Writer: Chris Ahrens | Photographer: Aaron Chang Outside of the obvious rock and movie stars, there are few people in the world that have influenced pop culture more than skate icon Jay Adams. Unwittingly, Jay and a group of skateboarders took the scraps of urban decay in a recession era LA beach town and built an entire subculture from them. His dynamic surfing and especially his skating lit up the world and awakened it to living life on the edge. That edge, at it turned out, was a lot farther away than previously imagined, and, surprisingly, had two dangerously sharp sides—one to building a life that rolled hard on urethane wheels; another that led to darkness and addiction.
    To most people, Jay is forever frozen as that kid who helped synthesize surfing and pool riding while infusing the culture with a cool and quiet rebellion. But that kid is now a man, and the man has a past…and a future.
    I hadn’t seen him since the early 80s when he was out surfing Swami’s on a small north swell. But this was not his element; he longed for the powerful wedges of the North Shore of Oahu, where he has lived for the past 15 years, to get him started.
    A month ago I got the call from Eddie Feur that Jay and his lifelong friend, skate legend Christian Hosoi, would be speaking in La Jolla on two subjects they were experts on: skating and drugs. I had recently seen Christian but wondered what would be left of Jay after a life lived so hard and fast.
    The battle scars ran deep and the pain could be witnessed in places as fresh as the ink. Still, there was something in him that had not been touched, a childlike innocence, a goodness and the smile of a boy looking bright-eyed into a wide world of wonder.
    That night, Hosoi, heir apparent boy-king, was on the mic firing bullets into the myth of indulgence without consequence. Jay backed up everything his homie said, as together they spread words of sobriety, love and joy.
    The next day photographer Aaron Chang and I met Christian and Jay at the Torrey Pines Hilton, adjacent to the famed golf course. When the waiters got word, pens and paper were broken out for signatures. Mid morning around the pool found some edgy hotel patrons afraid to bring their kids close to the skaters, which, ironically, would be just the impetus needed for a parental “just say no” campaign.
    Later, at the Encinitas YMCA skate park, the boys showed up to do some damage in the pools. Great Wall conqueror Danny Way and some amazing new kids broke down concrete, but the Dogtown boys still had it, fast, solid, loose and the most stylish in the bowls.
    We were a million miles away from a broken carnival, a backyard pool and a world of promise that came crashing down in hard withdrawals. The light was on, revealing them still kids, at least until the Advil quit working. Love and peace flowed like rivers of living water and Christian went deep with his old friend to find out everything. Pain and darkness had been a constant companion. There had once been rage, but love came to town on May 26, 2005.
—CA

Risen Magazine: Do you foresee a day when there will be skate ramps in hotels like this one?
Jay Adams: Sure, why not? Imagine 20 million tennis players and no tennis courts.

RM: Did you guys know each other as kids?
JA: I watched Christian grow up.
Christian Hosoi: I hung out with Jay when I was 11; he and Shogo, TA, Polar Bear, George Wilson, those guys would all cruise over every single day. They were basically my big brothers.

RM: Do you ever feel nostalgic for the days of climbing fences and skating people’s pools?
JA: That was a fun period in my life, but I would rather pull up to a skate park where it’s all there and you don’t have to bail it out or anything. There was an adventure back then, it was exciting. We had a tight group of guys. It was fun driving around on the roof of your car, looking over every fence, or renting an airplane at Santa Monica Airport, getting the bird’s eye view. There’s a little excitement in sneaking into some guy’s backyard who might call the police. I don’t think you could get away with that today like you could back then. You’d get shot, or arrested for sure.

CH: Back in the day when there were no skate parks to go to, you had to do it; it was mandatory.
JA: There are no backyard pools half as good as any skate park. It’s the difference between surfing Santa Monica beach break and Pipeline. It’s made for skating.

RM: It started off fun; when did it go bad?
JA: Pretty much when competition got involved, it started getting ugly and people’s egos got out of control. Once you got in magazines, it just changed everything around. People were a little more hungry for their ego.

RM: How did it affect you?
JA: I tried not to let it affect me to much, but it affected me by looking at some of my friends and being disgusted by what I saw. It kind of turned me off; I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want my friends to think, There’s Jay Adams the skateboarder guy. I just wanted to be a regular guy who skated. I tried my hardest to stay away from ego and stuff. I thought it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. To realize we’re all the same no matter what you do or how you do it—we’re all the same in God’s eyes.

CH: One thing I had was guys like you [Jay] to learn from; how to be humble in a situation like that. People are praising you for who you are, wanting you to be the man. What I tried to do was not forget where I came from. Shogo and you were pretty much my mentors and you were there telling me, “Hey, don’t get a big head; don’t think you’re better than everyone else.” Wanting to be the best and thinking that you’re better than everyone else are different.
JA: You know that you’re good at what you do, but I never wanted to have an ego and think I was cooler than anyone else. Just because this guy has a funky style or he can’t grind as good, doesn’t make him less of a nice guy once you get to know him.
CH: I think that Jay was ahead of his time because of the lifestyle that he lived; being a surfer, being in Venice Beach, being around the people he was around. Urethane wheels had just come out and these guys were pushing the limits. When you see Lords of Dogtown, you get an idea of how the urethane wheel really revolutionized skateboarding. For us, guys like Tony Hawk and me, we were ahead of our times too. Within a couple years we were doing these huge airs and technical tricks, where they weren’t even considering it yet. We were based on surfing and even though I didn’t surf, my whole style was based on surfing.

RM: Ever since both of you were kids, pot and alcohol were part of the surf and skate culture; when did you see harder drugs sneak into the culture?
JA: You wanna go first? We can both comment on that. [Laughter]
CH: For me hard drugs were prevalent from day one, but I chose not to do them. I was a pot smoker from, say, 12 years old, every single day. It was the common thing you did. I didn’t start drinking ’til I got a little older. Drugs are there; you can choose to do or not to do them. It’s kind of ironic how peer pressure is the motivator to get involved.
JA: Nobody forces you.

RM: Did you think that