Sam Allison interview

Hi Sam, tell us a bit about yourself

I’m Sam Alison, 21, Brighton born and bred. I’m just a regular skater, I guess, just another guy.

Photo: Toby Shaw

What got you into skateboarding? Your parents skate too don’t they?

Growing up, it’s what we would do as a family, go down to the skatepark with me, my dad and my brother all the time, but then I kinda dropped off for a bit. I don’t really know why. I picked it up again when I was like 12/13 and then just got hooked, that’s when I properly got the bug for it. But yeah even my mum has started skating now, it’s wicked! It’s a stretch to say my dad skates now though, you’ll see him rolling around now on the occasional Sunday but not quite at the level he would have done back in the day.

I think I might have actually met your dad down at the Level during that LoveNSkate jam last year?

No way man [haha] that’s crazy! I do remember that though, he was pretty wasted to be fair, him and his friends having a couple of beers. Hilarious man. That day was sick too, I actually was only there myself because I went down to get some weed off a mate and just saw that there was a jam kicking off, I didn’t even know about it. I love the LoveNSkate lot as well, it’s amazing watching them skate. Just turning up to Level to get some weed and then seeing Thackery and that skating got me so hyped, I was juiced for it! I was a little bit fried but I went in for a skate anyway and it actually worked out. 

You had some great clips from your opener in Tom Pickard’s recent film project “Debris”. What was the process behind filming for this like?

I don’t think that it was even a process as such, we were just sort of going out with our friends filming, not really an “oh we are filming this video” , we’d just go out with Tom and his camera to have a sesh. Him or Al usually found spots to go to and we’d just all go and skate it as a crew of friends, that’s the biggest thing I miss about filming it. We had such a sick crew of us, just going out and getting clips with the boys, it was so fun man. I think that the fact that we didn’t think it really was ‘for anything’ is what made it. Tom always had his vision for Debris which is why he was taking us to these spots but none of us knew that. He’s pretty hush hush about the stuff he is doing until it gets closer so none of us had even seen many of the clips that were being filmed. I remember Harrison [Woolgar] was constantly bugging Tom to see the clip of the wallride that I got because he refused to show it to anyone. He loves to show a finished product and it goes to show in the amazing stuff that he puts out.

That wallride was mental too! You can really tell the work that was put into that one.

I was there for like a whole day and spent 4 hours trying to get it. There were points where I thought that I wasn’t going to be able to do it; this is what I was saying about the Debris crew though, they were there hyping me up saying “you got it!”. It was good that people were there though, there would often be times where it would just be me and Tom going out to get a clip but I think the hype of having everyone else there for that one really kept me going.

Sam’s duck early grab, featured in Debris. Photo: Toby Shaw

Some proper good old Sussex crust in some of those spots too. Any other personal highlights for you?

There was this one spot, a 14 stair in Bexhill. Not the most exciting spot but Tom was trying to get me to go and do it and I was at home working so I took a break, went up on the train with him to go and check it out. I got the clip with him and got a beer with some mates after, then went back to Brighton and back to work. I definitely took longer than I should have done but I was working for myself and my friend so I was alright. I’ve got this pal Jordan from Canada too that I really enjoyed filming clips with, he was one of the first guys I started skating with when I was younger actually, he also introduced me to Tom when I was branching out past my friends just from the Level. I remember going out with him on some sessions and he was just a beam of good vibes, being out with him man…I love that guy so much. 

Handplant at Sam’s local- the Level Skatepark. Photo: Harry Watson

Are you still skating a lot at the moment or has it taken a bit of a back foot recently?

I’m skating when I can, but I’m working and stuff too. I stopped skating for like a month when I got back, just needed resting and chilling my body off, but to be honest I’m just a bitch in the cold. I hate slamming in the cold mainly, you just slap the ground and you’re like “oh for fuck sake”. I have been skating with Tom a bit recently to be fair, got a couple of clips in for the new parts that are being released with Chris (Collins) and Henry (Bailey).

Yeah I’ve been really looking forward to seeing those new parts!

Hundred percent. Chris is an absolute killer bro, watching him skate is so gnarly! He’s the most zero-care guy when it comes to that sort of stuff, no fear about him. He can also do the really technical stuff like whipping out a flip back tail with ease. Watching Henry skate is like magic too, so floaty on the board. It’s like he’s just asleep doing all of these mad tricks.

Going back to skating in the cold, have you been to the new BYC park yet?

I went for a session recently actually. I do love the park but I usually prefer skating transition, I just like floating around like a bird. When it gets to the wet months though I am super grateful to have BYC, keeps me still skating rather than doing nothing at all. Their new facility is super cool too, so blessed to have that right around the corner

You recently skated to Africa for a fundraiser didn’t you? Tell us about that.

I skated to Morocco a few months back to raise money for a charity called the Ben Raemers Foundation. I knew I always wanted to do something for charity and I chose to raise for the foundation because everyone has their own negative experiences with mental health. I think that what they are doing for the skate scene is really important because of the big ‘cool guy’ persona that you can see going around sometimes where you don’t talk about this kind of thing in the culture. 

Sam preparing for his send off to Africa

What was the trip like?

It’s hard to put into a sentence to be fair. It was very up and down at times, but saying that, the whole time I had this deep sense of purposeful, good feeling. I think also because I was always moving forward, every day being pretty full on, I didn’t really take that much time to properly look back on what I was doing. It would only be where I got to my destination that I really clocked how far I’d come from that day’s skating.

You were absolutely rocketing it down on some of those days, covering a huge distance! Were the distances/ stops planned at all or was it a work it out as you go type of scenario?

What we would do in the morning was wake up and (if our phones were charged) look for a campsite that was on our route or in the same direction between 25/50 miles and that was why I covered so much distance on some of those days. The most I did was 55 miles in a day. I wouldn’t have expected myself to have done that much in a day at all when I set out, I thought it was going to be more like 25 miles pretty much every day. I think being with my friend Lucas on his bike through parts of it pushed me as well. He could cover the distances a lot more comfortably and go further so that pushed me. 

And you just stayed at campsites the whole way?

Nah so there were some nights where we had accommodation like this French lady who had offered us a place to stay and dinner to have. That was actually my first 50 mile day, just skating that far out of necessity because we had somewhere to stay. We found her on this app called warm showers for cyclists so my friend just sent her a request and she was happy to have us for free because she loved what we were doing so much.

You also encountered some problems on your travels didn’t you? 

There was one day where I did have my bag stolen which was a bit of a bum. I’d left it out at the campsite, gone to the beach and it was just gone when I had come back. I wasn’t super worried though to be fair. I think everyone was so welcoming and friendly because of what we were doing so I knew that they would still be able to help along the way. We didn’t really experience anyone really horrible out there so I think that’s why I got cocky just leaving my stuff out at the campsite all open. I think it may have been a blessing in disguise though; I had so much in the original bag that I brought with me and I don’t think I would have made it with that much if I went the whole way with it. Going through Spain and everywhere else with only the bare essentials in there did make it a lot lighter and I think that climbing all of these mountains with this massive, heavy bag would have made it so much more of a struggle. 

On the second day too, it was VE day when we were passing through France which we didn’t realise. Pretty much nowhere was open so I had just gone to a McDonald’s to get this McBun-muffin thing and we just assumed that nowhere was open because it was in the morning. We carried on skating for a while and we sort of started to realise why nothing had been open but by the time we had got within a couple of miles of our campsite for the night I just started violently throwing up everywhere- turns out that I had a heatstroke from not being able to get any liquids from all of the shops that were shut. Some dude helped by getting some hydration tablets and such but that was a bit of a shaky start to the trip but wasn’t a massive problem for long

Any injuries on the way there?

I took a flat slam down this hill one day from finishing. I fell off and all my shit was carved but at that point there wasn’t anything that was really going to stop me. It was being so on top of the world that made it not really matter because I know if I had a slam like that on the way to the Level I would have been super pissed too.

Did you meet any interesting people on your journey? 

Absolutely! There was this one girl called Amelia who messaged me on Insta and said that she had been tracking our route and it turned out that she lived pretty much exactly in the direction that we were going. We got chatting to her and found out that she had actually grown up in Brighton and moved out to France for work and such. Essentially her and her friend were living out there but the friend was away for a couple of weeks so she offered us a spot at this mobile home with our own kitchen and everything- it was like having our own little basecamp. So then she walks off after chatting, comes back and then says “oh yeah my friend’s got this too” and drops a bag with about 10 grams of weed in it on the dining table. Apparently the friend grows weed out there and didn’t smoke it so it was given to us to enjoy then we were on our way in the morning.

How much did you end up raising by the end?

It was £5,700, pretty insane to see. I still open it up now and again to just look at it and think that I really did that. The target I set was only at £100 just expecting friends and family to donate but I never thought it could be anything as big as that. 

So, same again next year then?

[Haha], I don’t know about that one. Me and Lucas are planning another trip for summer but I don’t think I’ll skate again because that was intense to say the least. The whole point of it was for charity though so that was the reason for the odd choice of transport I guess.

Are there any particular shout outs at all/ anybody that you want to thank?

My mum and Dad of course- they got me to where I am today. Gotta thank Jordan Marrowitch, I met him at the level when I was young and he was the guy who introduced me to Tom, which led to me meeting the whole debris crew and is why I am able to call them all my friends which I am super grateful for. Oh yeah gotta shout Finn Deedman and Alfie Tilly who are cycling to Uzbekistan right now for charity too! One last love to Tom Pickard too, absolute legend. He’s always getting us out to sick spots, hyping up the session and is just a really amazing guy.

Fs 5-0. Photo: Matt Ransom

Thank you to Sam for taking part in this interview.