Natural Koncept Premiere | Creepin’ For Life | Los Angeles

I sold my first Natural Koncept board back in 97’ or so. The brand was an anomaly back then and it’s just as bizarrely lovable if not more so today. You won’t find any glitz or glamour with these boys. No first class flights, no fresh kicks, no big pay checks, no flashy cars, no non-sketchy hotel rooms, no fancy editing, no high tech cameras and none of the glossy pristine the skateboard youth have gotten used to seeing from the big guys.

The video, in my humble opinion, can be summed up via Socratic dialogue: “You want to run that trick that you toe-dragged the landing?” Radical! You landed it. Who cares? “You want to run that odd-looking Airwalk you did in slow motion three times back to back?” Amazing! Let’s do it! “You want to include a shit ton of skatepark demo footage in your part?” Why the hell wouldn’t you? Let’s go for it! “Wobble cam?” So what? “Crazed editing?” Duh! “You want to film your part wearing boardshorts or a  range of other unusual and unconventional fashion kits? Of course, dude! Whatever’s comfy. “You wanna acid drop off the side of a fucking barn or do some other equally as crazed, unorthodox skateboard move?” Epic! We want it!

So you see, the beauty and absolute genius of Natural Koncept is that the picture it’s painted as a brand, intentional or not, is a narrative that’s probably much more akin to your own personal experiences with skateboarding as a poor scumbag living in the middle of nowhere America or in any major city in the world than any of the industry’s big dogs could ever hope to achieve. Don’t get me wrong. There’s definitely a time and a place for the glossy stuff too and there’s plenty of amazing skaters, editors and critical filmers who’ve made the skateboard media world a better place with their keen eyes for style and obsession with visual perfection, but that’s simply not what Natural Koncept is or has ever been about. So go get the video, check it out and remember what it was like to be a kid again—and if you are a kid, take it from Steve Perry and hold on to that feeling. Long live NK. Long live Katch 1. R.I.P. Eric Stricker.