I have met quite a few board makers through the process of trying to learn and hone building boards on my own. Very few people have such a deep past in skateboarding or such a huge amount of creative endeavors as Jerm Addams. He has a handful of skate companies, a full time job and just started a charity program. He took the time to answer some questions about his history and creative process.
- Why don’t you give us a little background (name, info, all the usual) on who you are and what creative endeavors you're behind.
My name is Jeremy but since I was a young teenager I’ve been known as Jerm. I wear many hats and have done many things over the years so I’ll do a quick overview. Landscaping is my day job but I am also a licensed artist, own and operate RedRumSkates and its sister companies. I started Skateboards For Kids as a charity program to give back to foster and adopted kids. I am also a musician and have a band called The Left Outs with my wife and good friend Brian. I also write a few blogs, 10 Questions With DIY Skateboard Makers, 10 questions With Skateboarders and The Dark Side of Skateboarding.
When my friends and I can get together we do a podcast, that is soon to be released. We talk about the club SOMA that I used to run and book shows at. Jerry and Mikey used to work for me there and continued after I left and they discuss their adventures there, and we also have guests.
Being 52, a husband and step dad, I juggle my time carefully so I can skate, work and create while living in San Diego, California.
- Skateboarding has played a big part in your life, how did you discover skateboarding in the first place ?
Skateboarding seems to have always been there and my introduction isn’t clear and even when I started is fairly fuzzy. My best guess is in 1971 and either for Christmas or my birthday, I am assuming, is when I got my first skateboard. My earliest memories are of having the skateboard and enjoying it but not totally sure if I skated with others much until probably after I was 10 or 11 years old. Skateboards were as common as a bicycle or a soccer ball back in the 70’s.
- What influence did skating have on you and your art/design/creativity?
My skateboard was always there as transportation, creative outlet and even social status. I could relate to skateboarders more than hippie stoners, jocks or any groups of kids really because it can be a solitary thing and being an artist and kind of a weird kid, my skateboard was always there.
Once I got older and started becoming more aware of social status as well as the “skateboarding scene,“ things just made sense. Eventually I would meet other skaters, including a few older ones and one in particular that heavily influenced me. He helped me open up the world of possibilities and individual freedoms that can be unleashed as an artist . RIP Jay Adams.
- How did that lead into board making? Did this then push you into other creative outlets?
As a kid, sometimes I wouldn’t have a deck for whatever reason and so I would have to get creative. Luckily I had not realized that a 4” razor tail and no nose were looked down upon and I would ride my decks until they were almost cardboard and then someone mentioned the G&S warehouse and blank decks that were cheap! That’s when things changed for me.
I would see the wood shop decks and even though I never was too good at woodworking, I would just admire them but once I saw the operation at G&S, it stuck in my head even though I knew I was more an artist than a board maker.
A couple years back I decided I needed to come full circle. Since I had already shaped a few decks and had been studying board making as well as asking a lot of questions, I started to get the impression that “board makers “ were kind of an elite group of people and they held secrets close. Being a punk rocker and obsessed with understanding everything about the wooden toy I embarked on my adventure making my own. Luckily I found that not all board makers were elitists and that there was a world wide community who were eager to talk shop and to share experiences.
With this adventure under way, I started to try different approaches to my art by trying wood block art work, more stencil art and slowed down a little bit on mass production. I have almost 800 hand painted decks so far. Once I started to make them, I was so obsessed with making a press, the science of cure time, the shapes and then the artwork, I found I had time to concentrate on other things. I dabbled in making skate wax over the years and found myself making candles and to this day I still make candles.
I also slowly took my wooden mini halfpipe in a whole new direction and ended up making a cement structure reminiscent of ditches and other DIY skate spots which is now known as the RumBowl.
My company’s are now on hold while I am working on my charity program.
- How do you go about board design? How do you work through your creative ideas?
As an artist, things usually pop in my head at all times of the day and sometimes in dreams, so I have to write things down and try to mentally fixate on the idea and if something sticks in my head over a few days, I’ll work more on then idea. I have also been known to send a message to either Eric (Sanders Skateboards) or Brian Petersen, who is like a brother and confidant/Rum Rat to run ideas by. They take all the mental artistic ideas I come up with and help me make sense of them so I don’t drive my wife crazy! Haha!
That being said, Vee, my wife, is a huge influence and has been there from the beginning and has helped financially, mentally and is the main support system as well as the unsung hero behind the companies as well as myself.
Long winded answer would be, I work ideas over and ask opinions and decide whether or not it’s worth the time. As far as artwork and shapes, it’s usually the same process except I will keep the conversations to myself. When a piece of art keeps popping in my head, I’ll have to start the process of drawing, re drawing, tracing onto a deck and hopefully it looks good! The more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s mostly a mental game and I have to visualize the final concept. Most of the time I come close but I rarely ever consider it finished.
- Music has also had a big influence on you. How did punk play a role as well as booking shows and being involved in that world?
Music was always there and I had eclectic tastes, so punk rock was always there but I wanted to be more than acting like an asshole and making noise just to get attention. I saw music as an escape just as skateboarding and art were. As a little kid hearing whatever radio stations would play, I started early with criticism of the message. Luckily I had friends who were able to get newer music and share so I was able to hear more and more music and found the few bands that spoke to me. By the time I was probably a teen I started to collect the music that spoke to me and covered my taste for story telling. Haunting creepy sounds and of course, fast, hard music to skate to or do my art to.
Over the next few years as I was becoming more of an individual and in my eyes I felt more confident to be different and go against the normal. Even though I found a home amongst punk rockers and metalheads who skated as we were kids, I started to see the movement of punk rock and the politics of being a “punk rocker “ as well as a “skateboarder“ almost being a hinderance because it gave an instant label to you and that wasn’t sitting to well with me.
At this point it’s about 1986/87 and I had to do a major shift to not being homeless and living at my dad’s in a camper in his garage and newly found sobriety.
Punk rock and the movement was gaining momentum and I had my skateboard, my music, my art and a clean head full of ideas and a need to find like minded people. I gravitated towards music more because at that time skateboarding was dying and politics were getting heavy (gulf war) and I pushed myself towards eventually slipping under the radar into a club trying to grow. Luckily I had connections, so I was able to start that episode of my life and my skateboard was always there but since the mid 80’s when I had dropped my sponsors I knew I didn’t want to be another industry bitch.
1989 when I was able to start booking shows. I didn’t go around pushing my skateboarding because to me I was a skateboarder. I was an artist, redhead and liked cheap beer but it wasn’t something to brag about. I needed a job and was tired of spinning wheels working at well known hotdog place flipping hotdogs while they were trying to make me wear a fucking tie and be a manager! I tried to stay low key and earn respect by managing a band and then a few more and then I ended up booking a club and it grew from there .
I realized recently that I knew quite a few skaters and even recently found out that my favorite trick of all time was invented by someone I knew and who’s band I booked. We didn’t really talk about skateboarding back then at all!!
- Has looking at the world as a skateboarder and musician tweaked your overall outlook on life?
At my age now and all the different creative adventures I’ve done and still do, skateboarding, art and music are the three staples that have always been there for me since damn near day one. I’m really not sure what my life would be without those things but I do know if any were taken away from me, I would not be the same ever again.
I still have a hard time relating to the music industry as well as the skateboard industry because I still believe to this day that art is art. Money and ego’s as well as turning anything into a corporation is the same as oppression and governmental overreach and I do not see both living in the same place as far as symbiotic balance in nature. Money, power, greed and egotistical philosophies are oppressive behavior and I find it a waste of energy .
- How do you think a creative mindset can change a person or affect the world for that matter?
I think artists see things differently and life’s structures aren’t necessarily designed for an artist. The idea that artists are used as pawns and then sometimes given power and greed takes over is a testimony to those of us who struggle with creating art to fulfill a vision we have in our souls. Not all artists, let alone punks, necessarily fit in with society but to fight against a system that is built upon oppression and denies basic rights of the people to generate dollars for those who can not create themselves, is an uphill climb.
I believe a true “punk rocker “ or “artist” understands and appreciates the art of doing and balance in nature as a reward for being an individual. It’s exactly how I feel about being a skateboarder. It’s my choice. It’s my lifestyle. It’s a life choice with serious implications on your future.
- You recently started some charity work, Skateboards For Kids, can you tell us a little about that? How it started and where it's headed?
Wow! So this is huge for me. My wife and I have talked many times and have even had dinner discussions with prospective friends about starting some sort of a charity program. We dreamed big and Vee and I still have ideas and concepts in mind but this came out of a necessity to do something.
No more fucking excuses!
I had the idea rolling for days and I mentioned to a friend who does @Buildmyboard on Instagram. He’s In Brussels, Belgium and it’s fuzzy but I think I just kept running ideas by him and ranting and long winded messages via Instagram and by the time I got home from my day job, I had a pseudo name and decided to see if I could start a donation program on Facebook. Now I know there’s a bunch of names I should bring up but I’m not sure how many people want to be called out as well as for the readers it would be easier for them to look through the posts on social media.
That being said, I started it on a Friday and by the end of the day I had actually received donations.
At this point I was fired up and again I had contacted my buddy Eric and told him that I’m going to need some help because he’s the one that I buy goods from other than decks.
Long story short I started painting a whole bunch of blank decks and through donations I was able to cut through a lot of red tape and purchase a whole bunch of stuff and eventually the idea came to where I was going to be gifting complete skateboards instead of just a skateboard deck.
After trying to figure out if I could do this locally by going to skate parks, I had an idea of working with foster kids. Then a friend of mine who is a foster parent of four boys helped me get a post on the local chapter for foster kids and because I was adopted, I immediately started to feel warm and bubbly and realized that this was the direction I needed to go!
My concept is since the skateboard has been there literally for almost 50 years of my life and I could always count on it, I wanted to give that to underprivileged children. When you’ve been bounced around a system that treats you so poorly, I felt in my heart that these were the kids that I wanted to help.
So today I have received just under $1000 and I have turned that into approximately 15 skateboards being given to kids. Each one is hand painted by me and I put it in all the time putting the skateboards together. I’ve covered all the other expenses with a huge amount of help from my friend Eric Sanders who runs Sanders Skateboards on Instagram.
I am planning on focusing all energy to grow this campaign indefinitely.
- I truly believe that skateboarding can benefit anyone, especially kids. How do you think it can benefit them?
Skateboarding has come a long way and since the days of finding the magical toy under the Christmas tree to becoming a famous skateboarder, the reality of the matter is that a skateboard is a toy.
A toy that can open up a world of possibilities.
A toy that can be there in any condition but still strike a sense of freedom and independence as well as individuality and every single human being deserves that opportunity.
A skateboard is just a toy .
Skateboarders have embraced it as a symbol of power.
- What advice would you give to someone who wants to start their own company, band, zine or any creative outlet?
As far as trying to start your own thing whether it be in skateboarding or something else I’m going to give the exact opposite advice that I was given when I was asking someone that I thought was a friend for a connection to help me expand my art. This “friend,“ gave me the number of a 70s/80s professional skateboarder and after being hung up on, he had told me to stay out of the skateboard industry.
My reply to you is this ....... do it!
Push buttons and piss people off and be creative !
I also must warn you that when you’re trying to break into an industry, whatever it is, you need to understand that if you’re bringing something fresh and new that you are going to be backed up against every obstacle that there possibly is against you.
People that have been in high positions for a long time don’t like to be told what to do and when you’re in a position of power there’s a lot of comfort in having people underneath you to push around and do your dirty work. In business you can throw that book of morals away.
I would highly suggest taking your ideas and slowly growing them and as you study your surroundings, you’ll get to know the players in whatever endeavor you were looking to become a part of. If you can, find yourself a mentor because I’ve apprenticed myself in a few different fields and careers and I’ve also blazed my own trail many times but knowledge is power. Gaining the knowledge doesn’t happen overnight and the harder you work to accomplish your dreams then the more satisfaction you will get out of it in the end.
If you’re looking for a get rich scheme, you’re on your own!
Hard work and dedication produces results.
Rory, my friend, thank you for giving me this opportunity!
Much respect !
Jerm