Thrasher Magazine

Shawn Hale has been blowing minds for years with his bizarre transition moves, unmatched backside noseblunt abilities and flowing style. And if a eating vegetables and the occasional acid flashback helps elevate this 30-year-old am to the big leagues—about damn time!

This is your first part in a full-length video, right? How does it feel?
I mean, it’s what every skateboarder wants to do, right? I’m hyped to be a part of a group of people working towards the same thing. It’s a whole different thing that I’ve ever experienced so I’m just excited to be a part of it.

Were you nervous about it at all?
No, the only thing I stressed about was just staying healthy. Dude, I just turned 30 so I was stressed about just feeling good on my board. I just had to stay as healthy as possible, so I just skated as much as I could and stayed on top of things. So yeah, if I was nervous about anything, that would be it. I had a few years that I stayed injured so during that time I just changed my diet and it helped a lot, I think.

Healthy use of a dirt bike, frontside tailslide.     Photo: Rhino

Tell us about your new homeopathic outlook.
I guess I’ve always have been into it. I just don’t like taking pharmacy shit. I just like how to figure out how to help my body heal in more organic ways.

Grown from the Earth!
I’m not going to go take a aspirin or anything. I’d just rather just go eat some raspberries 
or something.

Wait, do raspberries work like aspirin?
No, not at all! I just don’t want to put that stuff in my body.

Well, that makes no sense then!
I don’t know. I’ll still go drink alcohol and do whatever.

I feel you on that. I don’t have that kind of self control. I don’t even watch those documentaries about the food we eat because I know I can’t change it. I’d rather just not know. I pull the blind eye when it comes to that.
I used to be like that for a long time.

I know it’s going to catch up with me someday.
It’s whatever makes you happy. I still eat whatever I want. I just don’t want to eat junk.

Ozone, shmozone. It’s tricks like this backside 180 to fakie 5-0 that are gonna put Hale in the pro zone Photo: Jones

Was it the acid trip that made you think like this? Did it change your chemical structure?
That’s what a couple people like to say a lot. I wouldn’t say it changed that much. I don’t know how to explain it. It was an experience.

I have heard all the talk about it. People joke about it a lot—stuff about how ever since you took that acid your whole approach to skating has changed. You’ve been killing it ever since that trip.
I don’t even know. I just try weird tricks, I guess. I think I just have a little more fun skating now. I don’t think it’s from the acid. It just definitely makes us all laugh.

Not-so-weird smith grind     Photo: Jones

What’s with the ozone therapy you’ve been doing?
Do you want all the details?

Yeah, lay it out.
Okay, well, basically your blood makes O3 naturally and it attaches to toxins in your blood. Basically, ozone therapy just gives your blood more 03 to help destroy the bad stuff in your blood and clean you out.

Frontside 180 fakie 5-0 over the hip, raptor style!     Photo: Vaughan

Is that what the bikers use? Have you been doping like Lance Armstrong?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they use it. It’s an Eastern medicine thing. We don’t like it much in the US. The first time I tried it I was super fucking sore from skating. I was sprinting at this thing for two hours. My hamstrings were tore up; my tendons were sore. I couldn’t straighten out my legs. I’d known about it for six months or so. I’d just been waiting for a time to try it when I’d really notice a difference. So the next day I went to this holistic doctor/healer guy.

That’s sick! I like that kind of stuff.
The dude is super wise when it comes to Eastern healing, so it’s really interesting to talk to him about all of it. So what he does is puts the needle in your vein and the blood passes by and it sucks up. So he doesn’t actually inject you; it soaks in as it passes by. 

That’s crazy!

Yeah, so I get it and I ask the guy if it was okay if I go drink with my friends that night. I didn’t want it to reverse the effects of the therapy. He said it didn’t matter. So that night I got wasted. I woke up the next day thinking no way this is going to work, but by 3pm I was completely fine and skating just like normal. It was pretty crazy because from experience 
I know how sore I was. It normally would 
have taken four days but I was good to go in 
a few hours.

Is that the same doctor who’s going to take off your pinky toe?
No! But no joke, I did ask a doctor to amputate my pinky toe one time. It’s jacked. It’s like a raptor claw. It’s always hard to break in new shoes. I heard it’s a common injury for people when they can’t stop skating. I’ve met a few different people with the same toe. It’s not a cosmetic thing; it’s just really annoying to break in new shoes.

Let’s hear about your gnarly tattoo-removal process.
Clint showed me how to do this. So on the way back from Florida I decided to do it. I knew it would be fucked up painful if I did it, but me and Mills were driving back so I decide to try this fucked up experiment. You take salt and then take gauze and get it wet. You basically sand it off with salt and then wrap it back up in salt and let it set for six or seven days. I was bummed when I did it but now 
I’m stoked.

Explain what the tattoo was.
It said “Love.”

He’s got love to burn. Massive frontside 5-0 on a Birdhouse party wave     Photo: Zaslavsky

So you’re not down with love anymore?
It was just a shitty free tattoo I got at the Skatepark of Tampa when I was 18. I still 
like love.

Did it heal up okay?
Define okay. I mean, yeah, the tattoo is gone. I bet in, like, six months the skin will look the right color.

Dude, it was fucked to watch you do it. But it looks better than I thought it would. Well, back to the video real quick. Did your part turn out like you wanted it to?
I’m happy with how it’s gone. I wish we still had more time just because you get injured and some tricks get away from you. But I’m happy. Everything that I didn’t do I’m going to go back and try for a different part.

It’s good to have goals!