What was it like picking SOTY in a post-Phelps world?
Well, Jake has left a psychic hole in the operation, that is irreplaceable. I’ve been involved with picking the SOTY for fifteen years or so, and always 100% inspired by the lessons Jake has taught me, and all the things he’s said that have helped shape my view of skateboarding, and Thrasher for sure, and I feel like I maybe rubbed off on him a lot as well. But it sucks! Picking SOTY is not fun; it’s never a good time and somebody’s always mad about it. I like celebrating epic skating, but that particular part is not my favourite thing.
Burnett goes on to shed some light on what the future holds for K.O.T.R. now that it’s no longer being broadcast via Viceland.
Alright. And what about King of the Road, and the Vice partnership?
They had a four season option on the contract, so in February of last year I pitched season four, and they said they weren’t going to do it. We never thought we were going to do it for 25 years, so it was just a bit like, “Oh, OK then”. That was in February and then in March Jake passed away and I was alright to just let it lie for a while, and deal with some other things that we were working on. So this year we’re gonna pick it back up and see what we want to do with it. It might be a TV-style thing, it might be a web series, but it’s not gone. Doing the TV show was really cool and I’m really happy with what we did, but it’s not like, “Oh my God, we’re on TV now! How can we desperately keep this going?” or anything. There’s a lot of shit we want to do and I love King of the Road—it’s my project—and it’ll come back but no frantic plans. I reckon it’ll be up and running this year for sure.
For more on Burnett and Thrasher, head over to North to read the entire piece.