Interview: Jan Welch

Interviewer:  It's recording

Interviewee:  Wow! That's fancy, technology is really AWESOME!

Interviewer:  Hmm a little bit too loud.

(laughs)



Interviewer: So yeah! How have you been doing so far since Winterclash?

Interviewee: I've been good, staying busy -lots of work going on with Rat Tail  and you know Sunday is always nice, find a place to ride my bike every day, hang out, you know, drinkin'... little bit.

Interviewer: You've been completing the Vicious Video the last couple of weeks, months, days, hours?

Interviewee: I've been editing for probably two weeks now and should be done within the next week or so, starting to get it duplicated and trying to have it out for the beginning of October or mid October or so. But yeah I'm excited it's come together really well -there's a lot of footage -it's a big team -it's got large international presence in the video which I like, lots of Europeans lots of Asians -all US riders.

Interviewer: Can you tell us who's going to have profiles in the video
or is it a secret?



Interviewee: The profiles in the video are going to be Joey Chase which is going to be a pretty hard hitting section which reminds me of... -it's going be epic like The Carlos Pianowski Quatro section. Joey went off like a mad man -we went on tour for Nimh and he was here for another week after that, he did all the spots in SF and in San Diego that nobody has even tried or wanted to do which is awesome -he's just a madman -we shot everything prior to him hurting himself and it came out really cool, kid's pretty good. Then there's a little bit of a Ben Schwab section, and then a Stockwell section and the Brierley Twins are both going to have two small sections and then everybody else is going to be mixed up in the Montages.. its cool because I want to keep the video over half an hour and there is so much footage still in. It should be... you know there's not many filler tricks -it's going to be pretty hard hitting.

Interviewer: So there's going to be a lot of fast editing?

Interviewee: Yes, it's going to be all pretty fast, just because everybody skates really fast and improves the style of the company, the team. But I'm pretty excited because this is the first video that I am working on since Leading the Blind and that was... three years ago or more.

Interviewer: There is obviously a lot people from around the world in the video, you didn't film the whole video by yourself or did everybody contribute to it?

Interviewee: I filmed mainly with some of the guys with profiles - lots of footage has been contributed. All the stuff from overseas is contributed from guys across the country. I mean for no flying and barely any tapes -for that it has actually come out pretty good. And you know this video is going to be... I'm not really too concerned about different people filming or anything like that because the video is Vicious, it's rock, it could be filmed on VHS and still be really cool. It's not like Nimh where it should be filmed in all high def and you know... -You know it's Vicious -it's kinda punk rock, whatever.

Interviewer: In the trailer you used some filters, so it was getting little bit grainy? Grunge? Or however you call it...

Interviewee: Not the whole video is like that but there are variations throughout the video, depending on the section. Problem is, some of the footage which has been contributed looks better with the filter. [Laughs] It gives a good feel to the style I want to portray. You know obviously it's not for everyone but I think it works pretty good.

Interviewer: And the contributed footage... Is it filmed good?

Interviewee: Ah! That's one problem, you have some -but they don't have everybody good who can film. So really takes away from your skating. So if I have some people who send in 200 clips and you know only 10 of them were filmed half way decent which kind of sucks and other guys you know have pristine HD footage -There's so much footage from overseas – Asia, Europe, so I had PAL and SECAM and had to convert everything into NTSC and avi files I have converted into quicktime and I had to down convert all the HD stuff. So it's just the prep work, there's lots of prep work for the video. Yeah, it's good. I'm definitely stoked. I mean I'm ready to work on something after this, so... you know.



Interviewer: So, what about the music? Is it just local bands?

Interviewee: No, um. The music, it's a little mix of bands. It's all going to be rock oriented. I mean Jon Elliot's little brother's band is used for Jon-Jon's section, they're a pretty good local band. They were one of the bigger bands from San Diego called Apes of Wrath and uh... other than that it's lots of 70's, 80's rock songs and some newer stuff too.

Interviewer: Anything specific you want to tell us or that you're working on?

Interviewee: I want to do a video... Yeah I wanna work on a video that's just random, random skaters, not necessarily affiliated with Rat Tail -but do a video that has different profiles like one from Asia, one from South America like have an international you know, group of people.

Interviewer: So we don't have to wait another 3 years to get another Jan
Welch flick?

Interviewee: No this will be er, -This will be for next year, so gotta get started working on something and then we're gonna try and get some contributions from people.

Interviewer: With Brian and Jon did they help you out with the video? How were they involved in the video? Or did they tell you, 'do whatever you want to do?'



Interviewee: You know, it was pretty much up to me, I didn't like it but they are not really there for the editing and that stuff. They know what I do and they enjoyed everything they've seen so far.

Interviewer: Any shout outs?

Interviewee: Shout outs?

Michel, Stuff! Philip, Wes Driver and all you kids out there that totally rock. I love you all.

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