Thrasher Magazine

Chris Russell looks like a tough guy—and he is!—but this transition maniac has more depth than any pool. So we caught up with the Muscle to talk real-life issues: fatherhood, traumatic injuries, mental health and identity. Don’t miss this one from our December, ‘24 mag.


Full commitment on every clip, this new part for OJ is an unrelenting performance from one of our best 

Exciting times since we last caught up with you in Thrasher. What’s the most exciting stuff that’s been happening to you lately?
A lot has changed, from becoming a new father to navigating this new part coming out, dealing with some not-so-cool things like injuries and everything, but still able to push through all that. It’s been a crazy year, to say the least.


Some say his heart is the biggest muscle in his body. This kid's gonna get a lot of love

Let’s start with this blessed event. What was it like having a child born?
I think I’m going through the motions. It’s so crazy. It’s just a trip seeing almost a carbon copy of you. Your heart just opens up and you realize that you’re not just doing life for you anymore. It’s a huge switch, especially as a skateboarder. It’s such a different perspective, but it’s beautiful and it’s very exciting. It’s very unknown. It’s coming with its challenges and its rad things every day. It’s been eye-opening.

For some of the Thrasher readers who are young men, what was your reaction when you first heard the good news?
I think being 27 and having a kid on a complete accidental whim is pretty crazy and heavy to take in.

Hellacious ollie drop before the city council meeting    Photo: Rhoades

How did you process and work through that?
You kind of swim. You swim around, and your head just tries to logically set in stone, This is really happening. Then you go through these motions of, It doesn’t even feel real, like it’s not really happening. And then you get reminded every few months. There’s all these peaks and valleys of emotions coming into this very unknown space. Then finally, those last few weeks come, and then the butterflies really start to arise, and you just kind of click into gear. You’re like, Here we go, getting to swing.

Were you in there, in the gown, or were you in the lobby smoking cigars?
It’s a shame. I was up in Portland, actually filming and visiting family, working on this part and doing all sorts of other things.
It happened so quick. She went and didn’t know she was even going into labor. By like five in the morning, I got a call that she was cramping and maybe having some contractions. And then all of a sudden, dilation was starting to spike. I booked a flight too late, honestly. I missed the birth by an hour and a half. But my mom was in there, and she took my place. She cut the cord, and it was really special. Right when I came in, he was pretty much super passed out, didn’t open up his eyes or anything at all. And then I got in there, and we just looked into each other’s eyes super deeply for what seemed like forever, and that was just super special.

From the hip to the tombstone (and the cradle to the grave), Russell will never stop ripping   Photo: Ballard

You said your heart opens up. That’s a good way to describe it.
It’s just this weird connection. You start to think about your parents a lot more and the relationship they had with you. It gives you perspective on that. I would say, you give a lot more grace to all the tough times that you went through with your parents. And then you understand that some of that’s going to be replicated in that same sense with you and your son. It’s a lot more soft and understanding, like this generation-to-generation thing. You start to understand what your father went through and what your mother went through. It’s just this connection, and you see yourself. You think about all the things that you want to do right in this little person’s life.

What’s the boy’s name?
His name’s Ryder.


Amazing. Congrats! So you mentioned seeing your parents’ experience in a different light. What was the worst heck you put your parents through?
Wow. I don’t know. I think we all still do it a little bit. Me and my family are so close. But I think from day one, I was just such a hellion. I was bouncing off the walls. Even before I grabbed a skateboard, I was opening up my head and going to the hospital and jumping off things. Then I found this outlet that I was able to put all that energy into. It still didn’t get easier for them, but I think they were super stoked that I had something that I obviously loved. I had a lot of passion for it and I directed everything towards that. They made sure to help me along the way, and gave me a lot of freedom, too. I think the hospital visits probably took a few years off my mom’s life. She still has a hard time watching my skating. I think I was just a typical spazoid kid who would get hurt a lot, but also just had too much energy, so I put my parents through a lot.

What was the most absurd medical scenario from when you were a younger kid?
It was really funny. I don’t even know if I was really skating yet. There was a time where I almost broke my neck, like a few times when I was young. We would skimboard down at the beach. I would skimboard on my boogie board. I threw my boogie board down when it was really sucking out, kind of like shore pound. We would wait for the waves to quarterpipe up, and we would launch off of them. I remember throwing my board down and being on the back seat and throwing up the windshield wipers. It was super shallow. I just did one flip and another half-flip straight to my neck and onto the sand. I rocked myself so bad. I was so young. I must have seriously been six years old. It fucked with my nerves super heavy, but my neck was fine. It was super tweaked, though. I remember having to wear a donut, like a neck brace, for a few months in kindergarten or first grade. It was so embarrassing. Then I remember jumping down my stairs, not that long after that. Still had the neck brace too, but I was over it. I slammed my head all crazy, because we set up the ottoman down there, just crazy boy shit. I cracked my head on the wall. Then I had to put the neck donut back on.

Surprisingly, Jimi Hendrix wrote very few songs about eggs     Photo: Ballard

I remember seeing you really early. You looked like Peppermint Patty and you had full pads. Did you also have the Bob Oakley Blades?
No, I never. There were a few kids that wore the Oakley Blades. I had really good eyesight my whole life. I never had to wear glasses. I always thought that was a really funny look, though.

Now as a grown-up, what do you think you were probably like at The Block or at the park growing up to the older guys?
Oh, I was so annoying. So gnarly. I was snaking. I didn’t care. I would say, “Fuck you!” I was such a rebel from the start. I wasn’t afraid to stand up to anybody, and that kind of came through in my skating. It was just funny. I think I was probably some of those dudes’ worst enemy. And then, funny enough, skating with Lester Kasai, Christian Hosoi and Bennett and all those dudes, they took me under their wing right away. I feel like that was such a huge influence. I skated with Pat Ngoho all the time as a youngin’. Also Lizzie Armanto and Allysha Le would always come along and skate so much. So we had such a funny crew, and different generations, a lot of influence from the ’80s. I’m sure I got on so many of those dudes’ nerves.

Taking it top shelf and beyond at our Beloved Lady of Burnside    Photo: Brook

How did your relationship with Grosso evolve over time?
I think I stuck around long enough for him to love me. That’s how it always works. Grosso was so on point with everything, from how he talked about skating to etiquette. I respected him so much, but as a little kid, these concepts don’t make sense. You’re just excited by the environment around you, and you see people that are your heroes and you want to skate with them and impress them. So everything beyond that doesn’t make any sense. Then you get older and it changes significantly. You start bonding with these people you look up to. And if you’re lucky, you start appreciating their words. I think that was the shift. He showed so much support whenever I would skate. He would just give me a lot of hype and always had my back, which I really appreciated.

Left: Baby snake
Right: In the pit with the big kids, front Smith

You said when you were younger, you would never back down from anybody. Describe a time when that really blew up in your face.
The statute of limitations is ten years, right? I’m sure this guy regrets it so much. Maybe it’s already been shared. But there was this session going off at Culver City bowl. It was like Tom Knox, Omar Hassan and everybody was there. It was like 30 dudes. I’ll keep his name out, ‘cause he assaulted a child, technically. I kept snaking, and I kept snaking. I was fucking dog brain, you know? I was too excited. And this dude, who I will not name, but he’ll know from the story, I snaked him. He’s like, If you do that one more time, you’ll see what happens. I took that as a challenge. The guy was well over 200 pounds, and I’m maybe ten or 11 years old. I was like, Fuck this dude, in my head. I can’t stand authority, even in a space like that. I took it as that. He jumped off his board in the flat bottom, and I remember carving around, and he just clotheslined me. I’m like 11 years old and he’s 250 pounds, a big dude. And I remember just crying, but I was also like, Fuck you! I started yelling and we start having a little cussing match. It’s burned in my memory. It’s the funniest thing ever. Ask Omar about it. It’s burned in his memory too.

Did that teach you anything?
Fuck no. It made me crazier, if anything. I think I’m just too stubborn.


The swan dive was somehow the least dangerous event at Swampfest 

You put yourself in harm’s way and throw caution to the wind so often. Last year at the Swampfest, you were diving off of the top of the tower into the puddle, doing all this crazy shit. Did you get angry that you got your eye injured, and it wasn’t even anything you did?
Yeah. I mean, I’m still going through the emotions of that. It’s affected my life so negatively. It grew to get so negative too, which is the hard part. Because the first three months, I’m sitting with this thing, getting adjusted in my really, really bad vision, and being on medication for the rest of my life now. And coming to terms that I’m probably not gonna have this eye in ten or 15 years. So it’s still a lot of emotional things. It’s affected so many things outside of skateboarding. I go in and out of being really angry about it. It’s really tough. It’s tough when the person who did it too is pretty unapologetic, and I had to kind of go through that. There’s all sorts of weird things, right? It can put you in a really bad spot. The medication I’m on has its bad side effects too, like depression and all sorts of other things that I’ve been feeling, all sorts of heavy things for my physical body, outside of the injury itself. Sometimes I forget about it. But I never really fully forget because I’m taking meds three, four times a day, you know?

Shit ain't just a spectacle. Wear your goggles    Photo: Aguilar

So do you have any vision out of your left eye?
Yeah, I have about 35 percent of what I did have.

It seems like you’ve been able to make some adjustments to be able to skate.
Totally, I think the human body’s very capable in that way. But definitely like driving at night, or doing anything at night, stuff with heavy lights and stuff affects me. Having to always have this really fragile thing on your face makes you approach life a lot more differently.

Three fingers and one eyeball is all he needs to guide this kickflip egg safely home   Photo: Rhoades

I saw you skate yesterday. You didn’t seem particularly overly cautious or scared.
No, if I’m feeling heavy, I’m gonna put it somewhere.

You mentioned this yesterday, too. It’s weird, because you’re a Creature and you guys are some tough guys.
You were saying, “God, now I got to talk about this in therapy.” A lot of people are realizing they have to take care of their mental health the same way they do their physical health. How did you come around to that realization?
Life gets heavy and I think you need extra help to hold the weight sometimes. So much can happen in the span of one-to-two years that dramatically change the course of everything in your life. Processing those things and trying to strive to do better can seem like an impossible feat sometimes. Your mental and physical are aligned in this life. Skateboarding can’t be the only thing that processes the bad. It’s a great tool, but you need other means to solve some of the complexities that smack us in the face. Leaning on people who are neutral and professional outside the skate world has made me do some immense reflection. I’m still, and always will be, learning how to be better off my board. Skateboarding/the industry tends to create these characters larger than life that simplifies us as a whole. At the end of the day we all have problems and whole other lives off our boards. We are all just trying to be happy in our own skin, you know?


Frontside bluntslide, Muscle hustles at Channel St.    Photo: Ballard

People might see you at the ramp jam or at the demo and think you’re like a total animal. Do you ever have people have different impressions of you other than how you really are?
The people that really do know me, know that I’m just such an emotional person. I feel really big and have very extreme highs and very extreme lows. I don’t really have that in-between marker, ever. It’s so funny, because I think a lot of people think I’m just like hyper-masculine, not very tapped in, or shut off what I feel. But honestly, a lot of people that do know me, know that I’m pretty emotionally intelligent. I’m a lot softer than everybody thinks.

You’re an OC, tattooed, bowl-riding guy, and people might think they have an idea of what that kind of person is like. I thought it was really cool that you were sticking up for queer skaters on Instagram. Why did you want to do that?
If you don’t stand for anything, what do you stand for? as they say. It’s personal and weird for me to talk about on a public platform, since I’ve never done this before in the open, but I’m not straight myself. So it feels personal when people have this idea of queerness-equals-weakness philosophy or they feel the need to attack gay people on a public forum. Transparently, I’m pansexual, but prefer the term sexually fluid because it just makes more sense to people. Almost all my friends know this about me, but I also don’t share it with everyone. Having to rewire the idea that someone has in their head about you, I’m sure lots of queer and even straight people can agree, can be a draining concept. To be fair, I’m not a totem for the gay community and will never try to represent more than I am. I’m pretty shitty on social media these days. There are a lot more important and interesting things about me than who I sleep with. It goes back to the last question though ––we are these complex people off our boards. You don’t know the full story usually unless you inquire. I just want people to feel accepted, appreciated and know that strength comes in all shapes and sizes.

Narrow ramps, open minds—skateboarding has it all    Photo: Brook

That’s really cool. I appreciate you sharing that. We are doing this interview right before your last trip to film for this video. What’s taking you to Europe for this trip?
Yeah, man, I’m super hyped. We’re going out and skating that giant statue all the way out in Poland. So it’s pretty amazing, man.

What’s it feel like knowing that’s what’s waiting for you?
It’s crazy. It’s a full mission, dude. There’s all these logistics we had to get lined up to make it happen—Bungee cords and crews, but it’s all falling into place and it’s amazing, man. I’m really happy that I get to go and keep skating and searching and going and finding all this shit to go ride. It’s pretty wild. I think that’s kind of like my theme for the next few years; I really want to just try to keep skating as hard as I can and try to make it happen. Try to keep exploring and finding new things, skating things like statues and crazy fucking terrain in foreign places, I’m really excited. I’ve been wanting to skate it for years. Ever since I saw Oski Rozenberg do some shit on it, I was like, What the hell? Also, Tom Remillard was the first one to crack that one off.

Soaring with the raptors! Frontside fastplant in Poland   Photo: Bączkowski

You’re one of our favorite skaters, so no big surprise, we were stoked to put you on the cover. What did it mean to you to get the cover of the mag?
Dude, I was tripping out. It was crazy. I couldn’t stop crying. There’s all these weird pivotal things that have happened in my life, right? I’m going through that currently. I go through these things where there’s all this heaviness surrounding me. And skateboarding has always been that thing that kind of sucks me back in. I come back in and I’m like, I’m here. That was one of those moments where I remember I was having such a bad week. I was like, Man, what the fuck am I doing? I’m making 1500 bucks a month right now. My kid’s almost here. I had a lot of those moments in the last year. But it was so funny. And this is the truth. I was at a bonfire the night before and I was talking to Seegull. I was like, I don’t know if I’ll ever get a cover. If I could only do one thing, and I don’t care what happens from here on out, that’s the one thing. It’s such a hallmark. That’s the one thing that we all wish for, to get that cover, get blessed with the cover. It’s more than any medal can give you. And especially right now, everybody’s so good, so gnarly. Then I remember waking up in the morning, refreshing Instagram, and there it was. It was like this weird divine thing that happened. I’m like, That’s just a joke. There is no way I was talking about that last night, and that just happened. I couldn’t stop crying. I was just bawling my eyes out, and it meant so much to me because I was just having such a rough week. And I think skateboarding has shown its signs that I need to keep doing this. That was one of those big signs and one of those big pushes that I’m moving in the right direction. Like, Keep going and you’ll figure it out. I get a call from Seegull right after, and he’s like, Look what all your bitching and whining did last night. How you feel now, dude? Like, Idiot. Man, it was so funny.

That was great. Thank you, Chris.

This arm holds a lot of weight, but it's that strength and this seat-skippin' eggplant in the Valley that put him firmly on the front of our July, 2024 mag. Manifest it, kids!