sitting there singing along. Then yeah, he just kind of nailed it and did it real quick.

How did the Chick-fil-A subject matter come about?

I think Ish had written a few lyrics beforehand and then we were listening to the beat and I kinda started singing along like, “Chick-fil-A.” I think he had the lyrics and then I came up with the hook. I don’t know if he finished his verse and then I wrote some stuff afterwards. I think we were trying to eat Chick-fil-A on the trip a bunch, too, and that might have been an influence.

What was your personal favorite line of the rap, whether it’s Ish’s or something you said?

I kinda just like “Barbecue on the side.” That would have to be my favorite lyric. I just like that Ish’s cadence is almost like an ’80s rapper.

Yeah, it’s super stylish. I also like when he said, “You a deer, I’ma hunt.”

“You a deer, I’ma hunt, hunt for you.” Which I didn’t think of it ’til later but it’s almost like a double entendre. He’s like “I’ma hunt for you,” like, I’m gonna go and get you some food.

You guys should seriously put the song on iTunes. I bet you guys could make some money from it.

I’m gonna put it on, for sure. 

So you went to Florida with Pyramid Country before this trip. Honestly, that seems like a shitload of Florida in a short period of time. What’s your takeaways of Florida? 

I feel like I didn’t get to experience enough real Florida action. I didn’t really get to see too many crazy things going down, unfortunately, ’cause I love that type of shit. But I mean, Florida is Florida. It’s what you’d expect, for sure. It’s humid, it’s swampy and there’s a lot of weird-looking people.

You’d met Sinclair before, right?

The only time I’d met him was when he came out with a few of the other Nike dudes for Phoenix Am. Scuba Steve was like, “Yo, these dudes are in town with Mike if you want to link up.” I linked up with them at this bump to bar, first spot of the day, and I tried to hippie hop it and broke a valve on a pipe and water was just shooting up 100 feet in the air. The dudes who owned the building found the video and were trying to pressure us into giving them money. We were kind of tripping out on it and we were like, “Mike, we don’t know what to do.”

Wait, you almost got into a lawsuit the first time you were with Sinclair?

The dude found the video. Rick posted the video of me breaking the valve and somebody tagged the venue on it and the venue owner was like, “Yo, I’m gonna find you and I’m gonna hurt you,” or something. He said some weird, intimidating stuff to Rick and Rick was all scared and I was like, “Dude, Rick, you didn’t even break it. You just filmed the video, you have nothing to worry about.” And he’s all tripping and I’m like, “It’s fine. I’ll just deal with it.” So I hit up this dude on a fake email and was just like, “Hey, I’m the one who broke your thing. How much is it?” He said $250 or whatever. I had no money at the time so I just never opened my email again and nothing happened. But we called Mike. Rick and I didn’t know him but we were like, “Hey, Mike, the guy wants money,” and he’s like, “Well, just go there and talk to him.” We were like, What?!

Caveman board to noseblunt, all in one convenient frame

That would be so sketchy after he said he was gonna hurt you.

Yeah, so we thought we were gonna get arrested or get our ass beat or something. But yeah, that was my only experience with Mike before the trip.

Damn. Did you pick up on any of his quirks hanging out with him?

He definitely likes his candy. Mike’s funny, man. The way he tells stories about things that have happened to him is hilarious. He likes to get the scoop on stuff, too. He and Breana were talking gossip the whole time.

That’s like the best part of a skate trip sometimes—just talking shit. How was the vibe in the van? Did it take a while to break the ice between all you guys? 

Yeah, I think we were all talking towards the end of the trip about how the vibes were on the very first ride. The first day of skating, after breakfast, Jesse rolled up a huge spliff. I hit it a couple times and then I got in the van and kind of had a mini anxiety attack. I was like, Holy shit, I’m really stoned. I don’t know anybody in this van right now and we’re about to go skate and have cameras on us. It was so cold that my body—not only did I feel kind of crazy mentally, but then my body just felt like it was completely stiff. I think we were all feeling a little bit crazy on that first ride. And especially at the first session at the park we were all so stiff. I almost fell dropping into a quarter pipe—I fully forgot how to drop in. My legs didn’t work. That whole day I was just doing jumping jacks trying to force my body to work.

Put one down for the old US of A, then straight to Chick-fil-A

Had you been on a skate trip with a girl before?
I don’t think so, no. Not a full-on skate trip, maybe a weekend thing or something.

How was Breezy on the trip?
She was sick. She could totally hold her own and chill with the boys. She even pees at the spot like a dude, just runs it. I remember she was peeing at the bank spot where the people were tripping on us, the old people. She was just right behind the wall peeing. I think Sinclair walked up or something. She’s all, “Wait up.”

She’s such a badass.
Yeah, she is super sick.

Wired for weirdness but still down to huck. Switch frontside flip before the inevitable kick out

What’s a trick of another Scrambler that you would love to have?
Backside pinched 50s. I know Jack’s got them. I’m sure a couple of the other dudes got ’em too. I can’t really back 50 rails but I’ve been trying to learn, so you might see me pinching down some kinked rails soon.

That seems like it’s in the toolbox of all the new-age sort of kinked-rail kids. It’s such a different vibe of grind.
Yeah, I feel like you can grind anything if you can get that pinch. I’m a heel sider so I need to adjust that.

In your eyes, who was the MVP from the trip?
I wanna say Jack. I think he was just the dude who was going the hardest the whole time with gnarly stuff. He rolled his ankle so bad on that hubba and I thought he was gonna be done. He just taped it up and kept going, so I would have to probably say Jack.

You said you work for your friend’s company. Was your boss chill when you wanted to go on the Scramble?
Yeah, it’s a good friend of mine and his manager below him was a skater, too, and he’s really chill. All my bosses are really chill, especially with schedules and stuff, trips.

What do you like about valeting cars? That job always seemed so cool, just being able to drive exotic cars and running around the whole time.
Yeah, it’s actually my favorite job I’ve had yet. I’ve worked a bunch of random little jobs like Target and working at some food places. The thing I like about this one the most I guess is—at least where I’m at—I’m just chilling for a little bit and then a car will come up and you get to drive a Tesla or something crazy like a Maserati. Then you park the car, run back and you’re just chilling again. I’ll just listen to music or podcasts and just be on my phone. I’ll do a lot of the show when I’m just chilling at work. It’s always different every day; you get different people, which is cool.

You probably randomly get big tips too. Where do you valet? Is it at a restaurant?
It’s some bougie apartments, some way-overpriced apartment building. They rent out part of their building as a salon, so you’d think that you’d get a lot of big tippers ’cause it’s all old rich Scottsdale people, but more often than not we get skimped. Some ladies will pay me change and I’m just like, What the hell? But we split the tips anyway so even if you got a 50-dollar tip it’s gonna be like 25.

Pent up anger from a season of stiffs 

Tell me about that mid-session tea time. I remember Griffin broke the rail and it just so happened to be by this tea shop. Can you break down that situation?
As we were pulling up, I think Mike said, “They’re cool with you skating the rail as long as you buy something from the tea shop.” So a few of us walked in there and were just getting a coffee or whatever and then we realized how legit the place was. They actually had costumes and a tea table and gloves and shit. They asked if we wanted it for there or to go and it was like, “We’ll drink it here.” From there I think we put on one costume piece at a time and it just got a little bit intense. Next thing I knew we were all sitting around the table with gloves and scarves and hats on sipping some blueberry tea and eating some croissants. But it was real nice. I felt rejuvenated after it. It was very relaxing.
 
It has the ambiance, for sure. How was Kona? I looked it up on the Internet and apparently it’s the world’s oldest operating skatepark.
Dude, Kona was so sick. It think me and a couple other people thought that it was in Hawaii. And a couple people I’ve talked to since I’ve been back also thought that. It kinda feels like you’re in Hawaii when you’re there somehow. But yeah, that was amazing. I didn’t even get to skate the wood part ’cause I was just skating the old concrete park for so long. But that was definitely one of the sickest parks I ever skated.

What do you mean it feels like you’re in Hawaii?
I guess maybe just the colors—the blue of the ground and stuff. I feel like there’s maybe some palm trees around. It just gave me those good Hawaii vibes, I guess. I’ve never been to Hawaii but that’s what I would imagine it feels like.

What’s up with Giovanni? Did you know him before this trip?

No, I didn’t know Giovanni at all but he was one of my favorite people on the trip. Even though there is a little bit of a language barrier you can totally communicate anything that needs to be said either with facial expressions or just a couple words. He would just look at me a certain way or I would look at him and he’d be like, “Yep,” and you would just know what he’s trying to say.

He’s such a fun guy. At first he was kind of to himself but by the end of the trip he really broke out of his shell. He was Crip walking and singing in front of everyone.

Yeah, at first I was like, Okay, this is just like a super fucked-up skater and then by the third day he’s saying some really funny stuff and he definitely came out of his shell. I think once he hit the dance, that’s when I knew. I was like, Alright, yeah, this dude is sick on and off the board.

That’s super sick. What’s next for you this year? 

In the near future I’m gonna be doing a little Welcome trip to California, which will be fun, and then straight to the Philippines from there. So traveling around a little bit and then coming back and I’m gonna be focusing on Orb wheels stuff ’cause I recently became the brand manager of that. So I’m gonna try to plan some trips and maybe make a video or something, some little edits, stuff like that.

Damn, congrats. That’s a sick job.

Yeah, I’m pretty hyped on it so far. It’s been fun.

Well, you killed it on the trip. Thanks for being such a good sport with this interview and with me pointing a camera at you on the trip.
Of course. Thank you for being so sick. The whole media team, all you guys were the sickest. Couldn’t have been a better squad.

Better than a Hawaiian vacation, going to Kona is always a treat. Kickflip grab the snake run gap at skateboarding’s Stonehenge