DINGO: The Interview

The Dingo talks. This is how he makes money, makes friends, and makes fun. He’s really good at it. But don’t let this long, silky haired, Australian mammal bark at your mom. You may never see her again. Legend has it he has subdued countless women with his notorious “fast-talk” and kept them preoccupied with the treasures of his Sunset Boulevard palace. If you’ve ever witnessed a show or event hosted by the Dingo, you know, all it takes to woo a crowd is a few words spoken with that OZ accent. It’s truly unbelievable, like hypnosis. Dingo’s personality is worth it’s weight in diamonds and he wears them all. During this interview we had to wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the glitters.

DS: So you’re living in LA. Tell me what’s your house is like.
Dingo: LA is good. I stay at my manager’s house that the Grenade team has kinda taken over. It’s a seven bedroom mansion with a big pool in the hills. My dog lives there. It’s great. Everybody skateboards and we have a good time.

How did you become an industry personality?
I moved over here when I was 14 and I was just snowboarding, friends with Danny (Kass) and the whole crew when the Grenade evolution came about. I was also super close with Pat Bridges. He was actually the person ahead of me on the microphone at the World Quarters in 2002. He told me that I should get into it because I had an accent and because I was a bit of crazy person. He explained to me that I had a future and a career ahead of me in announcing.

Have you had any favorite events that you have announced?
My favorite events to announce have for sure been the Grenade Strikes Back Tour that we did this year. It was more of an amateur series where we gave back to the younger riders, the future. It was Danny and myself and we had Lucas McGoon and Sketchy D. We would show up and hold an amateur contest for the kids in that local area and spend the weekend with the kids. It’s just fun to get back in and to show up at these resorts where they don’t have pro riders coming through and they don’t have big competitions and really get in the mix of it and to see how stoked kids get to have you be there. You also see the future of the sport so that’s fun for me. It’s totally different from the US Open or the Vail Session or your bigger contests. Its on a totally different level and for me personally it gives back to me and its something that I’m super stoked to be a part of.

Do you do any announcing for other sports besides snowboarding?
Not really. I’ve done a little bit of surfing and skate stuff, but nothing too heavy. It’s mainly just snow. I’ve actually started to do some musical stuff on the television. We’re doing a bunch of stuff with Little John and the BME click. He’s got his new album coming out. We’re going to do a documentary on skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing across music. So its like pop culture meets music. We started to get involved with that. It’s like me, Danny, Ryan Sheckler, and Greg Lutzka, so its going to be a lot of fun.

Have you gotten to go back to Australia much?
I do but not as much as I’d like to. I went back for the MTV Music Awards and got to be involved in that. Then last year I went back for the Garnier Fructis Challenge. It was an idea that my agency in Australia had come up with and then Garnier Fructis had the backing and, basically, threw all the money down. There was a $100,000 prize pool that they split between male and female. We were able to bring the world class riders like Danny [Kass] and Gretchen Bleiler and Louie Vito and Torah Bright. It was a 20-grand first place pot male and female, which had never been done in Australia. SO that was fun, but this year we sold it to Burton and its now the Garnier Fructis Australian Open presented by Burton and this year I’m just doing a party out there. So that gives me two months this year to spend out there, which should be fun.

Are spinning front-side and back-side opposite in Australia because it’s under the equator? Like a toilet spins backwards. Well, I don’t really think it changes for front-side and back-side but maybe people that are regular in Australia are goofy in America, or vice versa. I don’t really know. I have no idea, that’s a great question.

Everyone has been talking about this “Radical Dude Club.” Yea, I started the Radical Dude Club with Danny in Vegas about four weeks ago. There was a tattoo that we had been thinking about getting for a while and Sheckler had booked time with Carey Hart at Hart’s of Huntington, the tattoo shop, and he was getting some crazy tattoo. He wanted us to come down and get tattoos so I was looking at the Grenade catalog and it had the Radical Dude print. I took it down and then we both got the Radical Dude tattoos and started the Radical Dude Club. And now it’s growing and we didn’t mean for it to grow. There’s like five or six out there and we’re working on a website and a t-shirt line. So who knows where it’s going to go.

Have any strangers gone out and gotten Radical Dude tattoos?
I think there are two strangers in the Radical Dudes. One guy myspaced me, and he’s in the Army. But he’s super into snowboarding. He asked my permission to get a Radical Dude tattoo and of course I said yes. So he went out and got one. And then another guy from New Zealand. I think we have a Kiwi in the Radical Dude club too, some total random that messaged me as well. We have collected some randoms and we have a solid base. Now, we have to work on our celebrity Radical Dude club because my goal is to do a coffee table book in like five years of all the different Radical Dude tattoos. I want to see all the changes of the tattoo. I want to see the evolution of it.

Who are your celebrity prospects? Who you would like to see in the club?
Andy Milinakis said he would maybe get one. Rob Dyrdek said he would definitely get one. So that’s a start right there. If we can get Andy Milanakis in the Radical Dude club, I’m happy with that.

What about Big Vyrne…he doesn’t have a tattoo?
He is the radical dude. He doesn’t have a tattoo but when I got my tattoo in Cleveland a few months ago I asked if Vyrne could get a tattoo. They said they couldn’t do it there because they would have to knock the dog out. But Vyrne could possibly get a tattoo. He is going to be on Cat Wandee’s new show in a couple of weeks. He’s working the angles. I mean he introduces me to people and takes me to the right spots. He’s really up there.

Is Big Vyrne part dingo?
John Jackson’s dog, Gwenny, had puppies. On Christmas Eve me and Danny went to the Jacksons’ because they’re brothers-in-law. They had a couple of puppies left. Me and Danny fell in love with this one. We bought him, split him down the line to the cents. Fifty percent each of ours, I think I own the back half and Danny owns the front half, whatver. He’s could have a bit of dingo in him, he should.

What happens if, worst-case scenario, you and Danny divorce. Where is Big Vyrne going to go?
I don’t know, the separation hasn’t come up yet. He’s a loved dog and he travels everywhere. I guess were just going to have to divide the time and do a week on week off status. Typical divorce settlement.

That could really scar him. People call you the Paris Hilton of snowboarding. What do you have to say to those people.
You know what, I’m down. I love Paris Hilton. She’s hot. Does that mean I’m hot?

Any differences between you and Paris?
I think Im a little bit smarter. I don’t know she’s done pretty well for herself. I think the main difference is probably our choice in dogs. She likes the little dogs I like the big dogs.

Have you dated any female pro snowboarders?
You know what, I haven’t. I don’t like to fish off the pier I work at. I don’t want to get involved with any of these professional snowboard women because I just don’t want to ruin the relationships I have with them.

You were on the set of David Letterman when Tara Dakides had her big accident. How do you deal with those situations when you’re on the mic and someone has just hurt themselves?
That was a big silence. That was pretty intense because we didn’t know what happened to Tara. I mean she fell thirty feet to concrete in front of a crowd of a couple hundred people. It pretty much went to dead silence. Within 15 seconds, David Letterman was out on the street and he’s a pretty serious guy. He brushed passed me, I looked up at him, I’m like, “this guy means business.” I didn’t even say anything. Within probably five minutes there were five or ten helicopters down and it was live on the news across the world. They rushed her off to the hospital and within an hour we knew she was all right, but still the news was going crazy. Basically, all you can do in a situation like that is go into complete silence and there’s nothing you can really say. If somebody has been potentially really hurt you’re not going to over-talk that. You just go into silence and wait it out.

What did you think about the Icer Air ramp?
I though that was the most stupid thing I have ever seen in snowboarding. That was the most clown-show thing that has ever been done in our sport. I was disappointed that they had built a professional event and turned it into that. I could see the gap thing looking cool. But we showed up and it was a how-many-hundred foot tall skinny little scaffolding. The take off left a gap where you could fall probably 150 to 200 feet. You’d die no matter what if you fell down the gap and there was no netting underneath it. A girl ended up falling in the net. She would have been dead if they hadn’t put the net there. The people running the event didn’t even want a net. They just shouldn’t have events like that. An event like what they did at Icer Air just makes snowboarding look really bad. Anyone could have died at that event which shouldn’t be the case in a snowboarding event.

Who are your sponsors?
Right now I’m representing Grenade Gloves, Jack’s Garage, Oakley, Vestal, Monster Energy Drink, BME clique, Neff headwear, and Boost Mobile. Did I say BME? Little John gives me diamonds.

You’re not necessarily a pro rider so what are your obligations to them?
I think my obligations are more of a personality. I represent the brands on TV. I also do a lot of behind the scenes work for them and bring them into the events that I do. Really just coming in, and being involved with the company, and being a part of their snow program. Like Oakley, I’m really involved with all the Oakley athletes and the management over there. I have TPS video production. I incorporate all my companies into that. So, it’s a totally different role. It’s more of a personality representation. It’s not an athlete representation, where I’m out there snowboarding for any of these companies because that’s not what I do. Snowboarding is my background but it’s more television and personality level of reaching out and representing the brands on all the levels that I do. I don’t really know what the job-title for that is.

Would you say Sal Masakela is your biggest competition right now?
I wouldn’t say he’s my biggest competition. He is actually someone that I look up to. Sal Masakela has helped me out a lot through the changes in the last couple years that I’ve gone through from announcing the snowboard contests to being more media to being more mainstream and trying break through out of snowboarding but still be true to snowboarding. He is somebody who is a perfect example in action sports who has done that. He is one of my biggest idols for sure. I wouldn’t say he’s competition because we’re on two totally different levels, where as he’s working for E and hosting the winter X Games. That’s something, like hosting the winter X Games, that down the future I would love to be involved in. But right now it’s not my style. I don’t want to be the clean cut and the hair, I want to be myself and promote my love for snowboarding and being me and being 21 and just having fun being with your friends. I’m just not at that level. I love doing live announcing rather than doing the television form. Right now, I just rather be young and do my thing.

Speaking of being clean cut and maintaining your image, how long have you been growing your hair?
About six years now.

A lot of people are curious why you stopped being the Grenade team manager.
Basically, I stopped because I just had so much going on. It started about four years ago when riders needed the product and someone to relate with. At that time I was the perfect person for that because I knew everybody and was easy to chat with. And now I have trouble answering my phone and keeping up with my emails. It was just too much to handle and it was bringing everyone down, when the athletes were not getting their product and their stickers. At that time it gave us the opportunity to bring one of our best friends in. I’m still really involved. We’ve got so many projects going on we need to have people underneath helping us out.

You have been in the States since you were 14. Would you consider yourself American or Australian?
Definitely Australian. Always Australian. I think I have a little bit of Yankee in me because I have spent so much time here. But I’ll always be Australian. Australian blood. That’s my home. But I love it over here its where all my friends are. It’s where my work is and where my passion is. But I got my family back there.

Do you think you’ve experienced changes that were influenced by American culture, changes you wouldn’t have experienced if you were living in Australia?
Who knows? Maybe if I had stayed in Australia I would have had a real job?

I hear you have a new reality show?
Ya, we’re working on a new project right now. It’s about ten episodes and working on cutting it up right now. It’s called the Adventures of Danny and Dingo. We wanted to do a reality show and we had the Strikes Back Tour and the Grenade Games. So we shot from the X Games through to the middle of March, traveling the country, doing all these Grenades strikes back, the Amateur Series, looking for the next Grenade am. snowboarder. We also showed the life of Danny, going to these major contests, being a professional snowboarder, Lucas Magoon, and myself, hosting. And we had Sketchy D and Kevin involved. We also showed ending up at Grenade Games and showing how me and Danny (Kass) made Grenade Games. It’s just very different. We want to take snowboarding to that next level and bring it to the mass media. [We want] to show the world how much love we have for snowboarding. The skateboarding guys have done it. You’ve got Viva La Bam and Rob Dierdrick. There are a lot of different skateboarders who have broken out into the mass media and who have promoted skateboarding on a worldwide level. Snowboarding hasn’t really been shown on that level. You’ve got your Shaun White, and he’s amazing, but there hasn’t been an actual influential television show that has been successful based around snowboarders. The world is so big and snowboarding is so small on the scale to everyone. They just wouldn’t watch you’re amazing snowboard video, your Standard video, your Justin Hostyneck video. But taking reality, who Danny Kass is, and the company, and showing our lives throughout snowboard season to the rest of the world. We’ll see how it goes.

Have you seen the Block or the Sorsa Project?
Yup, yup, yup. I did a couple of episodes with the Block. I love the Heiki show. I think that’s amazing. They need to keep more doing those because that is promoting snowboarding and showing the life of someone like Heiki and how influential he is to the snowboard industry.

So what’s the difference between your show and these?
Much larger audiece…we’ve been working with a couple of our friends over at MTV. We want this project to go to the top of the line. We want to take it to people who don’t watch snowboarding. That’s our goal. We love Fuel and we love to work with Fuel. It’s so great what they’re doing for the action sports industry and snowboarding. But we want to take our size, our life, our company and what we we’re trying to promote in snowboarding to a whole new level.

Besides the fact that it is a wild Australian dog, why do people call you Dingo?
The first year I was over here we were partying with Hana Beaman, Zach Leach and Kyle Clancy and everyone else, the whole crew, when everybody lived in Mammoth, great people. I think Zach or Kyle started calling me Dingo, or Hana. They all say they did it. So there are three people that say that they named me. I have to give all three of them credit. It came from one of those three that night and went from there. People kept saying it and their friends starting saying it. All of a sudden, I didn’t have a name. It was just, “This is Dingo…” I think that was 2001.

Thanks Dingo!