Joel
Meinholz
by Tim Von Werne & Matt Cantor
Photos by Frank Galland
(except the ones he didn’t take)
Joel
Meinholz kicks ass. He is one of the best skateboarders coming
out of Miami, and people are noticing him. Joel is the kind
of guy that everyone likes. Women want to be with him and men
want to be him. Joel started skateboarding in Milwaukee and
grew up on the beer and cheese skate culture of the Midwest.
Four years ago he moved to Miami and his skatebaording has just
been getting better and better. He has been getting product
from all kinds of companies, but he has finally settled on a
couple of sponsors that he respects: Stereo, Converse, Mercury,
Spitfire, FKD, Click Hardware, and World Market. We have known
Joel for years now and are just beginning to understand what
goes on inside that flaming red head of his. Hopefully this
interview can give you an idea of who Joel is.
-Tim Von Werne
Tim: So let’s talk about a typical Joel Meinholz day.
I don’t know, it depends on where I’m at.
Where do you like to be?
I like San Francisco, ‘cause it’s a skateboarding
mecca. You’re ingesting skateboarding 24 hours a day. It’s
either skateboarding talking, skateboarding people, or just
skateboarding itself.
I don’t know, it’s so much fun that that’s what
you wanna do, you know?
Where do you live right now?
I stay in Miami, Florida. I live, like wherever.
You recently went on a trip to California, Joel. How was that?
It was nothing I ever expected, but everything more than I ever
expected. I just want to keep traveling like this. This is all
I ever dreamed for, just to be able to travel around. Actually,
you know the best thing about that trip to California? Listening
to Frank Gerwer, Dustin Dolan and John Klein. Those three in
a car are so funny.
Matt: What’s the life like out there, though? Is it
just no pressure or is it everyday, earn your keep?
The life? The life is about being with friends, and if you can
find new friends where you go, you’re gonna have fun no
matter what you’re doing. So, it’s not about “keepin’
it real” or anything like that. It’s just about being
true to yourself and having fun. That’s the only thing
you gotta keep down. It’s kinda hard to have fun when I
have so many people in so many different places and I’m
experiencing so much new stuff that I’m not allowed to
experience with all these other people and share with them.
So it’s hard, but yeah, I had like a lot of fun.
You’re
only in their life for a little bit, so it’s not long enough?
Yeah, I have people who I love all around the United States
and I’m doing one thing here and I wanna share with them
and I can’t share with them and I can’t share with
them because they’re there and I’m here.
How do you feel about growing up in Milwaukee and skateboarding
and moving down to Florida and being a skateboarder. Then all
of a sudden you’re in magazines, you’re in videos,
you’re everywhere.
It’s all an illusion. I’m just a simple boy with simple
toys and simple thoughts. It’s kinda cool, you know? I
guess it was rad growing up and reading all of these things
and now seeing the inside of all these things, the true inside...
I haven’t even seen the true inside of skateboarding, but
just another... I don’t know it’s like always looking
at a book and then finally starting to read it from the insides.
It’s rad. I don’t know how to explain it.
Is the book as good of a read as it was a look?
You learn. That’s about all I can say. You learn a lot.
You realize a lot more once you learn. I don’t know how
to explain it. I guess it’s like a picturebook. I don’t
even know how to put it together. You can clean it up for me
and help me out.
There will be quite a bit of editing and rearranging.
Rearranging? Oh no!
Rearranging and some quotes out of context and all that stuff.
Hold on... Hello?... That was my girlfriend, Aura. I had to
put you on hold, Sucka, for her!
What’s that about? How could you put us on hold for
your girlfriend? We’re doing a skateboarding interview,
here.
That’s my girlfriend! I think my girlfriend comes before
skateboarding.
So that’s your list of priorities? Girlfriends come
before skateboarding?
Girlfriend comes before skateboarding, but skateboarding is
my first love.
The center of skateboarding and the whole industry are in
California. If you’re someone who really, really wants
to go somewhere in skateboarding, you should come here, but
you’re still living in Miami. Why is that?
Because I have this girlfriend that I enjoy and I want to keep,
so I’ll come here and spend some time...
Isn’t that sickeningly sweet. (gag, gag, gag)
Whatever, gay boy. I have someone that I care about here. I
want to come here, and spend some time here and then spend a
lot of time up there, and spend some time here, and spend a
lot of time up there. And when winter comes around, this place
is so much better than California. All the spots aren’t
blown out and there are people here to shoot photos, there are
people here to film. You can get so much more done. Miami itself
is just Miami, and there’s really nothing else around it.
However, Miami in itself is humongous, and there’s just
so much uncharted.
It’s fun to go searching for something that hasn’t
been done.
Yeah. That’s so easy. All you gotta do is go out and look
and you’ll find anything and everything. But I guess if
San Francisco and LA and San Diego are cool places to be, I
guess I’m supposed to be there. But, I don’t know,
I like Miami. I think just being around the right people makes
you relax and have fun and you get lost in whatever you’re
doing. You’re not conscious and aware of how you’re
doing it, you’re just lost in being able to do it. I’ve
become a lot more quiet.
You have?
Yeah, until I drink.
Why
is that?
I’m more reserved in what I say and more, what’s the
word, where you just look and observe.
Observant. Observant is the word.
All right, all right. I was comin’ up with it. Just slowly,
you know, slowly workin’ my way up towards it.
Are you a party kid Joel?
I’m not a party kid. I just go out to live the adventure
of life, and if I can explore that adventure by going out to
clubs and seeing all these crazy people kinda tweaked, just
taking it in and watching them, it’s all right.
So you’re like a documentarian of the mind.
Yeah, but my mind forgets every night. I don’t know why.
I can’t figure it out! And then every day I wake up, I’m
like, “Ow, my mind hurts so bad! I must have took in so
much, but I can’t remember what I took in.”
How do you think music relates to life?
It’s all noise, isn’t it? Music is noise.
I thought you were playing guitar in there?!
Oh, you thought I was playing guitar? “Rockin’ out
to heavy metal. Joel: Live and Uncut, guitar style.” You
can’t really say music describes your personality. Music
might describe your feelings and how you feel at that moment,
but music to me is like a really strong thing. I always need
to be surrounded by it. I kinda feel weird if I don’t have
it around me.
So do you cruise a boom box to your skate spots?
Not a boom box to my skate spots, but music is the same thing
as being surrounded by a city because it’s noise. I’d
have more fun skating in a crazy city with all this noise going
on instead of in some parking lot in the middle of the country
with all the raddest obstacles. I could have more fun in the
city... I just like the noise. There’s always gotta be
constant noise on around me; either a TV, not really a TV, but
more a stereo or being outside or all around just people. Going
out to clubs is just like being surrounded by noise, you know?
Okay, we got it. Joel likes noise. It’s documented.
Yeah, cool. Noise. Rockin’. I should give a shout out to
Ben & Ben in Berkeley. I went and visited them.
What’d you think of that place?
Berkeley? I was stuck in the city inside a complete house of
skateboarding. So all I saw was skateboarding, and the minute
I left the house and those people, San Francisco bombarded me
with what San Francisco is; this crazy, crazy metropolis. And
it was so gnarly. I didn’t have to deal with any of that
stuff (before) because I was in a skateboard house and was surrounded
by skateboarding.
Did you guys just go out and shoot every day and put in
work every day?
Yeah, every day we went and did something. It was the best thing.
It made me feel so whole. But then I went over to Berkeley just
to mellow out one day; it was so calm and comfortable. It was
so nice. Ben took time, and instead of skateboarding, we hung
out and walked around and just chilled. It was awesome.
Do
it for another hour and you’ll want to burn the place to
the ground.
You might, but I can enjoy just hanging out and smelling the
flowers. I have no problem with that - just enjoying life.
Yeah, it’s cool, and then you’ve got another healthy
medium when you’re pushed to your outer limits every day
and you’re surrounded by skating and what you love. But
then, it gets to the point where you need to balance it. On
the other hand, you smell too many flowers, you’re gonna
catch a cold.
So what! I can take some medicine for that, can’t I?
But, you need that medium. You can’t have the same thing
over and over again. You just get murdered with it and sick
of it.
They keep you in boards pretty good over there in SF?
Yeah. Deluxe is rad. It’s really cool. Mic-E (Reyes) one
day just took a bunch of us out around the city and showed us
all these crazy spots over by the Golden Gate Bridge, and they
weren’t skate spots. They were just touristy spots, but
he was showing us his home grounds where he grew up and it was
cool, like nothing I ever expected from him. I didn’t expect
anything, but by looking at the guy you’d think he was
all crazy and mean, but he was just cool.
Did it feel like a job some days, though?
No, it doesn’t feel like a job. It’s a job within
myself because I’m not reaching the goal I want to reach
every single time I don’t do a trick right. It’s work
for me to try to improve myself.
Is it cool to skate around with people in Miami when heads
come in from out of town?
It’s fun because you get to go skate with them and it’s
like a new energy that comes into town. You go skate and they’ll
see a different way to hit an old spot, or they’ll see
a different thing to skate and you get psyched! Whenever you
meet people, they usually have this energy, like a new energy.
It’s not like trying to show off to each other, it’s
just a new energy coming together. A lot of people have a lot
of fun and it’s all new. Things get boring after a while
and you need that “new” to rejuvenate yourself.
When was the last time you held a steady job?
Steady job? My girlfriend. She’s my steady job. She’s
my steady everything. She’s my stability. As long as I
have a girlfriend, I have stability.
That means you’ve got priorities. Skateboarding’s
more important than working?
Oh yeah, definitely. I’ll drop everything for skateboarding.
I’ll even tell my girlfriend, “Later. I gotta go skateboarding.”
Do you have any “thank you’s?”
There’s so many people to thank. Everyone at Deluxe; Jeff
Taylor, Rob Mertz at FKD. I gotta thank Roger Bagley, for sure.
Will Harmon & Ray up in Boston for letting us stay up there.
The people at Big Brother; the people at Transworld; Lance Dawes;
John McGuire and that whole crew of people. I could keep on
goin’ forever. I also have to thank DVS for back in the
day. Also, Pat Forester. Most of all, my Dad for always bein’
there.
Joel
Meinholz kicks ass. He is one of the best skateboarders coming
out of Miami, and people are noticing him. Joel is the kind
of guy that everyone likes. Women want to be with him and men
want to be him. Joel started skateboarding in Milwaukee and
grew up on the beer and cheese skate culture of the Midwest.
Four years ago he moved to Miami and his skatebaording has just
been getting better and better. He has been getting product
from all kinds of companies, but he has finally settled on a
couple of sponsors that he respects: Stereo, Converse, Mercury,
Spitfire, FKD, Click Hardware, and World Market. We have known
Joel for years now and are just beginning to understand what
goes on inside that flaming red head of his. Hopefully this
interview can give you an idea of who Joel is. 
You’re
only in their life for a little bit, so it’s not long enough?
Why
is that?
Do
it for another hour and you’ll want to burn the place to
the ground.