INTERVIEW - DOUG FLACK

Where are you from?
I’m from Newbury Park, CA.

How was that?
Growing up, it was cool.  It’s a small town, there’s not much to do for a teenager. And as a skateboarder, there’s also not much.  There’s a decent skatepark, but that’s about it.  It was close to the beach though, so I surfed a lot.  Good friends still around there, and people I keep in touch with, so that’s good.

What are your current coordinates in life?
Right now, I’m in Fort Bragg, which is in Mendecino County.  It’s like, three and a half hours north of San Francisco, on the coast.  Pretty middle of nowhere.

What would you say is the population there?
Oh fuck, I don’t even know.  I would say maybe, maybe a few thousand, if even that.  Mendocino is a little town south of here, not much bigger, but there is a little more life going on down there.

What would you say is an average day like for you?
I usually get up pretty early.  First thing I would probably do, is go check the surf.  Then I usually go to the wood shop for a couple of hours, depending on what I’m doing.  I was working for a dude in town, who owns the wood shop. When I was working for him, it was  an 8-5 type of deal, but when he slowed down, it was kind of me finding my own work, or just fucking around in the wood shop building something.  So that was kind of ideal, because it was all on my own terms.  Show up whenever the fuck I want, leave whenever I want. If i wanted to go skate, if wanted to go surf; whatever. So that’s kind of how it’s been for the past month or so which has been pretty rad.

How do you go about approaching a new project?
It depends.  Ideally, I would like to be doing commission based work, but as far as all the pieces of the furniture that I’ve done so far, it’s all been basically spec pieces.  Something that I’ve thought would be useful to myself, or something that I was interested in learning, applying new techniques. Commission based work is definitely what I’d like to be doing.  Me and a client, or whatever, collaborating on ideas and designs, and kind of build something together.  

Everything I’ve built so far; it’s all cool, but I don’t have room for any of this furniture.  I move pretty frequently; pretty much whatever I can fit in the back of my truck is all I try to keep with me. I built a rocking chair, and this big cabinet that sits in my parents house, but there’s no reason for me to build that shit for myself.

Let’s talk about the role of travel and what that plays in your life.
I guess growing up we were always camping, always going on trips with the family.  So I guess it stems from that.  Like, right after high school, within a month of graduating, I basically just packed up my surfboard, my skateboard, all my camping shit, and just drove up the coast, then drove into Canada, and then down into Montana.  I was gone for like, 3 months.

That’s a mission.
I came back to Newbury Park for a little bit, and kind of didn’t know what to do, and that’s when I moved to Salt Lake for the first time.  I moved out there to snowboard.  I was there just for the winter, like November to March or something.  When I got back from there, I started working for my brother doing electrical work. Same thing though, I moved back to Salt Lake in the winter, and was just kind of bouncing around between Salt Lake and Newbury Park for the next year or two.  After that, it’s just kind of been that way.  I would move somewhere for a couple months, pack my truck up, go travel around for a few months, go stay with friends, move back to Newbury Park, save some money, do the same thing all over again.  Always moving.

It think at that age, so many kids are looking to branch out, and backpack Europe or whatever, but rarely solo, and you've done all this stuff on your own.
I’m all for that, but it’s just hard to leave for that long. I wouldn’t say I was living out of my car, but for the most part if I wasn’t staying with friends, I was just like, pulling off on the side of the road, camping out. Go be in the middle of nowhere for a week or two. I’m totally cool with doing it independently, I wouldn’t say I necessarily prefer it, but I do enjoy it.

It seems like you’re the type of person who definitely takes some sort of comfort in solitude.
Absolutely.  I think that’s something that I’ve realized with my woodworking too.  It’s not really a group activity.  It’s something where I can just go to the workbench with a drawing, or with an idea, get all my hand tools out, and just kind of zone out.  It’s almost like a meditative type of therapy.

Sometimes it’s easy for people to pigeon hole themselves as a skateboarder, strictly, or a just snowboarder, or just a surfer. It feels like you have such a balance of all.  What do you think drives that?
That totally comes from my brother I would say. Growing up, he was always super into skating, super into surfing, he moved to Mammoth for snowboarding.  He was always working on cars; just always working with his hands. Totally am the person I am today because of him. 

Huge influence then.
Oh, absolutely.  Still is. I definitely identify myself as a skateboarder.  

I like to surf, I like to snowboard, I like all that shit too, but I would call myself a skateboarder. 

Who would say have been some of your other influences growing up?
My brother, 100%.  He's the biggest influence in my life, but theres a handful of other Newbury dudes like Scott Blum.  He’s like an older brother to me.  Growing up skating with him, and then watching him be a pro snowboarder, being a motocross dude, BMX rider, one of those guys who’s just good at anything he does. Definitely those two.  All the Wastells, kind of hard to not being influenced when you grow up watching all of them skate.  Talented family.

On a broader scale, what would you say inspires you?  What lights your fire every day?
I mean, I don’t know.  Just trying to be stoked everyday on what I’m doing. I definitely had some problems growing up with depression and that kind of shit, so I would say just trying to keep motivated.

Keeping your hands busy.
Yeah, just keep my hands busy, and keeping my mind off of shit I shouldn’t be thinking about.

What’s next?
Ideally, setting up a wood shop.  I would love to build commission based furniture, but it’s not a very lucrative business.  I don’t know though, there’s definitely opportunities within the construction world, and carpentry.  Just trying to incorporate cool woodworking into it as well.  Being stoked to be in the woodshop every day, but making a living.  Not just barely surviving.  I don’t need much to survive, but just being comfortable.