If boredom and frustration help inspire creativity, then the coronavirus lockdown is really one big incubator that’s just getting started.

Tristan is currently back down south in Tampa, holding up at home for the pandemic. We hit him up to talk about putting the edit together in his childhood home between GTA V binges and spliff breaks. Check out the convo below, and if you’re feeling inspired, send us your own quarantine edits to peep.

Does it feel like all days are the same now in quarantine?
Yeah, pretty much, because I’ve been wearing the same thing every day. I have like the same three outfits so it all feels the same. I wake up at like 2 p.m. because I stay up super late and try to sleep as much as I can. I’ve been sleeping like 11 hours, it’s kinda gnarly.

So before you started isolation, how long were you working on this video?
All of it was from the last year. I feel like most of it started in November. Then there are like four or five clips that are from this summer. It’s all pretty recent. A lot of it is from the last month.

Most of Joey’s tricks and all of Shawn [Powers]’s footage is from the last two weeks I was in New York. Four or five of Joey’s tricks were from the last night I was in New York. We went out and skated and hit SoHo for the night. We went to spots that are usually a bop, and we were able to get a bunch of stuff that night. It was really cool because nobody was out. It was before everything got gnarly and it was like “Okay I have to sit inside.”

Right now it feels like all good New York filmers and skaters are from Florida.
That is true. There’s a million out there; Josh Stewart, Colin Read, Ryan Garshell (the GX1000 dude). You guys have Raspa, he’s from Stuart, right? Richard Quintero, John Valenti, and Kevin Perez (the April TM). That’s not New York but he’s a G too. Bobby Bils also.

It’s because you could skate year-round here [in Florida], so everyone naturally gets good at this stuff and then they get outta here. Everyone is usually out of here by the time they’re 23, and if not you’re stuck here [laughs].

“Everyone is usually out of Florida by the time they’re 23, and if not you’re stuck here [laughs].”

So, for the time being, you’re not working on anything else?
Not until I get back. This was supposed to be a full video but it got cut short. I want to spend a year on a video. So not only is it longer, but everything that’s in there will be quality rather than just throwing everything on a timeline and editing. Ideally, I’ll have a lot of throw away. Even if it’s 20 minutes, it’ll be the best 20 minutes of this year, and it won’t be watered down at all.

The thing is with longer videos you can hit all different types of music and if you could wrap that all together, it comes out so nicely. I also like being able to showcase someone’s skating for more than a few clips. You know, put the homies on, kind of like, “Oh man, this dude really rips, I’m gonna lock more footage of him.” Rather than just two clips and have someone be like, “That was sick,” and not think anything of them when their clips are over. I would hope to put something out with some Florida homies and some New York friends and try to have a mix of the two, so I can get a little more of everyone in there because I love my homies [laughs].

You had four different songs wrapped together pretty nicely for this one.
That’s the biggest part. Skating is a big part of a video, but the audio is huge too. If you don’t have a good song you’re not going to be able to get down with the skating as much. The song is what comes through your head first.

At the bar I work at, there’s a lot of downtimes so I’m constantly looking for music because I’ve also run out of stuff to watch. Those were all either songs I searched hard for or they popped up on a Spotify weekly playlist thing. I really like the Niagra song. For the third song, I found some ‘70s Italian or French playlist of music that was used in movies. I wanna say it was French but don’t quote me on that.

How much weed have you blown through at this point?
Oh man [laughs]. I feel like I’ve been smoking spliffs every two hours. But I brought a good amount with me down to Florida so I don’t even really have stress about it yet. Right now I’m chillin’ super hard, but give me a week or two and I might be out.

You flew with weed from New York down to Florida?
Yeah, maybe like a little over a half-ounce. Airports don’t really bug out about it if you’re good about it.

You wanna know what’s sick? You can hide your weed in your VX where the battery goes to get it through security. Heads up for all you VX guys.

Video by: Tristan Mershon
Interview by: Larry Lanza
Photo by: Josh Bower
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