Skateboarding
Salzburg’s best kept secret blows up a storm.
One of the most rewarding things about having this platform is to be able to bring great new talents to the wider attention of the skateboarding family. Not so they can come up, but so that we all get to share in a little slice of new radness. Austria has had many acclaimed skateboarding sons- Dominik Dietrich, Philipp Schuster, Manu Margreiter to name but a few. Maybe that list will one day include Philipp Josephu, and this checkout edit gives an indication why. This part is pretty insane, all told.
We nabbed Philipp near our headquarters in Salzburg to put him on the record.
Salzburg isn't one of the first skate scenes I associate with Austria; most people think of Vienna, Innsbruck and so on. How does Salzburg compare?
Salzburg’s skate scene is much smaller then Vienna’s; but… maybe more personal? Everybody knows each other, there’s a friendship between all of us. Over the last few years we’ve got many good street spots, like the University Plaza – and few months ago, they built the new concrete Cage skatepark, which is one of the best in Austria. That’s why the scene has been growing so well over the last years.
The bluntslide up is from your Muckefuck Wheels intro section. Roman Astleitner does a lot for skating, am I right?
Yeah, that’s right! He lives skateboarding. This is the great thing about him, and about Muckefuck. I’m really happy to be on the team with all those other international rippers.
Have you finished university now?
No, unfortunately not, yet… I will finish it as soon as I possibly can, though.
Although you are still relatively young – at what, 25? – you have logged a lot of video parts for 4 Seasons, Ezekiel and so on: how much of your skating time is spent filming these days?
Yeah I’m 25; I definitely preferfilming in the streets instead of skatepark sessions. I like to have the results at the end of the day. Filming can be very frustrating, too, but that’s a part of it! The more you work for a trick, the more satisfaction there is when you finally roll away. I try to get new footage whenever possible.
One of your signature tricks is the back smith flip out – what’s the trick to getting the second pop?
I think you have to be locked into the back smith perfectly balanced – then you have greater leverage on the back truck. That’s the reason why you can pop out of smith grinds higher than out of any other grind.
Do you think it has got harder for European skaters to avoid being labelled as 'randoms' if they don't try to come up via the mainstream US skate route that favours native English speakers and names?
I think it´s very difficult as a European skater to get noticed in the States; maybe because there are so many good skaters. I think it helps for sure if you are a native English speaker and they notice your name more easily. Maybe you ‘only’ have to be lucky, and get recognised by the right guys at the right time!