Even the most casual follower of skate culture should be familiar with Jason Jessee’s story, and the controversial ‘90s interview from Iron Horse magazine that resurfaced last year, and resulted in Jessee being dropped by Converse and Santa Cruz. It was the subject of a Vice exposé, and Jessee personally addressed the incident via Instagram last summer. He gives a three-hour account of what happened in the latest episode of The Nine Club starting at the 11:23 mark.
Yeah, I said some terrible shit. If I say what it really was, it will sound fake… Obviously I would never use [those words] now. It wouldn’t work. We would hear stuff downstairs and next door [at a motorcycle shop]. And it drove us crazy. I was a motorcycle enthusiast, and I have been my whole life… There was this biker scene in the ‘90s that you could not relate to. It was stonewashed jeans; and everything about it was terrible… So, not to skirt around this, but if you read the whole thing; it’s pretty sarcastic. It’s bad. But we had fun doing it at the time. [We were] idiot kids… there were no consequences back then. So we were like fuck these guys. Let’s talk shit. They sell it [Iron Horse Magazine] downstairs. They’re gonna see it. Let’s just go full bozo with it. And we blew it. I blew it. We were partying. And I grew up never drinking or partying… You do things to get a reaction. And it was an easy target. We took the easiest thing… I wanted to get a name for myself in the motorcycle world; because skateboarding will always be there for me.
Dive into the full interview above.