Omar Hassan Week Day 2: Exclusive Interview

Welcome back to another installment of Vans Rider’s Week. This week we feature one of our riders that has been on the team longer than most anyone else aside from Cab and Barbee, Black Label Pro Omar Hassan. Yesterday we set the week off with a half dozen interviews from the past 20+ years so you could get to know Omar all over again. Today we give you a meaty exclusive interview with one of skateboarding's original ATVs discussing everything from Mark Gonzales, the ups and downs of the past two decades, challenging Jereme Rogers to a rap battle and the future of Black Label and Omar himself. Grab a cold one and sit back and enjoy.

OMAR HASSAN INTERVIEW

Did you get on Vans Before television was invented?
Damn! Yeah, before cars were invented. Right when the wheel got invented, around that time. No, I was 13 years old. I got on Vans at Vans because they had a ramp in the warehouse and this guy Beetle Rosecrans, that rode for Hosoi Skateboards, and his dad Everett were doing the Vans team and everyone would go there and skate. Back when we were kids they had all those CASL Contests (California Amateur Skateboard League) and there was a whole community of us little monkeys skating and I was skating Vans a lot and they were like, “Hey, we’ll put you on the team.” It was real cool back then because there weren’t a lot of different shoe companies. Basically Vans and Airwalk were your two options and Vans had some of the best guys, guys that have all branched off to do their own shoe companies like Danny Way and Eric Koston. It was just a roster of the best dudes like Ray Barbee and Caballero and Lance [Mountain] and everyone was riding them so there wasn’t a lot of competition back then so if rode for Vans you were on the best team.

Now 2012 who has been on the team longer than you? Just Caballero, right?
I’d say Cab and Ray Barbee. Ray has rode for them forever so I think him and I got on around the same time; I’m not sure exactly. I just know he’s one of those guys that has always been there. There’s a lot of guys that have been on Vans for a long time like Julien [Stranger] and Max Schaaf who maybe weren’t getting ads or weren’t on the team lists but they always rode Vans especially a guy like Julien.



Let’s backtrack, how did you get into skateboarding at first?
My older brother. We lived in Costa Mesa/Newport Beach area and he was into going to the punk rock show spot, The CooCoo’s Nest. Skateboarding was always a huge part of my community in Costa Mesa. We had Vision right down the street and even before the Vision days it seemed like there was a lot of people that came out of Costa Mesa, like Duane Peters for example. Like every other kid that looks up to their older brothers I just got into it. Next thing I know he was giving me all his old stuff. Then there was the swap meet and I know it sounds crazy but the swap meet is where you could buy all your boards. The first Vans shoe store ever was in Costa Mesa. It was right down the street from the Orange County Fairgrounds, which had a bike track. We were all into BMX and skateboarding; that’s just how it was in the 80s. The Vans store was where I’d get my shoes and it was funny because back then you used to be able to pull out the boxes and fit them on your feet right there. They just had boxes you choose from and my older brother actually got arrested because he’d go in there and take his old shoes, put them in the box and walk out with new shoes on. He got arrested doing that. But Vans was a huge part of our community and wasn’t that big in other places as much yet.

What’s your brother do now? When’s the last time he stepped on a board?
He skates a little bit here and there and surfs but he’s doing his own thing. He does mortgage stuff now for a living.





I remember you telling me one of your early hook ups was through Mark Gonzales. How did that happen and what’s your Gonz story?
Mark used to always skate around Newport Beach because that’s where Vision was at the time. I’d always see him down at the boardwalk because back then you could skate on the boardwalk. They’ve since banned it but we’d have posses of dudes that would skate down the boardwalk from Newport to Balboa and if you look into his early years when Mark got a lot of his early coverage it was shot by that photographer O which he hung out with a lot. I met Mark and O down at the beach skating around, being a little grom. We’d go to this place Lucky’s Curbs and we’d do slappies and O would take photos of Mark all day long. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. This area was always producing skateboarders, like Jason Lee was another one. We all just met each other through skating down the boardwalk. Mark was more progressive than all of us and we were just feeding off what he was doing once he started doing boardslides on benches and taking tranny to the streets. He was onto something creative and different and he pioneered that whole mentality of, “You don’t have to be at a ramp or a pool. You can skate in the street and skate anything.”
A funny Gonz story is my mom used to buy me Air Jordans when I was a little kid when Air Jordans first came out. And I always have a helmet with me and we’d go to a punker house in Newport that these guys from Ohio had and hang out. I went to the store and I came back and he was drawing all over my brand shoes and brand new helmet and I was like, “What the???” I got pissed a little bit like, “Man! What are you doing? Why are you drawing all over my helmet??” it was paint pen days and he paint penned the shit out of my helmet and now I look back and if I would have kept all that shit it would have been priceless. But back then it used to kinda annoy me because he was just drawing all over my shit. It’s funny. Another time he didn’t like this board he had and he gave it to me and it had some crazy face drawing he did on it and back then I just took that stuff for granted like, “It’s just crazy Mark drawing all over his stuff.” Now I look back man, if I would have saved all the memorabilia that he was giving me it would have been priceless. He was ahead of the time on that stuff but I just thought he was just kinda crazy. I didn’t save any of it. But who would have known he was going to be who he is? We were just young kids doing our thing. Nowadays it’s a bit different with parents and agents; we were just doing it because it was our scene that we were into. No one was getting paid or nothing.



Do you trip on that aspect of it that now parents do look at it as a lucrative career for their kids?
Yeah. It works nowadays for people. Look a guy like Shawn White. It’s not necessarily the route I took because those were not options then. And my parents, it sounds weird, but they didn’t want you to ride a skateboard; it was an anarchist thing to do. You were an outcast.

My mom hated it. I broke my arm and my leg in the summer after 8th grade and she was over it.
Yeah, I broke my elbow one time and my dad was so pissed because he had to pay the deductible on the insurance so he took all my skate stuff and put it in his trunk and went to work with it. He was like, “You’re not skating.” I was like, “Dude. I’ll run away from home.” And I went and stayed with Mark for a little bit. It was a different day and age. It wasn’t like how it is now that everyone was wearing Vans and skate shoes in school, you were an outcast if you had a skate shoe or Thrasher shirt on. It has changed a lot and become more focused on this little league/soccer thing. I think Tony Hawk and that video game has a lot to do with why it has become so accepted.

Are you suggesting we beat the shit out of Tony Hawk?
Ha! No, I think the Daggers and the Ramp Locals already had their beef and they already ironed that one out.

Yet, you roll with a lot of younger guys. Not necessarily the mommy brigade but you feed off young rippers. You’re not some bitter old guy.
I honestly think it’s from riding for Vans and some of the right companies and going on trips with these kids I started to create relationships with all these kids from Tony Trujillo early on to Curren Caples now. Vans is doing it all for the right reasons which is just going out and skating spots and going on trips; who would ever want to turn that down? Every dog has their day and you have to pass the torch but you can do that and still be a part of it at the same time. I’m just fortunate and lucky to be able to go on trips with these dudes. All the kids that ride for Vans remind me of me when I was their age so if I can show them the ropes and they can show me their new ropes then we’re all swinging together.



At what point did you know this was going to be your career because there wasn’t really money in it then the way there is now?
I think riding for the same people for so long has helped me because I’ve been supported by the same people always. It wasn’t something that I was looking at as a career ever, it was something that I always did. I need to do it. If a painter is an artist he’s not going to stop painting if he’s not selling that much art; he’s always going to have that passion. And with my style of skating, parks were out of sight, out of mind there for a while. I had some stuff here to skate with Chicken’s and Kelly’s [pools] but I was going a different route. I would skate street with my friends when vert was dying but I always still skated vert. I just had to go through those 90s that sucked: small wheels, big pants, everslick. That was a hard era. A lot of people from my generation didn’t make it through that because they weren’t willing to go that route. With me living here it was easy because I always had options to go skate and have transition to always skate. I think its become full circle with all these parks and my style of skating is getting rewarded now because I never thought there was going to be transition parks everywhere all over the world like there is and it’s only been since 2000. Kids don’t realize that when I was there age there just weren’t skateparks like this. This is all new. It’s great because all my friends that used to skate are dusting the cobwebs off their boards and pads and coming to the skateparks because there’s a pool they can carve around in.



You’ve been through every era: vert ramp era, jump ramp era, bowl era, street era, now this park era and everything is accessible. Would you say that now is your favorite era?
Yeah, I was stoked to see a guy like Grant Taylor get Skater of the Year because his style of skating compliments all that stuff. Guys like Raven and all these kids that skate street have tranny skills too. it’s a cool generation because it’s well rounded. No one is putting a label on skateboarding like, “I’m a street skater, or, "I’m a vert skater or a bowl skater.” It’s just skateboarding now and that’s what it needed for a long time because everyone was stuck between a rock and a hard spot when you had to claim what you skated. It’s just skateboarding.

You’re credited as being one of the earlier ATVs that skated everything. Who do you think of when you think of original ATVs?
Danny Way, for sure. Wade Speyer was a huge one for me. Blockhead was out of Sacramento and I used to spend a lot of time with Wade and he was a huge influence. John Cardiel. Those guys were ahead of their time when it came to being able to ride everything. Those three guys I’d watch their video parts and get psyched because they were always doing something that was out of the box.



Acosta and I were talking about how you feed off sessions and you’d rather not skate by yourself on some solo filming missions.
Yeah, especially when I skate with guys from my generation. Like when I see Danny way and seeing him do al this stuff still and still progressing and knowing what he’s been through it’s out of the norm. When I moved down to San Diego it was because I believe, “You got to get in where you fit in,” like Too Short said and there’s always a good crew of dudes that have a good, positive scene going and you meet up, crack a couple brews and have fun and skate. You take the seriousness out of it. When you’re on a filming mission by yourself, that’s great if you got stuff to do and you’re doing it. To me skateboarding is about being a part of a scene and having people around to share that and enjoy that with. I like when everyone pushes each other without being competitive. That energy is what skateboarding is about.

I spoke to Dyrdek recently and he was talking about his worst royalty check ever in the 90s for $2. Do you remember what your worst one was?
Negative checks. It was crazy because there was nothing going on about 1996 and I don’t think people started making their big shoe money until after that. This was pre-Bam era. It was just something that you were a part of no one expected to make money. That wasn’t the reason you did it. Sometimes you’d get a check for nothing, zero. I remember we’d go on early Blockhead trips and there were times when you’d have to sleep in the car at an event. Everyone was just trying to make it work. You weren’t guaranteed a check. You were just stoked to hang out and see dudes you haven’t seen in a while. Guys like Dyrdek, for as famous as he is for his TV stuff, he skated for the right reasons and back then he didn’t expect all this to happen to him. He was just some little guy on Alien Workshop. Him and I actually rode for Tracker together back in the day and he was just driven by skateboarding. He wasn’t dong it to be some rich dude. it just became this mainstream thing and now he’s benefitting from it.

When there weren’t checks coming what kid of jobs were you running?
I was always skating. I would stay at my parents’ house or I’d go up north and stay with Wade. I was always couch touring around and skating. Once we had the Blockhead House we’d post up there. I think Rock Howard stayed there for three years or something.

So you never had to get a job?
No, I always skated. I always had skating luckily. I mean, you look at a guy like Steve Caballero and he’s proven that you can make a lot of skateboarding if you keep doing it and keep pushing it hard.



Was there ever a point when you thought you should stop skating and pursue rapping?
Ha! That’s always been an alcoholic habit. That’s something I always joke around with my friends when we get in the van and you’re bored. It’s funny because I’ve rapped with guys that you would never think would spit out their lyrics, kids like Angel Rameriez. You get buzzed up and you start spitting out some stuff and next thing you know you’re kooking out. It’s a kooky, fun thing to do.

Are you better than Gentry?
If he reads this and I say, “Yes,” then I’m in trouble. But I would say yes.

Are you better than Jereme Rogers?
Oh, dude. I will crush Jereme Rogers. If Jereme ever reads this I would love to do a battle rap any day of the week.

Can I arrange it?
Yeah. I was joking and saying they should do a tour with all these dudes that skate and rap and do a skate battle rap tour like with Jereme Rogers and Stevie Williams. Stevie just does it out of fun.

Like We Are The World? But with skate rap?
Yeah, exactly! There you go! It would be awesome. You can’t include anyone that takes it serious. Jereme might take it serious but the rest of us are just having fun.



What are your sibling’s names and how did you get the name Omar?
My older brother’s name is Lauren and my little brother’s name is Jason. They were like, “We’re going to experiment with this ethnic craziness,” and spit me out as Omar. It could have been worse. It could have been Osama. Osomar Hassan.

How big of a hassle has been having that name and have your parents ever apologized?
You know what’s crazy? It sounds ridiculous and it’s one thing having that name, it’s crazy but it sets me about from the Mikes or the Jasons or the Johns and in skateboarding that has helped because people relate with my name. Now that there’s Omar Salazar there’s two of us. People remember that name. But in the other aspects, with all the shit going on in the world, it’s not the easiest name to roll around with.

There was an Omar Hassan on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Yeah and then there’s some president of Sudan or something that was trying to battle me for the name too. It’s a common name elsewhere. It’s kinda like being Mike Smith of the Middle East.

Were you ever on the No Fly List?
Yeah, in the very early years after 9/11 went down there were sheriffs that would come as soon as I would check in and they’d detain me and ask me questions. One time I was coming back from Israel on this Vans trip and everyone walked right through security and then they secondary’d me and started asking me ridiculous questions about my parents. I got interrogated a lot but at the same time I understand that with all the shit that’s going down they’re just trying to watch their back.

How early do you have to go to the airports?
Now it doesn’t matter anymore. I think the times have changed where they’re not doing the racial profiling thing anymore; I think they’re over that now.

I was looking at your Big Brother interview—
Oh God! The problem with that was that we were doing a joke but it was really bad timing because that Big Brother was in shops and on stands during 9/11. Kosick wanted me to do it and I really wasn’t into it but I did it and then it was on stands while all that was happening. Really bad timing. I never got any flack for it but it was kind of embarrassing at the time. One thing I would like to clarify is that my dad is Arabic and my mom is American so it’s not like I ever grew up in any ethnic household; my dad is pretty Americanized. That was just our name. it wasn’t like I went home to the mosque.

Why you? Why not your brothers?
Yeah! I don’t know. I guess they wanted to experiment with me. My mom told me one time that the reason that she picked Omar is because she liked Omar Sharif in that movie, Dr. Zhivago. That’s why, if that makes any kind of sense.

Does your dad know you’re named after her crush?
Yeah, he knows. He probably hates that movie.



What’s going on with Black Label these days?
They’re doing good again. They’ve sized down to their means and John is going to produce more of his art, which will help it a lot. People look at Black Label and they really want to see John Lucero. And the more he produces the better because it’s just legendary art, I mean every month people are sending in photos of their tattoos of the elephant or the flame. His art is like the iron cross for Independent Trucks. He’s got some logos and some history there and now he’s starting to realize that’s what people want and to give them what they want. Black Label will never die or go away, it just goes through trial and error. I’ve watched Vans do that a million times. They’ve had up and down battles. They’ve had times when they were bankrupt or they weren’t the coolest company and times they were cool. You just got to wait out your time and your day will come if you keep at it.

I think Label should be at the top right now because this era was made for them. They’ve always had well-rounded skaters.
What’s going to be cool is next year he’s coming out with a 15-year anniversary book and I was seeing the pictures he had and some of the riders that came out of that camp and when he puts this book together it’s going to be like the Dogtown thing in a sense for that generation because all the people that came out of Black Label are awesome: Coco Santiago, Cardiel, Gino, Grosso, Duane and all these kids. Once he educates people on the brand more it will make people look at Black Label again and trip on all their history. Not a lot of skateboard companies have that.

That’s the future for Black Label, what’s the future for Omar Hassan hold?
Grey hair and a cane.

You ain’t got no hair! What are you talking about?
On my chin! Geritol is next and some Epson salt baths. Ice on the knees. It’s like the movie The Wrestler. Nah, what’s cool is like I said earlier, when you pass the torch and you accept it you just have fun skating. I feel like the mash potatoes are already there and the rest is all gravy. I have fun with all these kids like Alex Perelson and Josh Borden. I know they feed off the past and I try to help them out too as far as mentoring them and show them to do the work but have fun along the way.