BALTIMORE, MD — Rob Rotten is not the wholesome college boy next door type. He’s the wildly tattooed, pierced, and skate punk type – which is exactly what Swollen Skateboards owner and designer Spencer White wanted when he decided to put the hardcore back into skateboard culture.“Originally, I just wanted to integrate people from all walks of life into a skateboard company,” he explains. “Growing up skateboarding, skateboard graphics were what I call ‘hardcore’ back then. Blood, gore, half-naked girls and stuff like that. It’s really gotten away from that.”
White, at 33-years-of-age, has seen the skateboarding subculture go through plenty of changes. After witnessing the rise of the four-elements themed Element Skateboards – which dropped “Underground” from its name and was ultimately purchased by Billabong International – White knew he had to do something to bring skateboarding back to its roots.
“I just wanted to be a company that gets back to hardcore, which is what I’m about. That’s why I contacted Rob. He is the epitome of punk rock subculture to me. I wanted the ultimate icon for my company, and thank goodness, Rob was cool and into it.”
Rotten is not just “cool and into it,” the director of such hard-hitting porn favorites as Swallow My Children, Cum Stain Girls, and the new Texas Vibrator Massacre,considers appearing on a skateboard back to be “the fuckin’ coolest thing ever.”
Like his video projects, Rotten takes his skateboarding seriously. A successful and selective, if controversial, director and performer, the man credited by many for introducing a punk aesthetic into porn during Jim Power’s 2003 Little Runaway prefers to work on only projects that genuinely interest him. Likewise, White’s quest to put skaters back in touch with the lifestyle’s hardcore history moved him into enthusiastic action.
“I grew up here, skating around,” he effused during a recent phone conversation. “It was a form of transportation. Even today, that’s how I gauge where I live. I’ll never live outside of a 1.5 mile radius from a bar, because that’s skateboard distance. To this day, I still totally skate for transportation – and it’s a lot of fun!”
A man who shoots what he wants, on his own terms, Rotten was thrilled to find that Swollen Skateboards had a similar idea about how its icons should be presented. “I knew exactly what I wanted,” he assured. “Being the Hunter S. Thompson fan that I am, I had to throw in the ‘Buy your ticket, take the ride’ quote on the nose of the board.”
“That’s so Rob,” White agrees, adding that “I’m really lucky to work with him.”
Having brought the pin-up and Rock-a-Billy worlds together in the skateboard world, as well as engaged in much-needed outreach to female skaters and supporters with a stylish line of “Chix Clothing,” White would like to release an entire of adult performer themed decks. Like Rotten, he is choosy about who he works with and why. “I’m not just trying to make a bunch, I’m really trying to make a statement – because I really don’t make too much. I just want to bring skateboarding back to hardcore and my roots.”
Part of White’s roots is in the adult internet, and although none of his Swollen Girls are naked, their punky, attitude-rich ink-and-steel sexiness is palpable. Thanks to the SwollenSkateboards website, skate girls around the world can become an official Swollen Girl by sending in photos of themselves wearing a Chix Clothing top.
The boards will become available for sale next week, initially on the www.SwollenSkateboards.com site exclusively, then likely also on Rotten’s www.PunxProductions.com site, as well. Retailers interested in purchasing the first in a possible “Pro Stars” series should contact White via the Swollen Skateboards site for information.
As for Rotten, having gotten his photo on a skateboard, the next place he’d like to see his smiling mug is on the cover of AVN Magazine, “as Director of the year. That’s asking a lot, but the Texas Vibrator Massacre is pretty epic.”
