DAMON WAY - DC SHOES

Last year you sold DC to Quiksilver. Were you satisfied with your achievements with DC?
There are a number reasons why we sold DC when we did, the largest one being the result of a legal matter with our ex-partner Clay that I am not permitted to discuss.  As far as our achievements I am very happy with where we have gotten to but not completely satisfied… There is a lot more that Ken and I want to do with the brand creatively speaking. I think we both thrive on the progression and evolution of the brand and work hard to keep complacency at bay by continuing to express the brand in ways of authenticity and originality.

How has your role changed since the sale?
Not much… I am still doing what I did before the sale.

Is there anything you miss about the ‘old days’?
I actually, in a strange way, miss being a smaller company: where we might have been in 1997 (40 million-ish). We worried less about risking and we were of course much more nimble. A company of that size also feels much more like a small family, everyone works much closer with each other and does whatever it takes to meet the objectives, even if it means wearing a number of different hats throughout the day.

If we are talking the old-old-old days… I really do miss ‘80s skateboarding. It was my life then and something I did every single day of the year with my crew: the ‘VSL’ (Vista Skate Locals). It was an incredible time of non-conformity, rebellion and artistic expression in the culture... Reaganomics were at their height and the backlash of the highly political Punk Rock music scene in the US flourished as a result, which at the time was one of the cornerstones of skate culture. I think it was a very special time in skateboard history.