As mentioned previously, Mason Silva is on the top of our list as this year’s SOTY pick. He’s had an onslaught of coverage lately, including: a Thrasher cover, his beastly part for Nike SB, and a Real introduction. He weighs in on the latter in a new interview conducted by Farran Golding, which was published by Slam City this morning.

First off an overdue congratulations on finding a new home with Real. How’d it come to be?

Oh, thank you! It happened naturally which felt really good. I wanted to be around the Deluxe guys and it felt right being there. It felt like skateboarding, you know? I was making trips up to S.F. and skating with them. I didn’t feel rushed to make a decision. After a while they asked if I’d be interested and they were going put it to the team. Sure enough, it happened to workout within the next couple of months. Everything was set in stone around October of last year but I wanted to make that part really good too. I wanted to put out something which had a feel to it and felt like Real, something more proper than just one clip and have that go to waste. Real isn’t a company you do that with. You can’t just push that one aside [laughs].

And, if you’re wondering; that Austyn Gillette F.A. company was nearly a thing. And Mason was definitely involved at one point.

And speaking of Austyn, in a recent interview he mentioned there were plans for him to do a brand with Dill but it fell through. For a while it was rumoured there was going to be third F.A. company with Austyn and yourself riding for it. Can you clarify anything about that?

I never had a confirmed thing of whether it was going to be through F.A. but Austyn and I talked about doing it and we tried to get some other guys. It slowly fell apart, just from people talking to other people and being, like, “Maybe I should just ride for a well established company?” It’s a big step and intimidating to do that early on in your career.

Read the entire interview here.

Image Via Gabe Morford