An Interview With The Founder Of Real Talk Skateboards
I was browsing posts on the official facebook group for Pure Deathcore when i saw a gorgeous skateboard deck with Enterprise Earth's Album Cover on it! I added the guy who posted it and discovered he sells a plethora of decks with different band designs on them! I dug deeper and realized he runs is own skateboard company called Real Talk Skateboards. I contact him and requested an interview so i can spread awareness about his brand! Anytime a brand gets involved in the music scene I'm going to be interested. I wish more brands like this had an interest in our scene. The founder agreed to be interviewed. Here is how it went down.
Thanks for taking some time to be interviewed about your shop! Could you please introduce your self to our readers?
Hello. My name is Preston Pasco, I'm the owner and founder of Real Talk Skateboards out of Stow, Ohio.
When did you start building skateboards and why?
I started toying around with the idea of a skateboard brand in the spring of 2011. I skated a lot in my preteen - teen years and I always found the business end interesting.
How did you manage to get started? What kind of printing techniques do you use when adding designs to your boards?
I started with buying bundles of blanks off eBay and putting artwork on them with stencil cutouts. Very basic, very DIY. After a while I linked up with a local dude and we ordered our first board that was printed by a professional manufacture. That was around August/November of 2011. I use the industry standard printing process, which is heat transfer application. I've been doing that in house since the end of 2014.
When and where did you get the idea to start making decks for bands?!
It was around the time when i started having the boards made professionally. I thought it would be a fun idea to mix music and skateboards. The first one was executed in August of 2012.
Do the band's make any money off the sale of these boards? Or how does that work?
They do. Generally, I pay for the entire cost of production. handle my part of the marketing, ship the orders and the band would be paid when the board has been retired from sale. Just really a cool way for the fans to have a special collectable item or something to totally thrash.
That's really cool! So they a large commission all at once instead of small commissions as the sales come in. An extremely smart business tactic. Kudos.
Who was the first band you made a deck for and who was your favorite band to make a deck for?
Thank you! Vanna was the first band we worked with back in 2012. As for my favorite, i'd have to go on the personal level with the Senses Fail release and on the artwork level, either the second Dying Fetus release or the first Protest The Hero.
Dude Protest The Hero is my shit. Best band to come out of Canada in my opinion. Do you sponsor or endorse any bands or skaters?
Great band! I currently don't do any endorsing or sponsoring. The sponsorship thing will be changing on the skate side, as I'm now a partner in a skate shop here in Ohio.
Thanks exciting! What can you tell me about the new partnership and this skate shop?
I've always done my production in a home office environment, and when I moved back to Ohio I knew I didn't want to continue doing that. A mutual friend of Dave (the shop owner) and I told us to link up and talk wholesale business, and that talk ended with me moving my production into the shop property and helping him run the shop, that just opened on the 1st of March!
Wow congraduations! That's big!
Thank you very much! It really is. I needed help with the skate side of things, as running my operations is more than a one man job on its own, so you can only imagine what it looks like trying to move into the core skateboard scene with a one man business team. I'm really excited about the future as of today.
What's the next step for your brand?
I think mainly growing the collectable concept of the band side of things and moving further into the traditional side of core skateboarding.
Looking forward to following your progress and I'll be ordering get a band deck soon! Where can I make my order?
Appreciate you digging it all! It really means a lot. You, and anyone else can order at anytime, from anywhere at www.RealTalkSkateboards.com!
As we wrap this up is there anything else you would like my readers to know about?
Just keep enjoying the music! If you haven't rode a skateboard before, hop on one and give it a try. It's underrated how comfortable and relaxing it can be to just glide around town or your local park.
You can check out the brand on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Realtalkskateco/
Or visit their site and make an order to support a brand that supports bands! www.RealTalkSkateboards.com
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