Interview & Photos by Graham Tait
Let's just start at the beginning. Who are you and where are you from?
My name is Ville Lepistö, I’ll be 27 by the time this comes out and I’m from Oulu but have been living in Helsinki for the past eight or nine years.
What was it like growing up there?
Well it wasn’t the worst place growing up considering everything, you know ’safe suburban life ’ and all that. I mean Oulunsalo particularly, not all of Oulu of course! There's always been a lot of sketchy shit going on in some areas but I didn’t know anything about that when I was a kid. But soon enough I figured I didn’t really wanna be part of that life and skateboarding took me in and essentially helped me to explore other places and other things.
Everyone always mentions this but the winters in Finland are no joke. How dark is it where you are and how do you keep motivated to skate?
It’s a bit dark for sure! Sometimes it's really hard to find motivation to go to the same old indoor skatepark day after day but that’s where some vacation to the sun helps if it's possible. Or a little trip to some other indoor park of course. Often I just don’t skate that much and would do other shit or even just work a lot and try to save some money for the summer.
Wallie
How did you find skating? I mean Oulunsalo is pretty small, was there a big scene there?
I wouldn’t call it a big scene but there was one, and people were building their own obstacles in empty parking lots and whatnot. My brother skated with his friends a bit when I was young, like 10 years old, and then we just kinda picked it up and there was never going back. At least for me.
Was skating the main reason to move to Helsinki? Or were there better job opportunities or something?
I would say it was basically all skating, It felt like home straight away when I came to visit and met the crew for the first time. I knew I had to move.
What do you do for work?
I’ve been doing all kinda shit but now mostly construction and painting. The best gigs are of course building skate related stuff. I don't really like working full time since it takes so much away from skating, so whenever I have a chance I’ll be unemployed. Which hasn’t been that much lately.
Wallie Grind
How did you get hooked up with Santa Cruz?
It’s all thanks to Onni, he had asked me some years ago if I would like him to try to get me on, but at that time I was riding for a homie company and didn’t feel like moving from there. A couple of years went by and things got cold on that company and nothing was happening so I told Onni if he still wants to try to get me on I’m in. So he went through Alan at Shiner who went through Steve Forstner. He gave the green light and here we are, thank you all for everything!
We managed to get a good few photos in a short space of time. Do you like to plan your tricks or just see what happens at the time?
Hard to say. Usually I do have something in mind but never anything too absolute, maybe I have like 2-4 tricks in mind for a certain spot and then I just end up doing the trick I feel like the most at the time. Then sometimes I see a spot and right away I just know which trick I have to do on it.
You cut your head jumping over a concrete hubba that we shot after a late dinner and a bunch of drinks. How is that healing up?
That was the last day of the trip and I just felt I had something left to give. We had passed the spot a couple of times during the trip and it just struck my mind that I had to jump over it. The run up was short, the landing area even shorter, and there were four stairs going up a couple meters after the landing that had a small rail on it.
On one of the tries I fell straight away when hitting the floor because my weight was going forward much too fast and there was nothing I could do about it.
I would say it was a pretty gentle bang to the rail with my head, I mean it could’ve been way worse! But anyway, it started to leak pretty bad and my first thought was ‘fuck do I really have to stop trying because of this?’ But then it stopped really fast so I was like ‘fuck it, I’m just gonna do it.’ I mean it was just a scratch at the end, I didn’t have to do anything for it and within two weeks it was completely healed. Of course there’s a small scar under my eyebrow now but nothing too crazy.
Hurricane
You brought your friend Calle on the trip, and while most of us were in the hotel at a sensible time, you would turn up for breakfast after being at the casino till 6am.
Haha! Yeah Calle wanted to have a vacation so me and Onni convinced him to just come with us. Sometimes you might lose sense of time passing and then realise that it’s morning already!
You guys were good fun to have on the trip. What do you have going on for the summer?
It was a fun trip, thanks everyone! This summer is gonna be a lot of skating and we’re gonna be working on Suvilahti DIY for sure. Maybe some other skate related building also.
What's the Suvilahti DIY?
The heart of Helsinki. It’s a DIY park that got started in 2011 and has grown to be one of the biggest in Europe. It’s a community. Certain people have put a lot of effort in trying to save it from demolition but it seems like there’s not much to be done anymore. Like, legally. But we have still been building all the time and will keep doing that until the very end. Basically, the city won't start to tear it down before the developer has set a date for the start of construction.
Fs Pivot Mute
What are they building?
A new parking lot, bus stop and some fucking event hub as they call it. Best hope we got is that they run out of money and can’t afford to proceed. Haha!
Are you working on any projects?
Tobbe is filming a new full length at the moment and I’m trying to get enough clips to have a part, let’s see!
Any shout outs?
All skaters! Alan and the guys at Shiner, Juho and everybody at Beyond. My friends and family, and of course Suvilahti DIY 4 life!
Ollie
Published in North 43