Chris Milic & Jesse Alba Interview

I guess you’re the art director of Frog and you do all the drawings. 

Right now Jesse is doing some drawings and I had my friend Pat do some drawings too. Everybody on the team does some little drawings in the whole scheme of things.

How did you actually start after you decided to do your own company?

 I just drew a logo. It was the first logo I ever drew and I drew it first try and I still use that one. I just asked a bunch of friends where they get stuff made and then I started really small. The first time I made shirts, I only made 35. The next time I made more and then more and more and more. I keep making more, but I still make a small amount of stuff, so it’s manageable. Cause I do all the shipping and stuff and all the graphics. I mean it’s not super hard to run a company, but sometimes there can be a lot of shit. How do you feel running your company?

I guess I started at the same situation. One day you stick with a name, you start with some graphics, they turn into production files, and that turns into finding a place to produce boards. Then you have to pay a couple of thousand dollars for some boards. So you produce 500 boards, sell those, and have the money to produce another 500 plus another 250. You organically grow and keep the money in the company. You add shirts and so on. But how’s your company going? Do you want to do it as a real job or is it just a side thing?

I really don’t know. That’s one of the reasons why we quit Welcome, too, cause the guy Jason wanted it to be the largest skate brand, what is cool, but we liked it just to be a group of friends and he wanted it to be the biggest skateboard company in the world. He was selling so many boards at the time too. We kinda just didn’t care, I don’t really know, we just wanted to do our own thing. I think sometimes when something gets too big, it loses its special quality. I’m not really sure what the goals are. [laughs] We just wanna keep doing it and making stupid stuff. That’s important to us, to make stupid stuff or even stuff that doesn’t sell or look super cool.

That’s the freedom of having your own company. It was the same with me, I didn’t have the goal to have this huge global company, but quickly it happened. My goal was to give European skaters like Hjalte [Halberg] or Kevin [Rodrigues] an alternative, so they can stay in Europe. By the way, when is the Hjalte Halberg guest board from Frog coming?

I don’t know. I think I freaked him out a little bit. I was like: “We’ll do your board,” and he was like: “Maybe you should wait a little bit, but I’m down.” But I think we still wanna do it. Jesse’s dad is getting a board next, a Salba [Steve Alba] board.

Is the headquarter in your apartment?

Yeah, the headquarter is in Manhattan, New York City.

Who’s taking care of packing boxes?

I’ve been packing boxes for a while and now my girlfriend started packing them too. [laughs] So we both pack them together. Especially right now we get a lot of orders for Christmas. 

What would you describe the skating of the team? What is a typical Frog skater? What is your style, your vibe?

I’m not really sure. Maybe just some weird people.

If you could pick or steal one rider to get on Frog, who would it be?

My friend Aaron Goure, he also got on Welcome and gets paid a lot from them, so he doesn’t wanna leave. [laughs] He’s pretty young and they give him a lot of money, which is pretty cool cause I can’t give him any money.

Casper | Sherbert

I’m attracted to your graphics. Those so to say childish computer graphics. What inspires you and have you always been drawing and doing artworks?

When I was in high school, I wanted to be an artist, but when I graduated, I just wanted to skateboard a lot and I quit going to school and just skated for a really long time. When I started riding for Welcome, I got back into drawing. I was hurt a lot and whenever I got hurt, I started drawing. I’ve always been attracted to children’s art cause it’s so weird. The more ridiculous it looks, the better. Sometimes stuff is too nice looking. I like it when it’s a little fucked up or it’s the wrong color.

A little bit wrong but right at the same time.

Yeah, it’s a mix and I grew up playing videogames with my older brother. I just always did what he did. He was listening to Metallica a lot and played videogames, so I liked to do that too. We just played videogames together a lot. So the graphics are videogames style.

It feels like some Super Mario graphics.

Yeah, people said the little star is looking like this.

With what program do you work, cause it looks like MS Paint?

If you go into Photoshop and make the brush size one pixel, you can make pixel art and I always wanted to make pixel art. I thought it was kinda cool looking and I just decided to try to make some stuff like that. It’s pretty fun to make little drawings. I used to draw on my computer a lot when I had a PC. I kinda hardly knew how to use Photoshop, so it took a little bit of relearning when I started the company. It’s hard for me to get the programs cause I didn’t have any money to pay for them so I was trying to get them from my friends.

Jesse Alba

How was it growing up in a skateboarding family? With a skate legend as a father as well as an uncle?

It was mellow. I didn’t really start skating until I was 12 years old. I would skate with my dad but not too much. I was kinda following him and wore the gnarly leopard print pads and the red helmet just like him. I grew up skating pools and stuff with him. But when I was in middle school, I started skating street with my friends.

What brought you to New York?

The skating pretty much. I came two summers in a row and had a good time. I was living at my parents’ house in Southern California and it was really boring and a lot of my friends had moved out of town. To go to skate in L.A., I had to drive an hour every day. At that point my car had the transmission broke, so I was stuck and was working and saving money and bought a one-way ticket out here. Stuart Kirst and Ben Kadow had a little apartment, so I could live with them, but it was a really small two bedroom in Bushwick and I ended up living in the living room, which is pretty much the kitchen. But it was rad to be out here.

Let’s talk about Frog. It all started as a joke that turned into reality, which is normally the best thing to do. Just have fun.

Yeah, it’s crazy to see. The first four months we didn’t even have boards, which is pretty funny to start a skateboard company and have no boards. [laughs] At least T-shirts. Once we finally had a board, we were like: “Shit, it’s actually happening.” 

Do you guys want it to grow or keep it that small thing between you and your friends?

I have no idea. It would be cool to just keep it going. I’m surprised it even lasted this long to be honest. [laughs] Chris said it’s doing pretty well, that he’s selling a lot of stuff. That’s good that he just can do that shit and survive off that, which is awesome. Hopefully we’ll do a trip and make a video.

You have a camera or you just film it with your iPhone?

I have a VX1000. It’s actually Dane’s [Brady] VX1000, I bought it off him.

What are you guys inspired by as a skater as well as with Frog?

I think everyone is into different stuff. That dude Pat [Gallaher] is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He’s so good at skating, he can do switch crooked grinds on a handrail first try. I don’t watch much skate videos. I used to watch old videos, like the Todd Congelliere Liberty video part. He just did insane fucking vert tricks. A lot of Ocean Howell and old Stereo stuff is really rad, with Matt Rodriguez and that Greg Hunt part too. There’s a lot of older stuff that’s way cooler than everything now. I feel like everything’s pretty hard to watch. All of Johnny’s [Wilson] videos are rad, I watch them too. I’m skating with everyone in there, that’s super rad.

What’s the future for you? Do you wanna have a pro model one day?

I don’t really care. I just like to fucking cruise around. It’s rad to just skate with your friends and there’s no pressure or anything. But I mean if that happens, that’s cool too. But I’m not trying to achieve being a pro skater. I’m just skating. I don’t think I give enough to be considered that at all. I’m just fucking around pretty much. I don’t know, maybe do another video part sometime if I get motivated enough.

Talking about videos, you put your penis out quite often and like to piss around in videos.

Yeah, that happens. [laughs] I don’t even know, probably just being stupid and drinking and skating. We try to do the piss hippie jump a lot, where someone’s peeing and then you have to hippie jump over the piss.

Sound like you like to party. I heard you went partying with Heath Kirchart as well.

[laughs] A bunch of times cause Grant [Yansura] used to hang out with him a lot. He’s a funny dude. The only funny story I have is from the time before I was able to get into bars. So we were drinking in the parking lot in front of the bar and he was just throwing glass bottles, trying to hit people. It was pretty insane. But he’s a funny dude, he’s really intense, but I feel like he mellows out a lot when you get to know him. So it’s not as scary but definitely scary with him the first couple times. But he’s a rad dude.

Your @juicyelbows instagram account is pretty weird, but you had another one, @jesse_alba_official, that was even weirder.

Oh yeah, that was Grant running that one. I told them my instagram password one time and then one night I fell asleep and they logged in and changed the email and everything and posted photos of people’s dicks and most gnarly shit and it got deleted. Then he started that one the next day and made it seem like I was a pile of shit or something, which is pretty funny.

So you got insta-raped.

Yeah, it was good. He doesn’t do it anymore, he should’ve kept up with it.