We’re pretty sure you’ve seen it. And if you haven’t, you should watch Tom’s Tales right now. We’re not kidding. The Vans Euro guys got some heavy bread for this video. It has insane tricks, plus you can feel how much fun the crew had filming it. Or lets say the family, like Max Pack puts it in the interview. He is one of the two filmers behind the project. The other one is Paul Labadie who also edited the video. We talked to them to find out a bit more about the stories behind Tom’s Tales.
Max: The first trip was to Malaga in March 2019. Greece was two weeks later.
Paul: At the end of the first day of the Greece trip we had half the video already. That one day was insane.
Paul: It’s rare that it happens like that. And the rest of the trip was the same.
Max: Thanos [Panou]!
Paul: Yeah, General Thanos. Drill Seargent Thanos! He had too many spots and a tight schedule. You had to go with it.
Paul: Pretty much. Even the trips with a lot of rain ended up really productive. I wasn’t in Moscow but I heard it rained a lot there. But it ended up being a video on it’s own. So one of the most productive trips didn’t even go into the video and also not one trick from the Morocco trip.
Max: It was right after dinner and everyone had some drinks already and we just crossed by and Doobie wanted to check it. No one skated it before and it was super crusty.
Paul: But he got fired up. The thing is, on video you can’t
see how rough that thing is. It’s really, really crusty. Another thing
is, Doobie is a big guy and it always makes the spot look a bit smaller.
"Craziest session ever. There were so little chances that we are able to skate this. It was in the hallway of the university with tons of students having lectures."
Paul: Dan Lu was there and he is known for skating big stuff. He asked Doobie what he has in mind and when he told him he’ll do backtail, Daniel said: “No, you’re not gonna do that. No way.” He didn’t believe it.
Paul: It was not so sure from the start. When we started gathering Martino’s footy and saw how crazy it was I thought maybe he could get last part. But I talked to Pfanner and then we thought it makes more sense to give him first part because he’s the new guy. We knew how crazy the footage was and that people would freak out when they see it.
Max Pack & Beddy
Max: Yeah, and nobody knew him.
Paul: On the 9 Club they called him Martino Cattino.
Max: And he wasn’t on every trip then as well.
Paul: But he’s the only one that has footage that was brought in from outside.
Max: The kickflip from Doobie in Thesaloniki.
Paul: Craziest session ever. There were so little chances that we are able to skate this. It was in the hallway of the university with tons of students having lectures. It was busy and skating in there was so noisy.
Max: One woman said we can’t skate here. Pfanner told her to call the cops. Then she said, that the cops in Greece are not allowed to come into the university. So Pfanner said: “That’s it then” and we just started the session. There was a kiosk in the university and we bought pretty much all the beer. We were 25 people, locals as well, big party. The students came out and were looking and screaming. They were super hyped. Doobie did the kickflip, Dan Lu did the boardslide and then Pfanner did the fakie ollie.
"In the end you’re not going on a skatetrip, you’re meeting the family."
Max: He’s the man. The video is his work pretty much.
Paul: He brings the vibe. He’s such a cool guy and so easy going. He’s always down and never complains. Everything is so easy with him so everybody is happy all the time. And he has this persona, he’s Chris Pfanner. Everybody knows what he’s done, where he’s been. The guys look up to him.
Max: It’s also that he’s like a big brother and the best friend you can have. He’s the hype man.
Max: They wanted to get bread.
[everybody laughs]
Paul: When it starts like that with a good chemistry and it sparks something, everybody is hyped on it. And when the guys know that it’s more than a small project, it gives them motivation.
Max: In the end you’re not going on a skatetrip, you’re meeting the family.
Paul: It’s the magic of Tom. Tom brings people together.
Paul Labadie
Max: A speaker, brewskis and Pfanner always cares about good dinners.
Paul: That is really important, you have this quality time. There’s tours where you’re out in the streets the whole day and go back to the hotel and everybody is doing their own thing. But we’re always all together. These dinners every night are like party and everybody enjoys good food.
Max: We’re not really going to partys. We’re bringing our own party. But in Vienna there was this guy who came and was so hyped on Dustin that he instantly bought Jägermeister for everyone and a lot of beers and all of a sudden he was gone and Dustin’s board, too. He left his board in exchange. Dustin took it, it was a brand new Bam Margera one. After dinner we went to an Australian bar that Dustin knew. He gave the board to the guy at the bar and we got free Jäger again.
Paul: He brings the vibe, he’s funny as hell and has stories for days. And he got the best playlists.
Max: He claimed he played it first but me and Davy [van Laere] had it in our playlists as well.
"It had been a good day and then the dude with the brownies came out of nowhere"
Max: That’s what he told me once. You can be a drunk, but be a clean drunk.
[laughing]
Paul: He’s a grown up and you don’t have to tell him to clean up his shit. He’s responsible.
Max: He can be so emotional. Outside he’s the screaming Dustin but if somebody got an issue, he’s the first guy talking to you and taking care. And if he has an issue, everybody is coming too.
Max: I did. Martino told me about the spot while we were skating a plaza. Pfanner and me came to have a look and I was little bit drunk, so I said: “I think I can film it longlense”. Pfanner looked at me and said: “Nah, you got this, you can film it fisheye”. So I did but if I would’ve kept on going straight, I would be under the bus now.
Max: Really close. Really scary. I went up the hill, not saying anything, just showing the footage and the guys were just looking shocked. For Martino it was even closer than for me. He saw the Smart and just ollied.
Max: In Moscow we had a session at 7:30 in the morning at a big rail at the central station. It’s not in the video but Axel did a long boardslide and it was also a really long night before that… But it was the only time to do it.
Paul: For me that trip was the highlight of 2019. It was more like a holiday cause we premiered the Moscow video at the festival, partied, had some beachtime. You know how good the event is. But Martino, he had plans.
Max: We did our holiday and Martino deliverd and took the bread.
Paul: In Greece Dan Lu and Axel kept talking about how they needed to get the bread.
Max: It really is like that. Every day we’re going out and there’s never really a warm up spot. We just go there, one of them decides to skate the gnarliest thing there and then everyone is so fired up.
Paul: There is never a bad day. Sometimes I’m really surprised. There can be a really good day ending with some celebration and you’d think the next day is more mellow…
Max: But I’ve never seen somebody with a full hangover day. Never.
"We got two tricks, 250 chicken wings and a lava cake for desert, handed out by the chef himself, a former heroin addict who smoked a joint with us"
Max: It’s intense. If you’d bring a “normal” person on a trip for one day, they’d be done for two weeks. Everyone is acting crazy cause they’re all fired up and they’re really skating.
Paul: I guess there’s different kind of breads. The daily bread and the nightly bread.
Max: There was one guy of us in Sicilly who got a match on tinder. The next morning we picked him up and he told us that he was with a woman who is the producer of DakhaBrakha or at least is friends with them and that we can have the song now. But I don’t know if that’s actually true.
Paul: I don’t think it had much influence that we were allowed to use the song but yeah, she knew the band.
Max: In Lubljana the locals gave us some brownies. Doobie took care of that and then handed them to us but he didn’t tell me for example that those brownies had some extra fun. Then we went to the spot where Doobie did the lipslide to front smith and the landing is in a bar so we all sat there and drank Aperol but I don’t even remember filming the trick. Then we went right across the street for dinner and everybody looked at the menu for half an hour then Pfanner ordered 100 chicken wings for starters. Then we looked at the menu again for ten more minutes to find main courses. The waitress came back and we were like: “150 chicken wing”.
[laughing]
Paul: It had been a good day and then the dude with the brownies came out of nowhere. I had the smallest bite but Doobie took two or three and half an hour later we’re at this spot and it started to kick in but Pfanner and Doobie skated the spot.
Max: Davy was next to me when it kicked in and he looked at me being like: “They’re not gonna skating it right now, do they?” I couldn’t really talk and just shrugged my shoulders and then Doobie nearly did it first try before the cams were set up. I didn’t do white balance and didn’t zoom in, I just pointed at it.
Paul: We got two tricks, 250 chicken wings and a lava cake for dessert, handed out by the chef himself, a former heroin addict who smoked a joint with us.
