Mark Metzner – Roll the Dice

Mr. RoboCop arm, it’s the first time you got injured, right?

I’ve never seriously hurt myself on a skateboard. And as chance would have it, it didn’t happen skating either. I was playing soccer.

Skateboarders don’t play with balls man. 

Back in the days, I played in a legit team. I used to be really good though and now I still thought I could pull it off. I come from a family that has a high affinity for soccer. My brother played for a long time and also made some money coaching. My dad played professional soccer for twelve years in Romania. And he coached as well. 

Really?

It was his full-time job. He lived off of it. Although it wasn’t as much as they earn here of course.

Legend!

My brother called me and asked if I wanted to go and kick with them. And I was wondering, “Should I really go, man? I might just go skating straight away…” But I thought it would be cool to kick it with my brother. We were playing against a couple of guys who practice there almost every day, and I was going head to head with this one guy. We were gunning it and I didn’t see that we were getting too close to the wall. Because of the mishmash of sand on the artificial lawn, the ground was already really slippery and, of course, I would only be wearing sneakers. So, I tried to prevent myself from slamming into the wall while falling and my elbow snapped back and I tore all my ligaments.

Let’s talk about your origin. Your roots are not in Stuttgart.

I was born in the west of Romania, really close to Hungary. In that area, you speak both Romanian and Hungarian. We moved to Germany when I was around two. My dad has German roots even though he was also born in Romania. So was my mom even though her family comes from Hungary. They rather consider themselves Hungarian. I can speak Hungarian too, but when I’m visiting my parents, they usually talk Hungarian and I answer in German because it’s hard to remember the vocabulary and I’m lazy.

Just start swearing in Hungarian when you bail a trick.

[laughs]

And you moved straight to Stuttgart?

No, we moved to Mudau, a tiny city with 5,000 inhabitants between Würzburg and Heidelberg. Nothing really going on, but it was a nice town to grow up in. I started skating there with two of my homies. But yeah, my gipsy genes are still activated. It’s a cool country. It’s poor, but the landscapes are beautiful… The mountains, the black sea, cool forests, the castle of count Dracula. Everything a gipsy heart desires.

I’m going to Transylvania in January. I’ll check it out.

Sick, the people there are really welcoming. Not too long ago, I went to a Romanian wedding because my uncle got married. You arrive in the morning and get a couple of shots of homemade liquor for the warm-up. It’s messed up, you can’t handle it, because the alcohol goes straight to your head. And it goes on like that for the whole day. The atmosphere is really great, everybody’s dancing and so on. Good vibes.

And what do you do here in Stuttgart next to skating? Nursery school lifestyle?

Right, I started my training to become a child educator. Before that, I started going to college, but I didn’t feel it, so I dropped out to do something more socially relevant. I was able to do the training in two rather than three years because of the degree I got in school, and now I’m working half days at an elementary school, which is sweet. We have a good team and I have my own class right now. The kids and I get along really well and I try to tell them what’s cool and what’s not from my own perspective.

Did they ever say anything about the huge dagger you have tattooed on your arm?

They think it’s cool. I mean, I’m not the typical educator to them, but they know that I’m always down for some jokes and that I’m cool with them. But they still realize that I have the authority. From time to time, we go skating too. On Mondays, I offer workshops with Kaba. He is a real legend by now and I thought I’d ask him because he just got done with his apprenticeship as well and now he’s with us. It’s a good balance between skating and working. But I still need more things to do to be satisfied with life. If I was only skating, I’d probably be bored.

You started to get your photography game going, right?

Yes, when I met Sergej Vutuc while studying in Heilbronn he influenced me a lot. We are still close and he still puts out amazing stuff. Really sick personality. He comes from Heilbronn but has been in Berlin for a while by now, where I met him again.

You went there, too, on a small side trip.

I took some time off during the summer. But when you don’t have a job, you get sucked into that party mode really easy. I think that happens to a lot of people who move to Berlin without any concrete plans. But it’s not like I messed up my life and didn’t do anything but partying.

You were still skating a lot?

I was. And I also did a lot of photography and other things on the sideline. I think I really experienced a lot of different aspects of the city because I also visited a lot of museums and did other cultural activities. It was a good time, but at one point, I realized how much I really wanted to come back to Stuttgart. All the homies are here, I feel comfortable. It’s a good base to reach out from. You can always go somewhere else for a bit. Of course, it’s smaller, but that makes it more informal and familiar. Plus, we have our skateshop, we have Beast Distribution, the indoor park.

It was sick to see how many pros and other big companies came to Stuttgart during the summer. 

You could say that Stuttgart is back on the map. It started with Primitive, then Spitfire, we already mentioned Polar, and then there were also Wayward and Magenta. It just makes sense to come and skate here because all the spots are close, you can just push through, and skate the whole city with all its downhills. You just have a blast doing it and if you feel like it, you can catch a train to Ludwigsburg, Esslingen, Böblingen. They all have sick spots. But this area has always been representing skateboarding. Back in the days with Jascha Muller, Torsten Frank, all the Hello21 videos… And now with the younger generation coming up, chances are good that it will stay like this.

I mean, if you look at people like Patrick Zentgraf, who has been around for maybe three years and moved here one year ago, you see why people are drawn to the city.

Paddy is the raddest anyways. He’s down with everyone and has such a cool way of approaching people.

He brought the Krefeld crime flavor to the south.

It was so funny to visit him in Krefeld with Kamil [Krzesniak] and Sandro [Trovato]. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a huge brawl at the main station. All the kebab shop owners came out of their stores and started to fight those other guys. It was a wild first impression.

I just saw on Instagram that he’s looking for a room in LA right now. 

I guess he’s going to film down there with the Primitive guys. He’s making it and he deserves it. It’s always great to see how things pan out for people who are putting a lot of effort into it. Not like he’s been frantically looking for new sponsors, he’s just motivated doing his thing, and has a lot of fun. Today’s world feels so serious, it just makes sense to have more fun skating.

What do you enjoy most besides skating… going to the sauna seems to be a thing you like to do, right?

For sure. It’s always good times with my sauna buddy Phil. He’s the one who introduced me to the world of sauna infusions. We already knew each other but never really hung out, and after some while, we started to become really good friends. I visited him and we started talking openly about some relationship or girlfriend related problems and we’ve been inseparable ever since. [laughs] 

You also met Torsten at the sauna!

Coach T! For sure, he’s coming there a lot as well. It has kind of turned into a meeting point. At first, you might think that it’s weird to go to the fucking sauna, but after all, it’s a cool ritual and you feel super relaxed afterwards.

You are into healthy living in general by now, aren’t you?

I mean, you get older and you have to pay more attention to your body. You eat differently and more nutritious.

I remember some good cooking sessions with Paddy as well.

Paddy is a wicked cook. He always has good ideas. A lot of meat, pulled pork, and stuff like that. Paddy does the sickest Bolognese with French fries. That’s his signature move. 

One last thing we need to talk about is Mark Terenzi. You had that name on Instagram for so long, but you wrote Mark with a K like your original name, not with C how the real Marc Terenzi is spelled.

I can’t remember who gave me that nickname. It feels like I’ve had thousand nicknames already. Mark Terenzi stuck to me though. But once the fucking Jungle Camp with Marc Terenzi in it aired, I started getting more and more followers. And that dude even became the jungle king and I suddenly got like 200 new followers and kept on getting DM’s. One guy sent a photo of him, his wife, and their three Chihuahuas congratulating me. And I was like, “What the fuck is going on?” Maybe I should hit up his PR manager for some collabo shit. Nah, but after some time, it got too crazy and I had to change my name.