from Jan Welch on 10 Sep 2021
For the first episode of the Then And Now Interview Series, I speak with legendary rolling artist, Chris Peel. Chris played a huge behind-the-scenes role during the late 90s to mid-2000s in the aggressive inline skating industry. Growing up in Wakefield, in the UK, he started designing t-shirt’s for Puberty Clothing before landing a job with DNA magazine. He then made his way stateside to San Diego, California, in 2000 to work for and design Daily Bread Magazine. In San Diego, he created the initial branding, image, and logos for Ground Control, Rat Tail Distribution, 4×4 Urethane, Vicious Bearings, and Nimh skates.
Chris is a long-time friend who also designed the Big Wheel Blading logo for me in 2017. We haven’t had much contact these last few years, so I thought it would be fun to contact him to catch up and reminisce on our years in San Diego, working at Daily Bread together and teaming up on many projects for Rat Tail, and it’s brands.
This interview is also available as a podcast on all major streaming services. Just search for “Then And Now Blading”.
You can also listen to the podcast here. https://redcircle.com/shows/then-and-now-blading-podcast
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Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
03:55 – When Chris and I first met at the 1999 British Nationals
04:42 – The beginnings, The Jaggers and Re-Hab Skatepark
08:50 – Chris’s Interest in Art, Designing for Puberty Clothing and DNA Magazine
14:28 – Moving to San Diego to design Daily Bread Magazine
18:28 – Meeting Jon Elliott, Jon’s Daily Bread Interview, Ground Control
22:55 – What the Ground Control sickle represents
25:29 – The Rat Tail Years
28:35 – Favorite Daily Bread Cover?
29:42 – Moving back to San Diego, his favorite memories of living there
34:50 – Leaving Daily Bread, moving to Orange County, and working for Haymarket
40:00 – Moving to Richmond, aggressive skating less, getting big wheel blades, living in Alameda
44:50 – Reminiscing on the crazy party we ended up at when visiting the Bay Area
47:14 – What Chris is up to now, working at One Medical
49:00 – Favorite projects that Chris has worked on
51:30 – On becoming a United States citizen
52:35 – The start of Vicious, the first tour, the Medusa stencil
54:51 – Rat Tail, the state of the industry in the 2000s, Them Skates
1:02:20 – bigwheelblading.com
1:09:57 – Jan’s Vermonting YouTube channel
1:14:15 – Outro
Links:
Then and Now Website: http://www.thenandnowblading.com
Then and Now Podcast: https://redcircle.com/shows/then-and-now-blading-podcast
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Jan Welch’s Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/janericwelch
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