It was a pleasure to connect with Pass~Port Skateboards founder Trent Evans for a “5000 Words” photo feature tailored to tell a tale. Traditionally these interviews have worked as a dive into the archives of different photographers. This time we settled on adapting this format to explore the diverse talents of the Pass~Port team using some incredible images shot by a plethora of different photographers, and expanded upon from Trent’s perspective. Enjoy the ride…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Trent Evans in Japan with a space boot you’ll learn more about later. PH: Sam Coady
Skateboarding entering Trent Evans’ life was somewhat inevitable. Growing up on the Sunshine Coast just north of Brisbane it was a rite of passage and went hand in hand with surfing. His earliest exposure involved a nearby skatepark and seeing the local surf crew pushing the paths down to the beach. He counts his location as a blessing, as the passion he discovered was encouraged and deeply woven into the local landscape. By 1997 he had figured out that surfing and skateboarding were two separate pursuits. While slightly conflicted, he chose his side psychologically while continuing to hit the waves with his friends. His parents bought him his first proper board in the local shop, both gravitating towards a World Industries setup with a graphic that wouldn’t fly today, and his path was set. He remembers being “the happiest person alive” to have a fresh skateboard.
Trent quickly found some like minds and the HJK crew was formed, named after localising the neighbourhood Burger King [Hungry Jack’s in Australia]. It seems this idea sparked a wave of other skate crews to follow suit along the same coast, all naming themselves after the fast food chain they frequented. Navigating school with skateboarding as a permanent fixture he focused on learning graphic design. This solid transferrable skill later led to him doing graphics for the local company he rode for at the time. Concurrently he was working in a shop [Skatebiz] which was the core store in the city. He recalls the excitement of being immersed in such a tight-knit scene, yet he was completely uninspired by the products he saw coming in and out. This frustration planted the seed, he wanted to create a company that wasn’t regurgitating what was being fed from the States, but was rather grounded in the scene and heritage he was proud to be a part of.
Flipping the script on what was happening in Australia industry-wise Trent founded Pass~Port in 2009 and forged a new lane, creating a home for the burgeoning local talent and evolving the brand into something even bigger than the sum of its parts. Today Pass~Port is an institution with a team full of some of the most exciting skateboarders out there. The company has been integral in supporting and promoting the squad, projecting them into a global platform where they can make a living off their craft. This is something that was unthinkable for Australian skaters back in the day outside of getting on a bigger US brand. Pass~Port was, and still is a company at the forefront of normalising and championing this homegrown approach, continuing to keep things uncompromisingly real.
This article was created to shine a light on each team rider, and the brand, through an array of photographs selected by Trent. These were taken by a variety of lensmen during different eras of the company and we are happy to see them together like this. Trent enjoyed connecting with each photographer ahead of time and was palpably stoked to revisit these times shared. We spoke with Pass~Port’s founder to get his thoughts on each image and enjoyed hearing some stories about them. We also asked Trent to pick an image of our late friend Keegan Walker [RIP], to close out the article. Take a moment to dip into these insights from Pass~Port’s very own renaissance man…
Callum Paul – One Foot. PH: Bryce Golder
This is a photo from over a decade ago. The library bank represents so much about Callum’s skateboarding, about Melbourne skateboarding, and is very much of the time. The photo and the footage were all a part of his Pass~Port Pro part. It’s one that really stuck out for me when you asked for a photo that represented each team rider. The footage is memorable too, it was slow-mo and had such a nice look to it. I feel Callum will always be ingrained and associated with that era of the brand, he hasn’t stopped though! He had the cover of Vague just the other day. He’s still such a skate rat and I love that about him, very inspiring stuff. Some of the younger team riders still fan out on him, as much as they won’t admit it. Bryce Golder who shot this is one of Callum’s best mates too so it makes perfect sense to choose a photo like this, classic as they come.
Dean Palmer – FS 180 switch manual. PH: Sam Stephenson
I believe this was shot before Dean was even on Pass~Port. It’s a photo that stands out to me as it’s a very good looking manual trick at a spot that doesn’t really get skated that much any more. It’s in the city of Sydney and its was shot by Sam Stephenson who the brand collaborates with regularly. Sam still shoots as much street skateboarding as he can, but shoots many of the deeper underground subcultures, be it the people, the music or the arts. Dean [Palmer] is quite elusive and hard to track down to get a photo, he’s more of a footage guy. I love that his whole body is in this perfect position here where you can tell the trick and he’s all wound up, it’s almost sculptural in some way. Dean is one of those guys where there are nowhere near enough photos of him out there that will ever do his skateboarding justice, so I thought I may as well choose a photo that looks truly original and timeless. Plus the extra flare of Samo’s black & white – Bliss.
Adelaide Norris – Gap to Noseslide. PH: Thomas Robinson
Lobster [Thomas Robinson] who shot this photo introduced me to Adelaide around the time she popped up in the scene. He had shown me a few photos of her skating, but it wasn’t until we hung out in person that I saw how raw and real her approached to skateboarding was. I do remember one of her first times up in Sydney, some guy was being a complete arsehole and she smashed his glasses right off, this resulted in her being semi-banned from our local pub. She’s chilled a bunch since then but I always admired how much she stands up for the right thing, no matter the situation. Adelaide joining the team made too much sense, she clicked with everyone in Sydney, and was already friends with the crew down in Melbourne. Ive been stoked to go on a bunch of really fun and inspiring trips with her and the crew so far.
This photo was shot out on Christmas Island, an incredibly beautiful island thousands of kilometres off Western Australia. We were lucky enough to do a community-based trip to this very remote area. It only has a few main streets in the town across the whole island, you can drive around it within an hour. So we just found anything and everything we could to skate. This was one of the spots that we got shown by one of the local cops who also skateboarded. She stepped up to this gap to noseslide and we were collectively stoked to bag a photo on an island with not a whole lot of concrete on it. That trip was really really special to us all. The island, the people, the water, and of course the glitters of skateboarding
Eetu Toropainen – Roof Drop to 50-50. PH: Justus Hirvi
This is obviously quite a current photo as we only added Eetu [Toropainen] to the team over the last few years. Eetu getting on the team very much came from Matlok [Bennet- Jones] and Squish [Jack O’ Grady] saying – “We NEED to put this Finnish kid on! He’s incredible at skateboarding and we need to snap him up”. So over a few phone calls, emails and text messages we discussed putting him on and he was down. Then we needed some kind of photo to introduce him to the team. Justus Hirvi (photographer), Teemu Metsäkylä (filmer) and Eetu [Toropainen] hatched the perfect plan. They headed out to Helsinki airport and shot this roof drop to grind. I remember saying there’s no pressure but we do want to formally introduce you to the brand, so it would be cool if it was something really special that stands out. They sent this photo through and it was clear as day- this would be his welcome photo before we put out any footage or anything. It’s one of the biggest reactions we’ve ever had online to a photo. He definitely stepped up to the plate with that one, it had it all – tad scary, tad technical and at a Finnish Airport. My god he is talented. We’ve got a bunch of exciting stuff going on with Eetu this year, plenty of things rolling out – Stay tuned.
Bernie Foo – Switch Backside Tailslide. PH: Jake Mein
I swear this photo was one of the first ever Pass~Port ads that we printed in The Skateboarder’s Journal. It’s a switch back tail and I believe this spot is in Canberra, although I’m having a blur in memory… Bernie is an incredibly talented skateboarder, we’ve sponsored him I dare say for well over a decade now. He’s in his mid-to-late forties now and he’s still so incredible to this day. This photo is really special, it’s definitely some of the first skateboarding I got to be a part of with Bernie. To have Jake Mein shoot it was the icing on the cake, an amazing New Zealand photographer. A switch back tail on a bank like this is not an easy feat and he would have been in his late thirties already! He’s been killing it since the 90s and he’s still as active as ever. He came down to Melbourne for The Bunt Jam recently, he skateboarded a bunch and was on the basketball team. He crushed it at both. I feel Bernie falls into the “if you know, you know” category – One of the team’s favourites.
Geoff Campbell – Switch Noseblunt slide.
PH: Thomas Robinson
This was taken on a Tokyo trip back in 2015. Geoff [Campbell] is someone who has always skated for the team but has also been a big part of the video and editing side. He has had switch backside noseblunts on lock forever now. He actually had one on his footage tape that we saw originally and it was definitely a trick, at that time that I hadn’t seen too much of. When he pulled one of these out in Tokyo I thought it was so special and I always venture back to this photo. It’s shot from behind, and it just looks so strong, it really represented what Geoff’s skating was to me. As much as he was skateboarding every day on this tour, he was also second-angle filmer for the whole trip. He was incredibly hungover each day as well but could still rip something like this out, so good! I think no matter what you can die a happy man if you know you switch backside noseblunt something, shoot and film that in your peak era. That’s one to take to the grave for sure. He has been such a huge part of the company, the brand, the video offerings. He is somebody I can talk to any day of the week who will help problem solve with me. He is definitely a big part of our brands ecosystem – The company’s DNA.
Jack O’Grady – Backside 50-50. PH: Thomas Robinson
There are a thousand-and-one amazing photos of Jack [O’ Grady]. I approached choosing this one as if I was sitting in a psychiatrist’s chair and they asked “What do you think of when you think of the word Squish?” This is the photo instantly. It encapsulated everything we love about him and his skateboarding. At the time Jack was jumping on any and every tour, hair dyed black, keen as mustard – he already knew he wanted to back 50 this thing in Paris. On this day a handful of tricks went down by the team, all while filming for Kitsch. Everything just clicked, it will honestly be one of those days I’ll remember for the rest of my life. The entire experience filming our full-length video Kitsch, us all being in Paris together and looking at each other like “how did we end up here aye aha?” The trick itself is insane but the whole situation was everything for me – pure contentedness.
FYI When he told me he wanted to crooked grind that same spot for his next Pass~Port part, I asked if it that would be a little weird…he replied “Nah fuck no, it’s a crooked grind” and I was all about it. His approach to handling a trick is amazing, slow breathing at the top, completely focussed, the way he eyeballs a spot, then the filmer, gets the OK, and off he goes. It’s so special to see it all unfold in person, I am truly lucky to have witnessed this many times.
Jason Rainbird – Gap to Lipslide. PH: Sam Coady
To be honest [Jason] Rainbird hadn’t skated much for a year or two at this point. Through Covid, he kind of rolled things back a bit. He took over his father’s car sale business, looked to get really fit and focus on his body and his mind a lot more. All of that meant he put the skateboarding to the side. Then when this tour came about to go into the Blue Mountains to film for a Nike SB Dunk we designed. 
Geoff and I hit him up and said we would love to have him on the trip. He was so ingrained in the original Nike SB Australian team and Pass~Port, that he had to be part of it. He jumped in the van and had a completely new and refreshed view of skateboarding and how he approached things. The whole tour he would just wake up and want to get shit done. If he was away from his car sale business he knew he wanted to make the very most of this time, and he did. He handled this one like he was closing a big bloody business deal. The downhill run up, the gap, the hill bomb afterwards, had it all. When he rolled away it put a special stamp on the whole project where we knew we were “good”. To not step on a board for some time he really showed how true his ability is. People are always very curious of Rainbird. I’ll be over in the States or Europe and someone will always want an update. End of the day he holds his own power, he’s a hard working guy. He’s not skating as much these days but when he does, it’s 120%.
Josh Pall – Crooked Grind. PH: Andrew James Peters
Josh [Pall] has got way too many good photos out there so I went a tad left-field with this one. We needed a photo for an ad and he had this idea that he wanted to crooked grind his ute [utility vehicle] which just sounded fucking great. For me, it just very much communicates what Josh is about, a very hard-working creative, and skateboarder. He works super well with a small crew, filmer, and photographer at most. He went out with Peters and just handled it from concept to delivery – job well done, the perfect employee. He too is a big part of the brand and a very close mate. I love everything about him, top-tier attitude. He is also often mentioned as the people’s champ, I like that. He really is a hard worker in every aspect of his life – WHC.
Kevin Shealy – Mailbox Ollie. PH: Kris Burkhardt
We had been burnt so many times trying to find US riders and it not working out. It left us wondering if we should commit to bringing someone else on or if they would just jump on another company given the chance. With Kevin [Shealy] it just made sense. He was already friends with Hyperion distribution, WKND and the Florida crew who had moved to LA. We were obviously looking for someone who was good at skateboarding but also someone we could be at the pub with and just shoot the shit. He moulded into the crew with great ease, we’re stoked to have him in the mix and he’s just one of those lifers now.
I’m not completely sure if this photo Kris [Burkhardt] shot of Kevin has even seen the light of day!? Possibly this is the premier of this pearler!? I just distinctly remember when I saw it, it stood out for its lightning bolt blues, power, and momentum! Kevin is a pretty damn tall guy and paired with a powerful ollie, while cars fly by – it’s a match made in heaven. Everything about it screams like a scene from the movie SPEED. Love it Kev.
Matlok Bennett-Jones – Switch run on nosegrind.
PH: Thomas Robinson
This isn’t the most conventional trick that Matlok [Bennett-Jones] is doing, but it was shot on the first day of our Northern Territory Australia tour with Carhartt. There were a couple of team riders that he hadn’t met at this point. There was quite a lot of nervous energy swirling around for me…we’re in the top end of Australia, one of the most remote places on earth, how are we going to pull off an entire skateboarding tour? Carhartt had been kind enough to fly a bunch of the team out to Uluru [Ayers Rock] BUT what do we do now? Matlok somehow worked out to jump on this rail which was literally in the middle of the desert. Day one, first trick of the tour ends up being a switch run on nosegrind with off-road wheels…perfect. He had just flown one of the longest trips of his life, I think it took him 3-4 flights to get there, so it was really impressive. Rather than drinking a couple of cans and looking at the rock, he turned and threw his board down into the red dirt…and then had a few cans.
Matthieu Lucas D’Souza – Backside 180 nosegrind
PH: Sam Coady
Chu is a newish addition from Christchuch, New Zealand. This photo is from his first tour with us. In my opinion he has one of the best backside 180-reverse nosegrinds in the game. This was one of those ones where between myself and the photographer Sam Coady, we knew we wanted to take him here. It’s a classic spot in Sydney that the likes of Glenn Wignall and a bunch of others had skated back in the day. We ended up at the spot, and the scene was set. He executed it so fucking well, like he was born to do it – the footage and the photo are both top-notch. A move of pure beauty to witness when he does it. This photo ran as his welcome ad, alongside our Evisen & Pass~Port tour in Thrasher.
FYI Matthieu also has the 180-fakie 5-0, the Pupecki grind, or “the move” on lock. I just got an update that he documented that on another iconic spot out here. The bag of tricks he has, all the ones you want, he’s got them. He’s a very talented young skateboarder and we’re lucky to be working on a bunch of stuff with him at the moment.
Mikey Mieruszynski – Kickflip 5-0. PH: Bryce Golder
Oh, what a night…It was towards the deadline for the Kitsch video. I had always wanted to hit this bump on the edge of the city, it’s a perfect kicker for fucks sake! Bam Margera had skated it, Brett Margaritas, a handful of heads. I always remembered back in the late 90s – early 2000s a crew had skated out of it, over a car. It was the coolest shit ever and it was something I had driven past 1000 times living nearby. It just made sense that we had to have a session there for our video. The crew was deep, a bunch of friends, plus Hoddle & Pass~Port heads. We sat at the pub until midnight then went over to someone’s house for a few more beers to pass the time. At around 2 or 3 in the morning, we turned up at this spot, lit it up, and then every set of traffic lights we would pull up the car, everyone would get a shot each, and we’d do another lap. Mikey got a really special one though, to kickflip back 5-0 the back of our mate’s car was pretty incredible. The cops eventually turned up, but we had pulled it off. Everyone ran in different directions with the cameras, the flashes, the lights. I think the car was Mikey’s actually or his room mate’s so that made even more sense. This was another one that somehow went to plan and made for a special evening/ morning.
FYI Mikey has a beautiful kickflip, he’s also been very integral to the brand. He has worked a lot on the design side of things. From graphics, to garments, to store and gallery exclusive roll outs. He’s also a good-looking guy who ends up in every second lookbook, he ticks all the boxes for sure.
Alex “Tenny” Tennison – Wallride. PH: Tyler Cichy
This is another welcome to Pass~Port ad, I told you they need to be special! Tenny has always had a very strong wallride on him, a balanced mix of aggression and fluid form to it. Once I saw this photo, the angle, the colours, it just made too much sense, full yellow circle stuff. I love the way he looks like there is no sign of gravity at all, he’s just floating in yellow burnt man land. Tenny has such an eclectic bag of tricks but it’s always his wall ride that comes flowing back to me. Tenny is always so enjoyable to see skate in person, you truly feel anything could go down when he’s around. Just as he’s about to spill, he’s back, very real. Each tour he’s a part of, he’s constantly motivated and comes in with the most upbeat but calming attitude. He truly is a pleasure to be around, skating all day and enjoying the fruits of his labour by night – Consistency Counts!
Sam Sutton – Smith Grind. PH: Tomoki Peters
A pretty recent photo of Suttos for a project we had worked on with Vans. He headed down to Melbourne pretty close to deadline and bagged a bunch of solid stuff in one trip, if only all the trips were like that! Sam is constantly still surprising the team and myself with his scary radar. He has so much precision with his manuals, flatground, and so on, but every so often he will remind you that he can huck. He can really, really throw down when needed and it’s a very special power/switch to turn on when and if need be. I remember we wanted to run a double-page ad for this project and also have a few photos hung in our gallery space for the launch. So the brief for the Vans and Passy riders was, we need something “movie poster worthy!?” Sounds like something from Hollywood, we are far from it. We had all of these amazing assets the studio had created and we wanted to scatter them all around some heavy-duty skateboarding – Sam and Moki nailed it.
Yuma Takei – Nollie Flip. PH: Marimo Ohyama
The team and I were in Sapporo, Japan alongside the Evisen team and I was super keen to get a trick. I had spotted this thing as soon as we pulled up in the van. I was told that Jamie Thomas of all people had ollied into it a year ago and apparently it made the national news in Japan, naughty boy! I was tripping on how cool the spot looked, the glass, the shimmering lights. I was heavily advised we should stay clear of it, too much heat. But I’m just a sucker for a bank and a kickflip. So the night came when we had finished up at another spot. Laurence [Keefe] from Evisen said “Trent’s got a spot”. We went there, a few beers full. I tried to gee myself up, got excited, and thought fuck it, if I do this then I’ve got my trick for the trip, I just need to kickflip into this thing. Two or three shots into trying it I committed to it….sort of…slid out and fell on my arse. I then looked down at my ankle and thought “What the hell!?”. My ankle was at a right angle….I thought I just jumped off my board, but I had dislocated and broken my ankle. There was an ambulance, the whole shebang, and I got taken to the emergency room somewhere in Sapporo with Laurence kindly translating to doctors until the wee hours of the morning.
It was absolute drama in the hospital, I finally got dispatched and the next day Yuma [Takei] came to visit me at my hotel room. He told me that the spot was so cool and that he had really wanted to skate that spot too. I told him that as I am the team manager “boss”, he definitely has to skate that spot now! Kind of joking… Yuma point-blank replied “I’ll skate it for you Trent”. Honestly, I thought he just said that due to his kind-natured ways. The next night he went out and told the crew he wanted to go back to the bank where “Trent got injured”. He thought it would be the right thing to do, in some way to pay respects to me just trying to kickflip into it. With a good amount of pressure and courage behind him, he executed this perfect and precise nollie flip into it. I found it heartwarming that he went back there, some people joked around saying he’d burnt me or tried to one-up me, but he genuinely wanted to skate this thing and I had given him my full support. I’m down and out in the hotel, broken ankle with a flimsy cast, I wanted him to go and skate it! He did the move at 4 or 5 in the morning, the crew came back to show me, and it was really fucking cool, I’m so stoked on that one for him and for me, hehehe. Yuma is the salt of the earth.
Thanks for your time Tren. What do you have on the cards this year that you’re excited about?
Semi off-topic but I’m having a kid in two months! Excited for that new chapter with my partner. I’ve been very lucky up until now that every tour or project that comes up involves me being very much in the thick of it. I think I’m going to have to schedule things accordingly, work out how to factor everything in while having a kid and a family to look after too. So there are some big changes ahead personally, but I think that will put everything into perspective. If there are trips or projects where I’m in there, I’ll make the very most of them. I was on tour last year with Jack Kirk from Hoddle and he was a pretty new dad. He just made the most of every fucking second we had on this tour, he stopped drinking, he drove the van, and he skated every day. It really opened my mind up to that approach. I’m on this trip, and I’m happy, but also anxious because of being away from my kid, so why not just make the most of it? He was so positive, productive, and reactive to things. I took a lot of inspiration from that and made a mental note that I want to approach things similarly if I’m ever away from my family.
Trent Evans in front of the lens with a backside tailslide while filming for Kitsch back in 2018. PH: Sam Coady
We have another community-based tour planned to a country that many outside of Australia and Asia may not have heard of, a place called East Timor. We’re working closely with Build Up Skateboarding and Vans, very special projects those ones. We also have a few more exciting projects and events coming up at home and overseas. Few of these we still have to keep under wraps to some degree for now sorry. More than anything I’m excited to stay a little more local, work more closely with our store, our studio, and local producers on our Australian-Manufactured Capsule Ranges. Team-wise, everyone’s scattered all over the globe now, so it’s always exciting to catch up with one another on a project or tour. Plenty on the cooker, but just trying to make sure I don’t tip the sliding scales one way too much.
Can we expect to see any of you guys in London soon?
Very much so. We’re working on project with Matlok [Bennett-Jones] at the moment. We’ll be out there skateboarding and looking to do a whole activation event this year or next. Some of the team will be bopping their heads up in English summer, handful of missions getting planned at the moment. London is such a special place to me and to the brand, It’s somewhere I try to get back to every few years.
Thanks for your time Trent. Any last words to close?
I’m excited for everything within the brand and the team moving forward. We’re 15 plus years deep now, we have a solid crew so if there’s an idea or project that we want to do, we have the contacts, the energy, skills, creativity and support to make it happen. We’re very lucky to be at this stage where it’s up to us what we do next. We don’t have to really answer to anybody else other than the team and ourselves. We just need to work out what we want to do and what excites us. Things can go any which way, which is a good thing I feel!?
Keegan Walker – Backside Tailslide. PH: Luke Thompson
I know Keegan had a special place in Slam City’s heart. He loved London for its people and its skateboarding. His memory, creative visions and love for skateboarding is celebrated constantly with his brand Hoddle Skateboards still to this day. Here is a photo shot by Luke Thompson in Western Australia – Very, very good form on this one Keegan, love & miss you mate xox
We would like to thank Trent for really taking the time out for this one, it was great hearing his enthusiasm when talking about all of the different individuals who make up the Pass~Port Skateboards story. Be sure to follow Pass~Port on Instagram, peruse their YouTube for archival videos from the vaults, and visit us for the most comprehensive range of Pass~Port products you will find anywhere.
Thanks also to all of the amazing photographers who gave their blessing for the photos which appear above which made this the visual treat it became: Bryce Golder , Samuel Stephenson , Thomas Robinson , Justus Hirvi , Jake Mein , Sam Coady , Andrew James Peters , Kris Burkhardt , Tyler Cichy , Tomoki Peters , Marimo Ohyama , Luke Thompson
Previous 5000 Words Interviews: Richie Hopson , Ben Colen , Steve Van Doren , Rich West , Dominic Marley
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