Stats:
Name: Rob Dyrdek
Birthplace: Ohio
Resides: Hollywood, CA
Years skating: 1000’s upon 1000’s of days
Music: Def Leppard
Last skate magazine looked at: Skateboard Mag
Last video you saw: Fully Flared
Favorite video: Blind Video Days
Favorite city to travel to: Venice Beach
Worst place to go in San Diego: the Convention Center
You will never catch me filming at: a spot on a busy road
You will never catch me entering: a manual contest
Favorite DC’s: The Metro. The shoe created memories… some good, some bad.

Bio:
Rob Dyrdek is a rare breed in professional skateboarding: his charisma and personality are as well known as his abilities on a board. As a skateboarder, Dyrdek has racked up his share of top worldwide contest finishes, legendary video parts and endless magazine coverage. But Rob's larger-than-life persona is grounded in the fact that he's passionate, driven and above all, a talented athlete who's shaped modern street skateboarding. He's played a major part in building DC Shoes and other influential skateboarding companies into what they are today. Born in Kettering, Ohio, in 1974, Rob started skating at age 12, and in less than a year was the youngest member of the popular G&S (Gordon & Smith) skateboard team. At 16, he turned pro for the newly formed, now legendary Alien Workshop Team. "Personality coupled with talent makes the ultimate celebrity, and Dyrdek had the ability to wrap it all into one incredible ball of energy," says Alien Workshop founder Chris Carter. Soon after his first professional contest, Dyrdek became friends with Ken Block and Damon Way, then President and Executive Vice President of Droors Clothing. Seeing the endless potential in this young skater, Dyrdek was quickly asked to promote their Droors Clothing line. Droors Clothing later became DC Shoes, the first company to produce an athletic driven skate shoe made specifically for skateboarders. Dyrdek’s strong street skills inspired Block and Way to add Dyrdek as the first street member of their newly formed DC team. Rob joined DC Shoes in 1995 and set out to design the first-ever skateboard shoe with an athletic shoe's performance features and look. The result, the Dyrdek1, was the first skateboard shoe to feature protective nylon lace loops. Dyrdek’s signature shoe was met with unprecedented approval by the skateboarding community, sold out in record time, and marked the moment when DC became known as a skateboard shoe innovator. Rob's passion for shoe design has only grown since then---he's expanded his role at DC to include that of shoe designer, and in addition to several of his own signature models, has designed several other successful DC shoes, among them the Alias, the Modus and the Blend. Rob was also the first pro skateboarder to build a private indoor skate park when the TF, or Training Facility, was completed in San Diego in 1998. Rob's drive and passion has spilled over from the act of skateboarding itself to the entrepreneurial side, and Rob has used his keen business sense to start several companies, among them Silver trucks and Reflex bearings. Rob continued with his entrepreneurial skills to help skateboarding and create legal street skateboarding spots for the roughly 13-million street skateboarders in the US and give back to the sport that made him a star. To that end, he spearheaded the creation of the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation, which actively seeks to build Skate Plazas throughout the US and beyond. Currently, Rob resides in Los Angeles, California. When he's not skateboarding, supporting his foundation or involved in the shoe design process at DC, he's busy with one of his numerous side projects. Beginning November 2006, Rob began his MTV reality series, “Rob and Big”. This reality comedy stars Rob and his bodyguard and best friend, Christopher "Big Black" Boykin as the twosome live together in Rob’s Hollywood Hills home. Now in its third season, the show is hotter than ever as it puts real street skateboarding in American’s faces weekly.
?In May 2006, Rob began filming for “Street Dreams,” a feature length film Rob co-wrote, executive produced and stars in for his acting debut. “Street Dreams” is more than just another movie about skateboarding. It is the first film written as an honest portrayal of the skateboarding culture instead of the Hollywood stereotypes that have infiltrated the media. “Street Dreams” follows the path it takes for a young skater to fulfill their dreams of becoming a sponsored street skater. It is due to hit screens everywhere later this year. In addition to DC Shoes, Rob rides for Alien Workshop, Reflex bearings, Silver trucks, Red Bull energy drinks, and also has signature sunglasses for Spy Optical.

What’s the latest with the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation?
We’re acting as a design consultant for big projects that cities can use. Working with New Line, we’ve got a project in Sunland, New Mexico that’s a really great project, and then we’re working on one in Santiago, Chile where New Line designed it completely and it’s just them most forward thinking, well designed Plaza in history. It’s going to be truly incredible.

Isn’t there a new part to the Foundation?
I did a sub-foundation inside of the Skate Plaza Foundation called the Safe Spot Skate Spot program. It’s more about building skate spots as opposed to trying to build these big urban plazas. I’m trying to use Los Angeles as an example and build skate spots there first. It’s the mecca of skateboarding, and there are zero places to skate there! 50-100,000 dollars, each one between 1000 square feet and 10,000 square feet. My real goal is to raise all the money and fund it all myself; I have the entire city on board to basically build as many as I can fund.

What about beyond L.A.?
Los Angeles will just be used as an example to other cities. Show everyone that hey, you don’t have to go spend one million dollars to build a place for skateboarders; you can spend 50,000 on some smooth ground and marble benches, and that’s a skateboarder’s dream.

Without putting any guarantees on it, when are we going to be able to skate the first Safe Spot Skate Spot?
I’ve got the first location at Lafayette Park in downtown Los Angeles, and I’ve got the town meeting on May 21 to present the proposal, we’ve got the money in the foundation ready to go. Hopefully break ground and knock this thing out and have it ready by the middle of this summer.

How do these things get paid for?
I want to do high quality, really large fundraising. How it goes is the city is going to allow me to use the land, I’m going to design the spot with New Line, then California Skate Parks is going to give us a build cost, then I’ll go out and find sponsors to raise that money… maybe go directly to corporate sponsors and offer their logo to be used on the spot. I’ll approach anyone from celebrities to wealthy people in the community… anyone that’s willing to help build a skate spot for their community.

For the typical kid or shop reading this, what can be done to get involved? How do I get spots in my town?
Well, there’ll be different ways to get involved ala Skate Plaza product or shirts or donations, but more than anything it’s getting skateboard communities nationwide to realize this is an option. Like, hey, put a spot in a corner of your existing park. Using Los Angeles as an example, my goal is to get people on other communities to get their city to do this too.

Do cities understand the need for these spots?
It’s not just one spot, but a network of spots that every skateboarder in the surrounding area will skate. Cities don’t understand the fact that skaters from all over are skating skate spots. They think that when they build a spot that’s it’s simply the kids in their community that are going to use it. They’re not 100% aware that every kid within driving distance is going to use it.

Street Dreams is your feature film project that we’ve heard rumors about for ages. When do we get to watch that?
I finally just signed my distribution agreement and it’ll be in theaters for a limited release most likely at the beginning of October.

Why have we heard so little about it so far?
I’m going to start hard on promoting it over the next 5-6 months. Street Dreams has been three years in the making, and it’s been such a massive undertaking, but I haven’t wanted to promote it because I didn’t want to burn anybody out. Outside of just talking about it, I’ve never released any footage or anything! Now that I have a distribution deal and a tentative release date, I’m going to start promoting it.

There have been a few quote-unquote “action sport movies” that have come out. All have failed to accurately show their sports… they’ve failed in our eyes as they all came out sort of tweaked. Why is street dreams different and legit?
First off, the reason all those other action sports movies SUCK is because there’s someone behind it that wants to capitalize on the sport but has no idea what it is. They try to jam it into what they believe is the mold, you know? I even had a friend of mine, a really good friend of mine, say, ‘please tell me this isn’t going to be anything like The Grind.’ I’m like, why would a movie that I’m doing end up like The Grind?’ He was like, ‘hey, you know how Hollywood gets… how an executive behind everything controls that stuff!’ I’m like, there is nobody behind me… it’s all me! It’s all my money, I wrote it—I did everything! This is 100% done by me, and you know I’m not doing anything corny!

Do you think skateboarders will like it then?
There’s doubt. The industry is so conditioned that no one can ever do this right that they’re pretty much faithless. They assume it’ll never be done right. To me, even the most hardcore critic finicky skateboarder is going to think this is incredible. It’s very pure to our sport, but it has everything that a feature film needs as far as the story and the conflict. It’s just done in the right way. There’s so much nuance within the film that only the culture will understand and appreciate.

Has it been a battle getting studios to get it?
How’s this: I sat in a meeting to sell this film—a film that has myself, Sheckler, P-Rod, Ryan Dunn from Jackass—with MTV, a company that ‘loves skateboarding’, and the guy who makes the decisions on films for the network had no idea that skateboarding was illegal. He was like, ‘really? Skateboarding is illegal?’ I’m like, ‘do you not even watch my show? Don’t you realize that my show is based off the idea that skateboarding is illegal so I have to have a bodyguard for skateboarding to deal with things?’ He was like, ‘Oh, really? I never understood that; I thought he was just your buddy!’ He was the epitome of where people just don’t understand.

Now that you’re three seasons deep, what’s your thought on the whole experience… in retrospect?
I love it. It’s given me the chance to do some of the most extended, ridiculous, fun, eccentric stuff I could’ve never done if I didn’t have a TV show. The amount of exposure that it’s given me and the amount of things I’m going to do from this and what it’s going to do for me helping take skateboarding, especially street skateboarding, to the next level as far as educating the mainstream, is incredible. It’s been a valuable experience.

Quite a journey: from starting out in the early ‘90s, a deep street skateboarding history with DC and Alien Workshop, to what life’s like today. It’s got to be a trip.
You want to know what’s really interesting? When I was 11 years old I went to my first contest after skating 28 days. Neil Blender was there, getting into a car, and he was holding a board. I said, ‘hey, I don’t think there’s enough room in that car for that board.’ He said ‘I think you’re right’ and he threw me that board. I still have that board to this day; it’s sitting in my kitchen right now. This is the same man that 5 years later drew my very first pro model signature deck, who I started a company (Alien Workshop) with at 16, and that I ride for today 17 years later. It’s unbelievable—the level of history that I have in the sport and stuff that’s been so intertwined over time. To come this far and then now explode in this whole other direction is crazy.

That new direction… has it affected your skateboarding?
You know, mainstream television fame is unreal. Right now I’m committed to filming this video part so hardcore right now that I’m in the streets every single day, no matter what, right? Having mainstream TV fame can really benefit you sometimes in the streets. Like, we’re skating this China Town ledge where the public safety dudes usually kick you out. And it’s me, Lizard King, Don “the Nuge”, and all these pros that would normally get kicked out, but this time they’re like, ‘whoa, what? Where’s big?’ They’re like shooting photos and stuff! They’re were like, ‘nah, y’all can skate today.’ It’s a pass on some TV stuff… it’s just bizarre man.

The Alien Workshop video is due out in August. You haven’t dropped a full video part in a few years. Are you excited to put one out there?
More than anything, it’s important for me to buckle down and have a solid video part. It legitimizes everything I’m trying to do. Like, yes, I’ve been doing a million and one things, but when it comes down to it I’m going to get in the streets and put together a part for this video.

Out of all the shit you’ve seen, over the last 15 years or so with DC, what are you most proud to be a part of?
Everything to be quite honest with you. From selling one board and getting $2 checks in 1991 to getting on Droors to getting one of the first shoes on DC to seeing it get to where it is today is a really big thing for me. Being a part of the foundation of something so big and the depth and history I have from both of those is big. It really means a lot to me.

Now that I can see the bigger picture and all the things that I’ll be doing outside of my skateboarding, to have all this depth and know that’s where I came from is an honor. It’s humbling to say the least.