Zered Bassett

Photo: Sussingham

I’ve known Zered for years, so we got right into it: sponsorship changes, contracts, drinking, mental health, “the last supper”, photography, PaperSkaters, and lines in G-Unit tee shirts. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. – Ben

I was working at Zoo the last couple years you were there. By the end, it was owned by a massive public company and we didn’t really have control of it. I remember you wanted to leave, but I really wanted you to stay. At that time, what was going through your mind and making you want to leave?
I feel like my time at Zoo had run out multiple times. I would always plan on leaving, and then my contract would be up, but then there would always be more money. It was a great pay check. And I was really comfortable with everybody there and friends with everyone. And it could be fun sometimes. So I was always like “fuck it, I’ll stick around”.

The last time, when we were talking, I didn’t have anything else in mind for where I wanted to go sponsor wise. The whole Zoo situation was just eating away at me and my mental and affecting my skating day to day where I was just unhappy. I was just over it.

From being at Zoo from the beginning when I was young, that was my introduction to traveling, and rolling with the older Zoo guys, that were so inspiring. Just that fresh feeling. Then going through the whole 10 years and all the changes, it ended up being a bitter feeling, instead of that exciting and inspiring feeling. At the end it became the opposite. I was just like “I have to get out of here”.

Then came the lowest moment. I had convinced you to stay and we got you a raise. We were told you were going to get resigned and then at the last minute, when your contract had run out, we were told you weren’t getting resigned.
Yeah, it went from me wanting to leave, to getting offered more money to stay. So then I stick around for a few months thinking I’m going to get resigned, instead of being able to line something else up. So I was completely surprised. At first I was thinking I couldn’t get the raise, but then it was no, I wasn’t going to get paid at all.

I remember us sitting in a Chinese restaurant, drinking in the middle of the day, and I had to be the one to tell you. I’m so sorry about all of that.
I knew it wasn’t your call. Obviously there are no hard feelings towards you. You were trying. Even back then I never had hard feelings towards you.

Thanks Z. Then a couple months later, what happened with DVS?
A few months later, I’m driving across the Williamsburg bridge and I get a call from Tim Gavin. I’m like “oh shit, I never hear from Tim”. So it’s either really good or really bad. I was in contract re-negotiation with them at the time. I was supposed to be resigning with them by the end of the month. So I pick up and Tim is basically like “dude I’m so sorry, we have to let you go, we’re selling the company, and anyone that isn’t under contract is getting let go because we need to keep the expenses as low as possible to sell.”

So in a matter of months, Zoo and DVS are gone. What were you thinking at the time?
At that time, I was drinking and not feeling too hot about how I was skating. I was definitely not where I should have been skating wise because of drinking and hanging out and whatever. In my mind, I thought I was done. All I had for income was Red Bull, which was a really good pay check, but Zoo and DVS were as well. So the way I was living back then, I had a condo in Naples, Florida and a house I owned in Maine and I was renting my place in New York. So I had three mortgages, I had my car, and all the other bills. I was basically a week away from moving back to Cape. I was like I can’t afford this, I need to move back and regroup and figure this shit out.

What ended up happening?
Peter Huynh hit me up who did UXA with Peter Bici and Jeff Pang back in the day. He was bringing UXA back and said this could be a cool project for them and for me to do a guest board. So I thought that would be dope and it was a little money, but it was more about doing something cool because we’ve been friends for a long time. But then he was like “Do you know Crif Dog Hot Dogs? I’m good friends with the owner and he wants to hook someone up that skates and pay them.” And I was like OK I’ll talk to him, but that sounds crazy. But I also needed money. Then I end up meeting the guy and he is super cool and all he was asking me to do was wear a tee shirt here and there, put a sticker on my board and throw a party at Crif Dogs for my friends once a week with free beer and hotdogs. He said he couldn’t pay me that much, but he could give me a thousand bucks cash a month. Which helped.

But then Peter Huynh also hooked me up with this guy Tenzin, that worked for an agency and he got me this Uniqlo ad campaign. And I got a huge check from that. And that’s what gave me enough to stay in New York long enough to sober up and get skating and continue to skate. So a huge shout out to Peter Huynh. He definitely looked out and hooked it up.

What I thought was so incredible was how your friends really did step up to support you at the time. Whether it was Peter or Kosta doing the Quartersnacks remix or eventually Welsh and Joey Pepper at Expedition.
For sure. It really was. And I was a part of that Quartersnacks remix, too. Seeing how people would put things out strategically to get a little buzz going, I hit up Kosta to see if we could do a little remix. I was behind the scenes like ‘dude I need to get shit out there!”

Very smart. How did getting on Expedition finally come together?
Well, I’ve known Joey Pepper for years, since I was like 14 or 15, growing up around Boston. Then we was living in New York for a long time, and we ended up living a few blocks away from each other for years. We became really close. And he would randomly hit me up about skating for Expedition. And then Welsh became the Brand Manager and controlling the apparel and the creative side of things. Matt Miller was on, who I used to be on Zoo with for a long time, and Ryan Gallant who I’d always see skating in Boston. And with Joey, it was this strong New England thing. So after a few years of them mentioning it, I told them it made sense and went for it. And it was dope for a while. I’m glad I experienced it. I wouldn’t take it back.

How did Cons come into the picture?
I didn’t know these conversations were happening behind the scenes at the time, but Converse is from Mass, and they were trying to get someone from New England and East Coast-ish, because they wanted to do more around their roots being from Mass. So just me being from New England and knowing a lot of the guys on the team, it happened, it made sense. I had been wearing the shoes for a while before I was officially on. Just being like “guys, I’m down”.

So you were able to really build your situation back up. Great shoe sponsor with Cons, board sponsor, you were still on Red Bull at the time. Then what happened with Expedition?
It just kind of fizzled out. Like checks not showing up, but telling me to stick around. But I’d seen this happen multiple times at Zoo, and I knew what was going on behind closed doors. So I didn’t want to just wait around, waiting to be reimbursed, repping this thing, when I could be moving forward. So eventually I quit and what I thought was going to happen happened. No one got paid and everyone eventually quit.

I remember Welsh hit me up and told me to stay. And we were really close. But I just told him, ‘I know you’re the middle guy, there’s no hard feelings, you’re just doing your job, but we both know this isn’t going to work out.” And he agreed. He knew.

Throughout a lot of this you had been riding for Redbull. For ten years, right?
Yeah. With Red Bull, I was on my own program through the north east region, not the headquarters in California. Then I got invited on a Sheckler Session by the guy that runs the main Red Bull skate team. So I did that season of the Sheckler Sessions, and it was fun and all, and I start talking to the guy at the head office a lot more. But then he asked me if I wanted to do another season of Sheckler Sessions and go to Australia for two months. And I was honest with him. I told him I don’t think that it’s the best look for me. And then after that he kind of cut me off. Like I’d hit him up for whatever, and he’d tell me to hit up my north east guy. So I wasn’t really part of the actual skate team.

Can you tell the “last supper” story?
So for my last year with Redbull, we signed a new contract. Then they hit me two days later, saying they can’t afford to pay me the contract that I just signed and that I need to sign another contract for less money. So I’m like that’s insane, but I’m not going to sue Red Bull. So I just say to them why don’t you guys add another year to the contract to make up for the money I would be losing. And they said cool, they would do it. So it’s supposed to be a two year contract.

Fast forward to the end of the first year, they invite me out for dinner. It’s December. So we’re sitting there and the guy says they can’t pay me after the year ends. So I’m like you guys had me sign a two year contract just to get me to sign and feel good for this last year, knowing the whole time you weren’t actually going to pay me next year. So I basically just got up and threw my hat on the table and said thanks for everything, I’m out. And they we’re like “you don’t want to stay and eat your food?”. Because the food hadn’t come yet. And I was just like “what am I gonna do? Stay around here for the last supper? Nah, peace.” And threw my hat on the table.

It felt so good walking home. I always wear a hat, because I’m bald. But it felt so good walking home, no hat. I was so excited.

It’s such a statement, because the hat is the thing they push so hard.
Yeah, it’s in your contract. They own your head. I would ask them to make me specific ones and I would just skate in them until they were so fucked up you couldn’t even read what was on them.

At this point, were you stressing about a new board sponsor? I feel at that point having a really defined board sponsor didn’t matter as much as it used to.
I didn’t feel too stressed, because like you said, you didn’t really need a board sponsor. It had moved into the time of big shoe sponsors and they had their own identities. It wasn’t like before where you needed the board company and their identity to get the shoe sponsor. This is when everyone was starting to film their own parts that weren’t tied to a board sponsor.

How did Alltimers come about?
I’ve known Pryce and Rob the owners for years. Rob filmed and did the Green Diamond and Rich Mahogany videos. And I’d always see Pryce around skating for years and he worked at Supreme. So Pryce mentioned it to me, and Kosta from Quartersnacks would mention it and my buddy Sweet Waste would be like “Alltimers is sick!”. And I was definitely into it, but I just really like to take my time and think things through. And it got to the point where it made sense and I pulled the trigger. I’m really psyched.

The guys on the team are rad. A lot of them are from Canada and really close. Our first trip together was to Barcelona and I was super nervous because I’m going with all these kids that are close friends. Then after meeting them and getting to know them they told me they were all so nervous too. It was so funny. We were there for 10 days and it rained every day. So we were forced to always be together and we all got along so well. After that trip I knew I made the right decision.

It’s really sick what you guys have going on with you, and Dana, Dutch, and all the Canadian kids. I’m from a super small town in Ontario, Canada with three thousand people and Will (Marshall) is from a little city in Ontario called…
Cornwall!

Exactly. So it always makes me hyped to see him out in the world doing his thing. That city has like forty five thousand people.
That’s such a trip. Will’s so sick.

You were a big part of getting Dutch and Dana on, right?
Yeah, I was skating with them a lot and was just like “you should definitely hook these guys up and get them on the program.” I’ve known them both forever, since we were kids in the Cape.

Photo: Sussingham

Something I’ve always admired about you, and I’ve told you this before. A lot of people are lucky to have one big moment in their career, whether you’re talking about skating or not. But you never gave up on what you wanted. You’ve been able to have like 4 careers: early Zoo days and Vicious Cycle, young veteran Zoo days with that crazy State of Mind part, then Expedition, and now Alltimers. And it’s not like “oh this dude is just hanging on.” You’re thriving. It’s amazing to watch.
Fuck, thanks, man. It’s been a wild ride. I think a lot of people just listen to the TM or the person that’s putting them on. I think a lot of people don’t think for themselves or know how things work or they don’t know how to navigate through things as themselves. A lot of people react way too quickly, like “oh this is in now, so I’m gonna go do it”. You just played yourself. Why did you do that? People need to think for themselves.

People will get on a company and start to dress a certain way and act a certain way to fit the company. But then the company ends and that’s now your image. Where do you go from there? I don’t want to sound harsh, but a lot of skaters are like puppets. They’re just in their costume, doing the thing they think they are supposed to do. There needs to be more passion than that. You need to think things through.

I feel you’ve always had that mentality. Like you’re not coming into the room hoping or wondering if the people in the room are going to like you. You enter the room as yourself and if you get along with someone that’s great.
Yeah. It’s funny. If you go into a room wondering what everyone is thinking and trying to act how you think they want you to act, the problem is the people in the room are doing the same thing. They are trying to act how they think you want them to act. So no one is getting anywhere. No one is connecting.

So true. Going back, you moved to New York on your 18th birthday and lived in that Zoo apartment. A lot of kids coming into the city at that age, in that circumstance, with no rent, could definitely have gotten lost in the city and partying.
Oh for sure. I was drinking a lot and skating a lot, but I was just young and my body could handle it. A lot of the shit I filmed in Vicious Cycle was just that perfect hang over. You know where your brain doesn’t work, but your body feels amazing. Like your brain is too dumb to think what could happen, so your body is just reacting to what you want it to do. That’s probably some of the best shit I filmed I was like that.

Can I ask a real skate nerd question about that time?
Of course.

In Vicious Cycle you have a line at ABC ledges. Switch front 5/0 shuv over the top, shuffle push, nollie back nose blunt from the side. That line is insane. It’s really advanced, especially for 15 years ago.  Were you wearing a massive G-Unit tee shirt?
Yeah, because that’s when G-Unit was part of Complex/Ecko, which owned Zoo back then. And 50 Cent had an office in the Zoo building. And I was so hyped on 50 Cent back then. I was like please get me anything G-Unit! And they gave me that huge tee shirt.

Remember he had a music studio in the office with bullet proof glass?
Yup. That’s so sick.

How did the line happen?
I don’t really remember. I didn’t really do many ledge lines back then, so I think my mentality was just what are the two hardest tricks I can do and then try to do them. It wasn’t too hard, I don’t think we were there that long because I wasn’t that sweaty.

Backside Flip, Photo: Sussingham

Watching you skate now, it seems like you’re in a really good headspace. Skating a ton, trips, filming for different projects, filming clips for IG. You can tell you’re in a good spot mentally and genuinely enjoying skating.
I feel like in the past, I used to be so anxious and so in my head and insecure and worried about what other people were thinking. And that’s something I worked through when I stopped drinking. Now I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care what people are thinking and I’m having fun skating with my friends. I feel great physically. I’m psyched. I’m not being forced to wear some silly hat. It feels natural. It feels like where I should be.

I know there’s been times where you’ve been drinking heavily, and then completely off it at other times. Can you talk about that process?
So when Zoo and DVS ended, that’s the first time I was like holy shit, this shit is over. Do I just pack it up and get a job? Or do I just do everything I can and get out there and skate. At that time I wasn’t in the best shape. I was drinking and eating like shit and depressed. But I loved skateboarding. I needed skateboarding to make me happy again. To make me feel like myself. So that was the first thing. Get happy skating again. So when I started really skating again and not drinking, I felt amazing. I was like holy shit, I can still skate for real.

I started drinking when I was 14. Traveling the world when I was 15. And I would drink a lot every day. Hanging out with older dudes and partying. But then you start to get past your early 20s and it starts to catch up with you. It’s a rude awaking.

The first time I stopped drinking after Zoo and DVS, I stopped drinking for three and a half years, because I was going to lose everything: skating, my girl was over it, because I was being an asshole.

After the three and half years off drinking, was it hard to stay off it?
Well, after the three and half years, I started having a glass of wine with dinner. And then it turns into, someone asking to go for lunch at 2pm and me asking if they have wine on the menu. It got to the point where I was slipping back in. So I’d be doing 6 months on, 6 months off. And then over the last two years, I felt myself really slipping back in. So as of a few months ago, I made the decision I just want to skate and be healthy.

Also, me and my lady recently got a new place where we have a lot more space and I have an art studio with this big printer. So I finally have the space that when I’m bored I can create shit. Whereas before, when I got bored I would drink. Now I can use that energy in a good way, instead of self-destructing. It took me a lot of years to learn why I was doing the things I was doing. I need to be able to spend my energy or idle time doing something or I self-destruct. Some people’s brains run so fast, they use alcohol to slow it down.

I remember you saying before, when you stopped drinking the first time you realized there were things you needed to work through.
Yeah, when I stopped the first time I had all these feelings and emotions come back to me. Like even my parents’ divorce, all these childhood things, that I was covering up just through skating and drinking and smoking weed. All that shit came rushing back to me and it all started to make sense why I did certain things.

When I was younger, I was on Adderall for a few months and it helped me to concentrate, but I wasn’t eating and it made me feel insane. So I’ve always been self-medicating. But once I said fuck this, I’m going to stop drinking and deal with this shit, I felt better than I ever had. People bury shit. They want to take pills or whatever for a quick fix. But they’re just burying it. It takes time to dig everything out and go through it and figure it out. It took me years.

That’s amazing that you did that and are willing to talk about it. It will help people. You mentioned using your energy on creative projects. Tell us about your photography. I know you’ve been shooting for years.
It started when I first started traveling, so around 14 or 15. I’d come back from trips and my family and friends would be asking me what it was like and I couldn’t remember anything. So I was just like fucked it, I’m getting a camera. I’ve been shooting ever since. I don’t really put it out there too much, but I want to start doing that more. Like with PaperSkaters. The last few years, I’ve been trying to channel all the things I’m into: photography, the wheat paste art shit, and have it all make sense. I feel like it’s all finally falling into place now that I have this little art space at my house. Now I can think of something, go out and do it. So I’m definitely planning on shooting more and doing more on that side of things.

And it’s definitely evolving for you. Can you talk about the Cons ad you just shot?
The other day, I was telling Alexis (Sablone) that I got all my camera shit together and to hit me up if she ever wants to go shoot a photo. And few days later she was telling Lee (Berman) that, and he hit me up to go shoot her next Converse ad for Thrasher. So we went out the other day in Crown Heights and shot it, and it was super fun. We shot a sick skate photo of her. Luckily, she knows a good spot, she’s very aware of how something should look. So she brought me to this really cool spot, she had a really great idea for it. And then I shot her in all of the product. I loved it. I’m actually so excited for the ad to come out. It’s like a cover to me!

Kickflip, Photo: Sussingham

If someone is just starting out with photography, how do you think they should go about it?
Just get a cheap digital camera at first, so you can just mess around, shoot whatever you want and then go home and see it right away. That way it’s easy and quick to see the things that you like that you did and things that you didn’t. Then you can go from there. I just shoot anything that looks good to me. I know some photographers don’t like to shoot skating, but I shoot everything that is looking good to me: skating, landscapes, people, cool lighting, everything.

What lead you to doing PaperSkaters?
I was always interested in graffiti. And when I started traveling I would see the same name all over the world. I would be like “is this the same guy? I’m traveling. I’m into this. I want to do that.”  So I started bringing a little marker, and then spray painting and being so psyched to do it, but then when I’m done, it looks like shit. It would be fun, so it was worth it to me, but I wanted to do more. So I started thinking about what I wanted to do and when I wasn’t drinking I had so much extra energy. Eventually I was just like “I need to start wheat pasting up my photos in the street”.

Why did you not reveal it was you at first?
I wanted people to like it or not like it for what it was. Not say it’s sick because it’s me. I wanted to see what people’s reactions were to it on its own. I wanted the work to hold its own weight. And it was funny, because people that I was sure knew it was me, didn’t.

Funny story. I was in Miami on a Cons trip with Joe Brook. And I have a box of wheat paste cut outs in it, but no one knows that. And Joe starts to tell me he’s planning on doing this skateboard art trip, with all these skaters that do art and we’re gonna go to Detroit and make all this art and have a show at the end and Thrasher is gonna do an article. And he wants to invite me for photography. And I was like, of course, I’d love to. Then he starts naming all the names of people he’s inviting, and then he says, “we also want to invite this guy PaperSkaters, but no one knows him, so we’re a little hesitant to hit him up”. So I’m just like this guy is fucking with me. He has to be fucking with me. And the whole time, I’m leaning on the box with the wheat paste stuff in it. And I just keep looking at him and then looking back at the box. And finally I’m like, “dude, I do that. You know that right?”. But he had no idea. So there have been some really funny incidents like that.

Wow. And to your point. That really lets you know the work is standing on its own.
Exactly. Yeah, it was sick to know he was actually into it.

Tell us about the project you just did celebrating Ben Raemers.
Me and Ben were really close. A lot of Converse trips together. It was amazing to do something that so many people can see and appreciate in remembrance of Ben. It was pretty emotional. But it was a real pleasure to do it and to point people to his foundation. It’s great to know that people have somewhere to go and someone to speak to when they have problems. And that the people you’ll speak to are just like you and me.

Zered, after all these years, it is so amazing to see you so healthy and happy and in such a great spot. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. I really do.