Interview | Jake Yanko

You’re out in Costa Mesa at the moment; did you move out there full time?

I think I've been here for two months now. I was living in Florida until about a year and a half ago and I was coming back and forth to Carlsbad in that time.

So you’re already familiar with Orange County.

Yeah, I was visiting out here a lot since Welcome’s headquarters are here and I have a bunch of friends who live here.

Are you liking it better than Florida or are you missing the homeland?

Definitely missing it but I still visit four or five times a year, so I get my fix in. I love California, but Florida is definitely always on my mind.

At least you’ve got perfect weather no matter which coast you’re on.

Pretty much. I don’t surf, but living by the beach is cool.

Same here.

To get things started - congratulations on turning pro. What does it feel like seeing people posting your board on Instagram?

A couple of people have asked me this and I never really have the words for it. I'm hyped and I'm really excited about it. At the same time, it feels so surreal and unbelievable that my name is on a board since it's been my whole childhood dream. I've been wanting this for so long and it finally happened. I don't think I expected anything to change, but it's funny going about every day and having nothing really be any different.

You've been on Welcome since you were 16, right?

I think I started getting boards from them when I was around 15. I'm pretty sure got my first Welcome board a little before Fetish came out. My dad got me this 8.0 Phoenix or maybe it was a Sloth board. Ever since then, I was strictty only buying Welcomes. When Fetish came out, that was my favorite video for the longest time. Eventually, they saw the Instagram posts I was tagging them in and I started getting boards from them.

That's the way to do it - to actually believe in a company and skate their boards by choice, before they are even interested in giving you free shit.

Yeah I'd fucking hate it if I got on a board company that I didn't want to be on. I'd rather just stick it out until the company that I love wants me or they give me a flat out 'no.’

It's more genuine that way.

If you started with an 8.0, when did you start sizing up to the wider decks you skate nowadays?

Obviously I grew since I was 15, but I think I maxed out to an 8.5 until I visited the Welcome office for the first time. The owner, Jason Celaya, didn't make me ride a bigger board, but he convinced me to try some and gave me a couple 8.6's and 8.75's when I was around 17. I fell in love with them because I prefer feeling more of the board under my feet. I don't like my feet hanging off so much, so live been riding 8.75 - 9.0 decks since then.

How involved were you in designing that new Panther shape that your pro model is on?

I was pretty involved. Jason really wanted me to enjoy the shape that my first graphic was going to be on. We had a couple talks about what I wanted and basically used Ryan Lay's old Stonecipher shape. It has the same nose and tail, but his was an 8.6 and pretty straight from tail to nose. No real shape to it. I bowed mine out to 9.0 towards the front bolts and that's my little contribution.

What about the graphic? I saw an Instagram post from Jason about starting to draw up a traditional Florida-themed graphic... until you mentioned one of the main things you didn't want was a crocodile. What was your vision for it?

I love the graphic, I really do. I think when he approached me about the idea of tuming pro, he asked for a mood board. I was stressing so hard. I felt like I was putting so much pressure on myself because I felt like I was designing my own graphic. I was like, "fuck, what if I say I like something now, but then in a couple of months I'm digging something else?" I was just feeling a lot of pressure but at the end of the day, I told Jason I just wanted to have a hint of Florida inspiration on the board and I might have said the words, "not a big fucking gator.

Which was exactly what you got.

Exactly. I guess at that time he already drew the graphic out but l'm happy we stuck to it because I really like it. l’ve seen some disgusting Florida graphics in the past that go too deep into the theme with all the bright colors and whatnot. I really like what he did with using only the black, white and green.

Florida is such an easy place to make a cliche out of, so I could understand not wanting to have something that was too cheesy. Did you get to choose the fact that it was full-dipped board with the white on the sides and on the top?

Well every time I would go out and skate with Daniel [Vargas], he would hint at it and ask me if I liked dipped boards or not, and I do. I'm happy they made it that way.

You don't see too many of them out there so it's rad to have it for your first one.

I know, I love seeing the paint on the rim of the board next to the black grip tape.

Let's chat about your 'Swamp Fight' part that dropped when your board came out. It seemed like there was a pretty even balance of street spots versus transition clips in there. Do you prefer skating one more than the other?

I don't think I prefer one over the other. I started skating bowls and thats what I was mainly only skating for the first six or seven years. At one point I think I got bored with it because I was going to so many bowl and transition contests and getting but out. I was meeting a lot of friends who skated street, so I started dipping my toe into that and fell in love with street skating because it was something new.

There's such a different aspect to getting footage in the streets versus going to some skate park and filming in a bowl that you could skate any day. I think there's just more fun factors to street skating. Ive definitely been liking street skating more recently but if I have the right friends around, I love a good bowl session.

I feel like that's the natural progression for every little kid. They get their feet wet and start to learn transition, but then realize that it is a bit limiting at the end of the day. There’s just so many different possibilities to skate when you branch out to the streets.

Yeah but I think my top skaters growing up were all ATVs. My favorite skater for the longest time was Ben Raybourn; when I was skating nothing but bowls. Then, I forgot what did it, but I learned of Grant Taylor's existence and realized there's a reason why he’s everyone's favorite skater.

I felt the same way when I saw his 2011 SOTY video. It was like “this is what skateboarding is supposed to look like.”

Once you learn about him, you’re like “this is the truth. This is what's up.”

I have a question about your ender at the Encinitas drop: after the rollaway, you pulled out a Polaroid - what was that a photo of?

It's a random photo of a squirrel that Daniel [Vargas] had. (Laughs) I didn’t even take it. I didn’t even have it in my pocket the whole time I was trying it; for like 20-30 minutes. Right before the try where I made it, he gave me the photo.

Sounds like a good luck charm!

Let’s switch gears and back up a bit. I asked the homie from Florida, Stephen Oliveira, about some tales from the past. He mentioned something about you breaking a huge handrail at a church, followed by the cops coming to hunt you down. What was that all about?

I kind of forgot about it and I was like, “the people who know it's me aren't going to rat me out.” Then a couple months later, Elijah told me that one of his friends was in this local shop near the rail and the cops walked in questioning the staff if they knew who the kid in the photo was. Luckily, I'm friends with everyone who works there.

That means nobody snitched, right?

No. They were like, “nope - never seen this guy before.” We got the clip and we didn't have to pay the $3000 they were asking to replace the rail.

You lucked out!

I'm expecting a call one of these days. I randomly went to the rail when I visited Florida and it's still cracked and bent. I don't think the clip where I hit the rail has too many views, so that's good. (Laughs)

Best case scenario.

Next up - Stephen mentioned another story about the pole jam you did off the Causeway bridge earlier this year. He said you drove around all night looking for a sign and in the process a homeless person ended up stealing your drill?

This story is pretty sick, in my opinion. I was recovering from the broken neck I got from colliding with Fred Gall's knee at that Independent Rip Ride Rally thing, and I was pretty much done with physical therapy. I was going back home to Florida for the holidays and was just starting to skate again and feel comfortable falling, taking impacts with my feet and being able to roll out of stuff.

Also, there’s this local shop, Resident, that I was filming a local video for and they were premiering it in early January. I started going out and getting a good amount of footage to the point where I was like, “I could maybe film a part for it.”

I kind of forgot about it and I was like, “the people who know it's me aren't going to rat me out.” Then a couple months later, Elijah told me that one of his friends was in this local shop near the rail and the cops walked in questioning the staff if they knew who the kid in the photo was. Luckily, I'm friends with everyone who works there.

That means nobody snitched, right?

No. They were like, “nope - never seen this guy before.” We got the clip and we didn't have to pay the $3000 they were asking to replace the rail.

You lucked out!

I'm expecting a call one of these days. I randomly went to the rail when I visited Florida and it's still cracked and bent. I don't think the clip where I hit the rail has too many views, so that's good. (Laughs)

Best case scenario.

Next up - Stephen mentioned another story about the pole jam you did off the Causeway bridge earlier this year. He said you drove around all night looking for a sign and in the process a homeless person ended up stealing your drill?

This story is pretty sick, in my opinion. I was recovering from the broken neck I got from colliding with Fred Gall's knee at that Independent Rip Ride Rally thing, and I was pretty much done with physical therapy. I was going back home to Florida for the holidays and was just starting to skate again and feel comfortable falling, taking impacts with my feet and being able to roll out of stuff.

Also, there’s this local shop, Resident, that I was filming a local video for and they were premiering it in early January. I started going out and getting a good amount of footage to the point where I was like, “I could maybe film a part for it.”

We got towards the end of it and we drove by this one bank and there was a fully intact stop sign sitting against this building. We grabbed it, put it in the car, and for a couple of days we were like, “how the fuck are we going to skate this sign?”

That bridge, the Causeway, is pretty infamous in Melbourne, Florida. This local fucking legend, Matt Call, was the first to skate it. He just dump-trucked off the railing into it and my friend Jason rolled down it. Nothing else has really gone down on it, so we're like, “shit, it'd be cool to pole jam over the railing.” I think it was two days before the premiere.

We set the sign up, attached it to the railing and started trying it. I think after 20 minutes someone called the cops because they thought I was jumping off the bridge to kill myself. Seven cop cars, a helicopter and the boat police pull up.

The water patrol too?!

Yeah, they thought I was fucking killing myself, so we calmed it down. Then they started asking about the sign and where we found it. The cop said he was going to have to confiscate the sign so we left it but were too juiced on the possible clips. My friend, David, couldn't film the next day, so the only time we had to do it was the morning of the premiere.

Crunch time.

The night before, we decided we were going to get it done at like 7-7:30 in the morning when there's no traffic and not a lot of people around to rat us out. The problem was we didn't have a sign anymore. We drove around before David’s work shift and looked for a good pole. We eventually found one pretty near to the spot with no stop sign or anything attached to it. We felt confident that we could take it out of the ground and not get in too much trouble for it. I called up my friend who collects signs in her room and asked her to borrow the stop sign, which she agreed to. Then, I went to Home Depot and figured out what nuts and bolts were used to construct street signs.

The first thing we wanted to do was get that pole so we could actually build the sign. We went with one shovel and started digging for an hour and a half. The hole was pretty big but we weren't even close to getting the sign out. We were trying to nudge the pole and everything but we just weren't getting anywhere. We drove home, got a bigger shovel, came back and eventually got it out after another hour and a half of digging.

Damn, three hours!?

Yeah, it was 2:30 or 3AM at this point. I forgot to mention, we also had to do some concrete work on the spot because at the very end of that cobblestone bank, it's just sand. We tried packing it down, but there was no way we were getting around it and I just wanted a little bit of a concrete patch at the bottom. After we got the pole, we went to the spot, built the stop sign and attached it. We left it at the top of the spot while we did the concrete job at the bottom. David had to grab a flashlight or something from his car so I'm just sitting there mixing the concrete by myself at 4:00 in the morning.

This bum comes walking on top of the Causeway and sees the sign. I also left my drill up there and when he saw it, he picked it up and verbally said “oh shit, a drill” then hit the throttle on it a couple times and kept walking. I just sat there and watched it all happen. I didn't say a damn thing because I didn’t know what he might have had on him.

Oh god, witnessing it play out right before your eyes.

We finished the job and we were just wrapping up when the same guy walks by us and says something like, “Good morning guys.” I recognized him and I was like, “hey, if you happen to see a a drill, let me know because I just lost mine.” He was like, “nope, I haven't seen a drill - it's actually my first day out of jail.” We said, “Oh shit, congratulations.” Then he said “Thanks, I was in there for like 20 years.” (Laughs)

You had the right intuition not to fuck with him!

Exactly. His ass walked away with my drill and my dad has been asking for that drill for the past year now. I told him I don't know where it is. If you read this - sorry, dad!

It's gone forever.

We went home and edited it into the video and were done by like 11 or noon. We slept for a couple hours and then got ready for the premiere.

Talk about a buzzer beater.

I'm really glad we got that. I feel like I'm a little more sketched out refurbishing or doing things to spots that require breaking stuff like that when I'm out in California. For some reason, when I go to Florida with my childhood friends, it just seems a lot more doable and feels easier. I don't know why.

With your track record, it should be the opposite way around. At least the California cops don’t have you on file like the Florida cops do.

That’s funny, I hadn't really thought about it like that.

How about one last question: what do you have on tap for 2024? Anything in particular that you’re looking to accomplish?

Olympics, baby! (Laughs) No, no. Fuck that.

I'm just going to keep filming and hopefully have another a video part. I want to keep going to fun events and hopefully keep making money doing what I love.