Welcome to our latest “Visuals” interview with Sam Narvaez. Sam’s recent travels have taken her to Barcelona and so we caught up with her while she was over there to learn more about her selection…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Sam Narvaez captured by Sem Rubio on her travels
Sam Narvaez footage always delivers, the fun she is having is tangible and her latest clips are always inspo to go and do the same. Her tricks in the last Krooked road trip video prompted us to reach out to Sam because we wanted to have her on the blog but her Headspace video for HUF gave the impression she maybe wouldn’t be so keen to speak about herself. That’s why we thought a “Visuals” interview might be a nice way to found some middle ground and were stoked to find out she was down. Sam came back straight away with some interesting picks, was excited to speak about them, and also happy to talk about her current travels, projects, and plans for the future. It was a pleasure to connect with her and meet her in the middle of such a productive time where skateboarding was of paramount importance and her new surroundings were feeding her enthusiasm at every turn.
Sam’s selection is a diverse array of inspirations beginning with a Dan Drehobl part for the ages plucked from the first Krooked video. She discusses Dan’s influence, his ability to make even the hardest tricks look like fun, and an early encounter with him. Her trick choice is a Dylan Rieder movement on transition that may well have flown under the radar for most but remains part of her hometown repertoire which makes it an even more poignant remembrance. When it came time to choose a photo she settled on every Keith Hufnagel ollie committed to celluloid but managed to narrow it down to a recently revisited Gabe Morford gem from the archives. Finally, her board graphic choice is one she has never owned but may well do after this publishes, a Tom Penny graphic from 1996 that was cancelled, revived, and still resides on shop board walls today.
It was great to be able to catch up with Sam after speaking about her selection. We got to learn more about her current situation and the projects she is building on. The interview found her at the beginning of a solo trip to Barcelona with a video part in the works. Having only been there for a brief stint and already sitting on three clips and two photos it seems that the Spanish lifestyle has been conducive to the task in hand. We spoke to her straight after having shot a new photo with Sem Rubio and it was clear that she’s on a hype, motivated by the different pace, and focused on what she is cooking up. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of her mission later this summer. Enjoy discovering more about Sam Narvaez and some of the visuals that have made an impression on her…
Dan Drehobl – Krooked Khronicles (2006)
It’s a little cliché that I ride for Krooked and I picked this part. I’m super stoked to have the opportunity to ride for Krooked because when I was younger and getting into skating I really loved Krooked and everything the company was about. The skater who stood out the most for me was Dan Drehobl, I fell in love with skating transition because of him and how he made skating look so fun. I love Neil Diamond too and he skated to that “Forever in Blue Jeans” song. What I loved about skating, and still do, is when it’s not too serious and it just looked like he’s always having a great time. I still watch this part when I want to get hyped up and it always works. Lots of my skating is influenced by fun-looking tricks and he does a really good job of making even really hard tricks look fun. I love that whole Khronicles video but his part especially.
He’s skating around with a cigarette in his mouth, and I don’t want to say that I like that but he just appears completely carefree. He has some gnarly stuff in this part too, a bit of everything but he always looks like he’s carefree and having fun which is what I like about skating. The moments where I have the best time are when I’m not trying and just going with the flow and this part looks like he’s on a fun trip the whole time. Even the tricks that are really hard just look quick and fun. I skate a lot of transition, not really for anything I’m filming though. I love 5-0 fakies, so anything like that I can take to a street spot has definitely been inspired by him.
We all started skating because we have fun with it but I often lose myself trying to do something hard. I need to remind myself sometimes not to do something so gnarly and just to do something satisfying. I did a backside 5-0 to fakie around a box on a bank just now. It wasn’t super hard even thought it was, and it was satisfying because I was having a good time while I was doing it. That’s what I want people to interpret from my skating, that I’m having fun, it’s not supposed to be a stressful thing.
“I still watch this part when I want to get hyped up and it always works…he does a really good job of making even really hard tricks look fun”
This video wasn’t necessarily a video I would watch early on but it joined the rotation a bit later on. Krooked Naughty was one I’d watch when I was starting out. That was what got me stoked on Krooked in the first place and I almost chose Brad Cromer’s part from that video for this conversation but chose Drehobl instead. I love Brad’s skating though and I’m friends with him now, sometimes it’s crazy how things can go full-circle like that. The early videos I watched a lot were the Transworld In Bloom video, Baker 3, enjoi Bag Of Suck, and even earlier than that P.J. Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible, Life. There was a lot of 411VM playing in the background too. My brother [Josh Narvaez] skates and he would always have all the old videos playing on his Toshiba TV which had a built in VCR. He would scream at me “come here there’s a girl on the TV” and that’s how I first saw Alexis Sablone in the P.J. Ladd video. She was the first girl I ever saw skate, my brother put me on to real skateboarding which I think is what has moulded me to be who I am. If I didn’t have him I don’t know what I’d be doing, he put some very influential videos in front of me.
I’m in Barcelona right now and a spot I saw when I first got here freaked me out actually. I revisited this part before speaking to you and it’s just funny how everything came together. I walked by this spot here in Barceloneta, the famous banks that are all on the same corner. He wallies out of the banks into the bricks and then he does a wallie backlip. I watched the part to refresh my memory and then walked right by the spot which seemed insane. Now I want to get a clip there but I want to make sure whatever I do hasn’t already been done. That wallie backlip is really sick and it stands out right now because I just walked right by it.
Another trick that always stood out to me is the front blunt-back 180-nosegrind that he does in a skatepark. Him skating that indoor mini ramp is incredible too, he does a Lien air to disaster. The way he does everything is sick, the front airs that he does, the way he boardslide fakies. His back 50s turn around to 5-0s, all the quick tricks that he does.
I have a funny story about Dan [Drehobl] actually and it’s way early on. I’m thirty-two years old now but when I was about eighteen I went to Tampa Am and I skated this Bowl Smash-Up. I ended up speaking to these girls who had seen me skating the bowl and told them I had left my ID back in Miami, it was total bullshit though I just wanted to get a wristband so I could drink free PBR’s with my friends. They saw that I had been skating in the bowl and gave me a wristband. I got pretty drunk and was skating the bowl smash-up which was a jam at the bowl in the back in the kiddy section. It was hilarious, everyone slamming into each other, it was a shit show. Dan Drehobl was standing there and my brother was with me, I just had to ask him for a cigarette, he was my favourite skater at the time. He gave me one although I don’t think he really wanted to, haha. When the Krooked TM put me on I had to tell him that embarrassing cigarette story, I don’t think Dan even smokes cigarettes any more. That’s the only time I have seen him, I’ve been riding for Krooked for the last four years and have never seen him. There has been some talk of going to San Diego and trying to get him to skate with us though. He’s doing woodwork and making those cutting boards now that are really sick.
Dylan Rieder – Transworld A Time To Shine (2006)
This one clip is just so satisfying to watch. I started trying to do it straight away after first watching this video part. It’s a trick I think about a lot. It looks like he wasn’t going to do it, he wasn’t overthinking anything, it just flowed. It’s satisfying watching how he gets in and comes out. There’s an extension at the skatepark I grew up skating in Key Largo, Florida. It’s not the same as the one Dylan is skating it’s more of an escalator on a quarter pipe and I do this trick on that every time that I go and skate my home park. I love the creativity of him doing this trick, doing a disaster on the side of the extension. I think I just love disasters and this particular one is a moment I think about a lot because of how he flows with it.
“This one clip is just so satisfying to watch…It’s a trick I think about a lot”
Dylan Rieder is the favourite skater for a lot of people, when he put out this part, just like the Drehobl one, he really got me stoked to skate transition too. The part this is in had quite a bit of transition skating and the way he skates that mini ramp in the backyard just looks so fun. I was watching a lot of Transworld videos when I saw this for the first time. Also, funnily enough, Dylan has clips at the other banks in Barceloneta in this part that are right across the street from where Dan [Drehobl] skated. Dylan is a fucking legend forever, rest in paradise.
Keith Hufnagel – ollie in San Francisco. PH: Gabe Morford (1998)
This one broke my brain because I couldn’t pick a particular skate photo, it got me to thinking about every HUF [Keith Hufnagel] ollie. That’s why when you first asked me to pick something I picked every ollie of his. They always stand out, every shot of a HUF ollie is a great photo. My favourite trick is an ollie and people always laugh at me for saying that. That’s my warmup trick, without an ollie you can’t do anything, and it will always be the best looking trick. I feel stupid saying that but some of my tricks are ollies, I want to ollie into this bank while I’m out here and I just know the photo is going to look good because it’s an ollie, you can’t go wrong.
“I’ve never ollied from plywood to plywood over a dumpster but it reminds me very much of the way I grew up. We didn’t have a lot of spots so we had to get creative”
I narrowed all of the ollies down to this one because it stands out. Also Mason Silva recreated this photo recently, he did a kickflip in the same alleyway. They set up the dumpster with the plywood and I thought that was a really cool way to honour HUF for that Nike SB HUF Dunk that they did. So maybe it was recent activity that made me think of that photo. There are a lot of photos I really like but I couldn’t narrow them down to one which is why I thought I’d choose a HUF ollie. It’s a classic and I thought everyone will agree that is a great photo.
I’ve never ollied from plywood to plywood over a dumpster but it reminds me very much of the way I grew up. We didn’t have a lot of spots so we had to get creative. That’s the way I skate with Paul Shier, he’s always building something, always creating something at the skatepark with a piece of wood or something. Paul’s the best! He loves making something out of nothing. Half of the time one of us will get hurt skating whatever it is but I love that type of creativity, making a new spot out of something. I like how much this photo stands out even though it’s not a classic spot.I never got to meet Keith or see him skate unfortunately. I got on the team a year after he passed away. HUF forever.
Flip Skateboards – Tom Penny “Cheech & Chong” Deck (1996)
I don’t know why this graphic is embedded in my brain, hahaha. When I was growing up skating I was young and naive, smoking weed. I thought it was sick then and it’s still sick now. Another funny Barcelona synchronicity happened with this actually. I sent you over my selection the other day and I was sitting down eating some tapas afterwards. I had some tapas and a beer outside a restaurant near the skate shop that’s close to MACBA. All of a sudden I look up and Tom Penny is walking right by me. So the connections I’ve been making with this interview have been insane.
I always thought this graphic was a funny one having grown up watching Cheech & Chong. I love Tom Penny’s skating too, who doesn’t? This graphic is one that I have seen continuously from the time I started skating to this day. It’s still in production and it’s one embedded in my brain. I never actually had the board, it wouldn’t have been one I could bring home at fifteen. I couldn’t have asked my parents for it either because they knew who Cheech & Chong were. Later on in life when I turned twenty-three I started smoking weed with my mum and we smoked weed together until the day she left this earth. It’s quite hilarious, my mum loved weed so we had that connection later on but at age fourteen they didn’t want that, it was the devil’s lettuce, and they were being good parents. It’s just a funny graphic, I love Tom Penny’s skating, and it’s the first one that came into my head when I read the questions. I should have bought that board really, having had this conversation it’s made me want to go and buy it just to have it.
“This graphic is one that I have seen continuously from the time I started skating to this day. It’s still in production and it’s one embedded in my brain”
I read about this the other day to see if they’re still producing the graphic because it got cancelled. It said that Cheech & Chong “legalised” the graphic in 2017 which is funny. Apparently Cheech likes skateboarding so he was into it and that’s how he found out about the graphic. They still get royalties from the graphic being out there today. Damn, I don’t want to sound like a pile, smoking weed and getting a cigarette from Dan Drehobl but we’re skaters, I don’t know. I don’t want people to think “this girl is just talking about getting fucked up”, hahaha. I’m pretty good in reality, I go home at like 10pm.
My favourite Krooked board recently has been this white dipped board with the big eyes in grey. They’ve been sending me six at a time so I’ve been skating a lot of those. Some people have been joking “what’s up? You skate for Mystery now?”, haha. People can’t handle that full dipped white board but I kind of like it. I’m into that graphic right now. They also just reissued a Mike Anderson board with the graphic of his backyard park and farm. They recreated it with some new colours, it’s called ‘The Yard’, a playful graphic that Gonz [Mark Gonzales] did that I really like.
Sam Narvaez bombing some Sardinian hills on an adidas trip. PH: Sem Rubio
You’re in Barcelona right now how is that?
I’ve only been here for two weeks so I don’t really have favourite spots or anything yet. I just like getting lost here. I like to get on the train out to different places and skating back in the direction I came from. I’ve found spots everywhere just from pushing around.
This is your first solo trip to Spain?
Yeah, it’s my first solo trip out here. I’ve been here three times before. Once to Mallorca on an adidas trip, once with my mum, and once with my best friend Jenn Soto. On the trip with Jenn we were chilling, filming with our iPhones and stuff. So this is my first proper trip here where I’m trying to film. I’m staying here for a month. I’m working on a Krooked part so I’m kind of creating my own trips for that to places where I want to film. I’m going to try to come back out here to BCN. I like it out here because it’s a good base, it’s a two hour flight to London and I have homies there.
Have you given yourself a deadline for the video?
They said to work towards June so I’ve been skating a lot lately. It’s been productive though.
Any other projects on the horizon?
Right now I’m 100% focused on this one. Free Skate Mag are also talking about doing something with me and Jenn [Soto] which is tied in with adidas.
Sam Narvaez noselide transfer from the Krooked Up The Koast video, filmed by Andres Garcia
Where or what has inspired your passion for cooking on your recent travels?
Any time I try something that’s really from the place I’m travelling I get inspired. Whatever the staple dish is somewhere, I’ll go home and try to recreate a different version of what I’ve tasted. I came to Spain last year and I was really stoked on the Tortilla, the classic Tortilla de Papa which is a thick egg tortilla or omelette. I went home and made that with onions and potatoes and made my own version with Pan Con Tomate. I take a little something from every place I travel to. I’m actually writing a little cook zine so now I want to put the Tortilla in there because I’ve been eating it every day and it’s so simple, The zine will be a fun little cookbook and my lifelong friend from Miami who is an amazing artist has drawn a bunch of cartoons for it. He drew some Jalapeños laughing for a Ceviche recipe I have for instance, It’s funny that you ask me that question in that way because the cookbook is inspired by the joy of travelling and cooking. I have that written down in my phone so it’s funny you asked it the way you did.
It’s also inspired by family and friends, I’m going to have Paul [Shier]’s Sunday Roast Chicken in there and Pete Eldridge has a really good breakfast sandwich that’s going to make it in there too. It will be a collaborative effort in that respect that’s also inspired by travelling. Every time I travel somewhere new I change the book so it’s been two years of travelling and updating the recipes. There are a lot of my mum’s recipes too. It’s not going to be anything crazy, it will just be a small zine. I’m going to try and sell it for cheap so skaters who aren’t making a ton of money can buy it. Then the money made from it I’m going to donate.
Where will you donate it to?
I’ve been doing a lot with the skate community in Cuba, organising events and trying to give back to the skaters there so all of the money from the cookbook will go to that, to help people who need it. They don’t have a skate shop or a skate park so we’re working really hard to help them keep the skate culture going over there. It’s amazing how sick these people are over there and with nothing they already do so much. You give someone a board and you just change their life for a couple of months. There’s no way for them to get a board unless we go over there so that’s another passion of mine I’m working on. I cooked in fine dining and worked in professional kitchens for over ten years. Now I maybe want to open up a little hole in the wall somewhere in the future but I don’t want to plan things too much. Right now with cooking I just want to put that little cookbook out there, sell it, and give money back to the Cuban skate community.
Did you watch The Bear?
I started watching it but I don’t have a Hulu account! That was very much my life for years though. It was insane and it was bloody stressful. I’ve had a French chef throw plates at me. I’ve had some gnarly skate injuries, I tore my ACL three years ago, then right after that I tore my shoulder, then my mum got sick. So I’ve been on one with back to back injuries and all that shit hurts really bad but nothing hurts more than your mental. I know it sounds insane but I’d rather tear my ACL than work for some dickhead chef. It is actually Hell’s Kitchen, it really is. To work in that kind of environment you have to be really strong-minded. It sucks when you really love something and put your whole heart into it, and then some chef throws a plate at you and tells you you’re worthless and you will never be shit. It can really be crushing and kill the love you have for cooking. Especially when you are doing a good job, and the chef is just having a bad day. Skating doesn’t do that, you create your own path, it’s been really good for me after all of those experiences. Although I’m grateful for all those kitchen nightmares because I feel like it helped me grow in a way.
Where do you consider home to be right now?
Right now I have no plan, I’m just following skating. I left my apartment in LA so I don’t have that any more, I live with my grandma in Miami. She’s getting older so I’m trying to be around the family more and more. So I’ll be back there for a week or so and then split to go on a trip before coming back. I’m kind of living like a gypsy right now but I love it. No plans, I have goals but I have no plans. That’s because the way life has been going, every time I have a plan and something happens that gets in the way you get discouraged
Can we expect to see you in London at some point?
Yeah you can, I’m going to be over there in the middle of May.
Thanks for you time Sam. Do you have any last words?
Not just keep your head up but take it day by day. Life is going to throw things at you but you’ve just got to keep going.
We would like to thank Sam for finding the time during her filming trip for this interview. Be sure to follow her on Instagram as well as @Krooked and @adidasSkateboarding for updates and to hear more about the part she’s working on.
You can shop with us for the latest from all of Sam’s sponsors which include adidas, Krooked, HUF, Spitfire and Venture
Big thank you to Gabe Morford for the Keith Hufnagel photo and to Joe Pease for the Keith Hufnagel ollie compilation. Thanks also to Sem Rubio for the photos of Sam and to Paul Shier for lining this one up.
Previous Visuals Interviews: Tyler Bledsoe , Daniel Wheatley , Braden Hoban , Jaime Owens , Charlie Munro , Lev Tanju , Jack Curtin , Ted Barrow , Dave Mackey , Jack Brooks , Korahn Gayle , Will Miles , Kevin Marks , Joe Gavin , Chewy Cannon