I'm going to start off with a heavy one. Who is the greatest rope tow rider of all time? 

I'm going to have to say Jake OE. He's always been the coolest and he just made it look good. Just the grungy style he's got, very skate inspired, it just really got me hyped up as a kid watching people like Jake.  

Yeah, he personifies the rope tow mentality. 

And he always rode gloveless on the rope, which is pretty gnarly at hyland, the rope is steep, fast and always busy. 

 What do you love about Trollhaugen and Elm Creek? 

Elm Creek is the closest ski resort to my house and growing up, I would go there pretty much every single day after school. They always have a fun, playful setup which was great for learning.  And then Trollhaugen is a little bit further away. It's about an hour from my place, and we'd go there on weekends when we had more time to snowboard. And even to this day, I still run at the same program. Elm Creek, weeknights all week. It's easiest to pull up and go ride for an hour. And then on the weekends when you have the full day, you go to Trollhaugen. Trollhaugen is certainly the best setup and vibes and everything, which brings a lot of people from all over the world to ride there, which is great. 

 I feel like as much as the media has talked about it, the general population still doesn't understand the accessibility of snowboarding in Minneapolis. 

So, I live 20 minutes outside of Minneapolis, and I think we have about six or seven tow rope parks we can hit within an hour from my place. So each day, you get to go to a different tow rope park. It's like going to a different skate park. Sometimes their setup is boring at one place, you go check out a different place and go ride there with your friends. It's a skate park vibe.   

I want to quickly talk about how you came to be part of the Armada team and how that unfolded.  

Last fall, I was let go from my sponsor of 10 years, and it ruffled up the industry a little bit and there was a lot of talking going on. And then shortly afterwards, I was getting hit up by quite a few snowboard companies, and I was just really trying to find the perfect fit. And then I got a call from you guys, and I just felt the most at home with Armada. You guys were very clear and communicated very well with me. I just had a really good feeling about riding with you guys, and then I heard about Danimals getting on and Josh Manoles doing the art, it was a no-brainer for me that these are the people I want to be working with.  Plus, being part of a company from the ground up is a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

 Are you a coffee guy, a tea guy, or neither? 

Coffee, big time.  

How many cups a day? What are we talking? 

Definitely one and sometimes two, depending on what we've got going on. An afternoon pick-me-up cup works pretty well., too  

What does your perfect street spot look like?  

I'm thinking we have about a foot of snow on the ground, so it's not too much, not too little. A nice hill with natural speed going into the feature. And then something I would like to hit or session with some friends would be a kink rail or something like that, something with options where we could gap it or hit the whole thing and everyone can get a cool trick doing something a little different. To me, that sounds like the perfect session with the crew. 

Give me one gas station guilty pleasure on a street trip. Is it candy, potato chips, what is it? 

Definitely some sour candy. Stash that in the pocket of your jacket and nibble on that throughout the session. 

 Are we talking Sour Patch kids or Sour Straws? 

Anything. Just whatever they got. You know when you're in the snow, out on the hill or in the streets and no matter what you have, it's amazing, right? You can have a bag of unsalted almonds and it's the best thing you've had because you have nothing else to eat. 

 How has your approach to being a professional snowboarder changed since becoming a father? 

It’s lit a fire under my ass a little bit where it's like whenever I go snowboarding, I have to make sure I'm using the most of my time. Back in the day when there was less responsibility, you could sleep in, get up to the hill late, maybe snowboard, maybe not, whatever. But nowadays, if I'm going out and doing something, I need to use my time wisely and efficiently and really not waste time out there. So I feel like whenever I do go ride, I'm just doing the most I can while I can. 

Have you ever brought Eli in the streets to watch you hit a spot? 

He has been in the streets with me. He brings his shovel out and he wants to help and climb up on the drop-in ramp. And it’s actually a funny story. One time, it was a couple of years ago, we're talking about getting clips and he was catching onto all that and he's going, "Me trick, me trick." And he was having a full-on crying meltdown because he wanted to get his trick. So then after we're all done, he had a snowboard there and I had to push him down the hill a little bit on his board. I'm like, "There's your trick for you, buddy." He saw the camaraderie of us all coming together and watching the footage, getting the trick, and he's like, "I want to do that myself." 

That could be his first snowboarding memory ever.

I know, yeah. I'm looking forward to bringing him out more and more when he's older and can be more a part of it, for sure. 

 Dude, he needs a VG cameo, straight up. 

Yeah, I should actually get him one of those little cameras or something. 

 What is your first snowboarding memory?  

So growing up, we'd have snow in Minnesota of course, and I would shovel my driveway and then I would take all that snow and build a drop-in ramp at the top of my hill. I had the tiniest hill in my yard, so I had to make a three or four foot drop-in ramp to get speed. My parents were probably stoked because they didn't have to shovel it. I'd be hitting skate rails and boxes or whatever I could find to ride on. I remember cars would drive through the neighborhood and they'd stop and watch me and my friends snowboard.   

The streets are literally in your DNA. 

Yeah, totally. And that was long before I even had a legit snowboard or even went to a ski resort. I didn't even really know what a ski resort looked like at that point. I was just skate style snowboarding in my front yard, and that was a no brainer to me as a kid. 

Going back to the early days after you graduated from the drop-in ramp in the driveway, you got into the culture. Who were some of the riders and what were some of the films that were your early inspirations? 

One of my first videos I remember sessioning was Rome’s Any Means. I remember at that time being really hyped on Marie-France Roy’s part, as well as LNP and Will Lavigne. I think they were just doing street snowboarding and everything very tastefully. I remember just burning out that DVD, watching it probably five times a day before going snowboarding. 

 Great answer. 

And then shortly after that, snowboard videos were popping up on YouTube, so you got all the Sunday in the Parks, I remember checking in on those every Sunday, and 1817 movies as well. Those were huge to me growing up.  

Yeah. How did it feel to you after all that stuff went down to see the response from the core snowboard scene? Was that validating for you after 10 years of putting out parts? 

That was definitely very validating. After I got let go from my sponsor, I was like, "Alright, where do I fit in now? Am I going to have another opportunity? Do I just snowboard for fun?" And then hearing the community speak up for me really meant a lot. The support from everybody really warmed my heart. They wanted me to keep going at this for sure. I was like, “Okay, I got more to give. People are stoked. Hopefully something else works out,” and now here we are. 

It’s an interesting place to be as a rider working with the Armada engineers to create a product from scratch. Talk about that Loon prototype trip that we went on this winter. 

Working with everyone at Armada has been awesome from the jump. Dialing in our shapes and having really a say in what we're riding has been amazing, especially trying different boards and flexes and sidecuts and all that. It's been really cool to be a part of the whole building process of the brand. 

 Any hot takes you wanna air out? 

It's maybe not a hot take, but something that I think about quite often is how people in certain areas of snowboarding hate on the other side of it, where maybe a powder rider would be like, "Oh, street snowboarding isn't snowboarding” and likewise, street snowboarders not liking the powder riding. But I think everyone just needs to appreciate all aspects of snowboarding and let everyone do their thing to the best, because there's room for everybody here. It's a small little sport and we got to hype each other up the best we can. It's all snowboarding. No one needs to tell somebody else what snowboarding means to them, because everyone has their own interpretation.   

Currently, who do you draw inspiration from in snowboarding and why?  

Probably the top inspiration for me would be Louif Paradis, because he's been doing it so well for so long, and he's also a father so that’s inspiring to me as well, in the sense that you can still do both. And his ability to ride pow and rails and everything that’s in front of him, that's something I admire and I'd like to be more like that as I grow in my snowboarding.