FreestyleXtreme Magazine Issue 16 | Page 35

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Five minutes with...

Tommy
Gesme
The Minnesotan boarder has made a name for
himself with a natural and seriously laid-back
riding style. We caught up with him when he was
in town with the adidas crew ahead of a likely busy
winter season.

Yeah. Definitely a new experience
for me. I’ve never been to the UK,
so I’m excited to be here. And I’ve
never ridden in the Snow Domes
either. We’re only at day two but I’m
excited to see what else we got in
store.
So going back to the start of
your career, how did you get into
snowboarding?
My parents were big skiers growing
up - their whole life - so I started
skiing. They got me on skis when
I was three. So ever since I can
remember, pretty much. Then my
dad got me a snowboard when I
was six or seven. From there I just
fell in love with it and kept boarding.
Your style is pretty unique. Who
were your influences back in the
day?
I guess growing up, riding Hyland,
I looked up to all the older kids
- which would be Jake OE and
Danimals and Jonas and all those
dudes. Pretty much all the local kids
there. As I got older and started
watching more videos and whatnot,
I definitely got inspired by Keegan
and that whole crew.
Nice, man. How did the Strange
Brew Crew come about?

When I was eighteen I moved
out of Minnesota to Lake Tahoe,
California to go to school. Basically
a bunch of people moved there
to go to the school in Lake Tahoe,
and that’s where we all met. All
the Strange Brew dudes. It’s pretty
cool, we’re all from all over in the
US, but we all met in Tahoe. This
was in like 2011/12. We were all
into snowboarding and one of
our buddies was a photographer
and filmer, he was all into that. We
started a crew and...
Went shredding…
Yeah, went from there.
What do you get out of having a
crew like that?
A lot of our buddies were from the
California area who are in Strange
Brew, and that was cool, just
going on trips with them. Going
to their hometowns, going to ride
Mammoth and Bear Mountain, and
these places I’d never been before
moving out there. That was a cool
experience to go with them. They
knew the ropes of the whole place,
growing up there.
The “OK to Shred” edit has not
long dropped. When did you guys
get that done?
That was at the end of this past
season in April, I want to say. That
was cool because it was at Boreal,
which I rode a bunch when I was
living in Tahoe. I knew all those u

© Jonny Marc Baker / FsX Media

Hey, Tommy, how’s the tour been
looking in the UK? I’m guessing
this is a bit different to the
locations you’re used to in the
US?

© Andy Wright/Adidas

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