Josh Harper Up interview

Interview & portrait: Genualdo Kingsford

Who are your sponsors?
I skate for Flatspot, I get boards from Poetic Collective, shoes from New Balance Numeric and Lurpiv Trucks through Keen Distribution. 

Tell us about where you grew up. 
My home town is Torquay. It’s part of Torbay, which is described as the English Riviera. There are a lot of really nice places down there in terms of the seaside and views and stuff, but there’s a dark side to its beauty. Torquay is quite a neglected, rundown town in terms of prospects and just day-to-day life. I would say it’s probably a little bit secluded and not very caught up with modern times. So there are good sides and bad sides to my home town.

How did you start skating?
Back when I was eight years old, there used to be quite a big skate scene in my home town. A skate shop called Big Kids Toys had recently opened, and I remember going to the fair – they used to put fairground rides on the green in Torquay every summer – and you would always see a bunch of people skateboarding; they had like a flat bar and those Argos kickers. I was like: “What is that?” I’d never seen it before. That got me interested. I skated through the summer holidays and then I was kind of bouncing around different stuff. One minute I’d be into skateboarding, the next it’d be riding BMX, then it’d be football. I did that for a few years before I properly picked up skateboarding again at the age of 12.

How was the skate scene in Torquay back then?
When I first started, it was quite good. There were a lot of small towns, but they were all well-connected. Everyone knew each other, or knew of each other. When I was growing up, you’d go the skatepark, like some council-built skatepark in Paignton, and there would always be 40-50 people either skateboarding or riding BMX. They gradually started to build more and more skateparks, like plaza-type stuff, in each town or in random places. There were actually quite a lot of skateparks. As the years went on, people got a bit older, or life got in the way. When I got to 18 or 19, I started to notice it was dying off a little bit. It definitely got to the point where it was a little bit stagnant for me. Sometimes I’d go to a skatepark and I’d be the only person there the entire day, which obviously sucked out a little bit of the fun. 

How was street skating in Torquay and nearby towns?
I guess it was OK. When we were kids, we would finish school and then just go skateboarding through the town, just bits of flat or some random curb, but in terms of actual spots… I guess now, after years of skating in London, I’d probably find things I over-looked for years. Skateboarding isn’t really a day-to-day thing down there, so you’d get a lot of grief, especially if you were street skating.

Did you look up to any local skaters back when you lived in Torquay?
Luke Bourne was a skateboarder from my home town who was quite gnarly. He was one of the few people around who would chuck themselves at handrails and hubbas regularly. He used to drive a bunch of us from Torquay around to different parks. I remember growing up, people always used to talk about the Exeter skateboarders. I never knew who they were until they all came to the skatepark in Dawlish. Everyone used to say they were the best at the time, and it became pretty apparent that they were. That crew had people like Barney (Page), Barber (Paul Cooper), Dermo (Dan McDermott), Skelly (Ryan Evans)… 

When did you move to London?
I moved away in 2021, when I was 25. I wanted to go travelling and move away years before that, but the whole Covid situation prolonged everything for a good two years or so. I was working a… not a dead-end job, but it was that early-to-mid-20s point of your life when you’re not quite sure what you want to do with yourself and what direction you want to go in, especially in a small town with fewer career prospects. 

What job were you doing back then?
I was a front of house supervisor in a small seafood restaurant / chippie.

What finally prompted the move to London?
I guess it was probably a mixture of my own mental health, skateboarding and just general confusion in terms of where my life was heading. It was like: “If I don’t do something now, I’m going to be here forever,” kind of thing. I had actually managed to save some money, and then an opportunity came up to move into a room. I handed in my notice at my job, took a month off work, and then completely nosedived into moving to London. I only really knew two people here, and I moved here without having a job lined up, so I did risk quite a bit, but it actually kind of paid off.

How did you adapt to living in London?
I guess at first the pace of life was a bit of a shock. I used to visit London quite a bit before I moved here and to be honest, I didn’t really like it. That’s probably because I was stuck in the really busy central areas, which I avoid now anyway. I adapted pretty well, I guess. I was always out skating with people on my days off, so I was seeing a lot of the city pretty fast, which helped me to understand a lot of things.

Did you find the skate scene in London welcoming?
Yeah. Actually, I would say it gave me a new lease of life or something like a new enjoyment for skateboarding again, because I definitely started to feel like I was losing interest a little bit. 

What do you do for work?
I’m a chef. My job title is chef de partie.

Did you train to be a chef? 
I wouldn’t say I ever trained for it. I guess if you have worked in hospitality, you gain a lot of the basic experience. It kind of just happened. I’ve had jobs in each part of hospitality – front of house, in the kitchen, manager – so I had a little bit of a head start.

Do you enjoy the work?
Yes and no (laughs). It’s very up and down. Sometimes things that happen on shifts can be pretty stressful. Having a job where I’m on my feet for 11-12 hours a day definitely takes a lot out of you. You don’t quite realise until you go home and you’re like: “Oh god!”

Whereabouts are you working?
I work at this place in West Dulwich called The Rosendale. It’s part of a small chain of pubs.

Daryl (Dominguez) told me you are handy with a sewing machine. Tell us about this.
I feel like that began because I like things to be very particular and I’ve always found myself between sizes with different pieces of clothing. I’m actually self-taught. I used to do a bunch of stuff years ago by hand, and then during Covid, I bought a sewing machine. I basically wanted to learn something new. Over the years, I guess I’ve progressed in terms of what I can do. I’m quite into buying a pair of trousers, cutting them into shorts and adding cargo pockets out of the excess, or something. 

Nice.
It can be quite handy. Sometimes I make a little bit of money on the side shortening things for people or doing a bit of tapering or whatever. Daryl’s been a good boy for that (laughs). 

On a related note, Nick (Richards) asked me to ask you: “When do shorts become trousers?”
I guess if I added another inch to mine, they probably would be trousers, right? I don’t know, as long as there’s a centimetre between your shorts and your socks, they’re still shorts (laughs).

Nick mentioned that you recently visited Malmö to skate with the Poetic Collective crew. How was that experience?
I’d been getting product off them for like a year through Workshop Distribution and I thought it would be good to show a bit of respect too. Like if they’re giving something to me, I should show face. I can’t just take something and not make any effort, right?

That makes sense.
But yeah, it was really sick. It just so happened to be at exactly the same time as that whole Love Malmö thing and all those events. It was nice to experience a new country. It was a very nice place. I had a great day on the beach too. It reminded me a little bit of my home town, in a good way.

Who are some of your favourite skaters to watch in person?
That’s a hard question to answer. I’d say watching Kyle Wilson is pretty nice, when he does something really easily and it looks like he’s floating on water. Tom Knox can be fun to watch too, when he’s just fitting as many tricks in as possible. I guess my friends who I skate with too, because they are always out doing stuff. 

Who are some younger, up-and-coming skaters people should look out for?
I have a new friend called Jack (Thompson), who has been coming out on the sesh with me and Nick quite a lot. He’s got a lot of tricks and he skates very well. So yeah, I’d say watch out for him because he’s going to surprise a lot of people. 

Where’s your go-to place in London for a fun skate?
Stockwell all day. You can’t beat Stockwell (laughs). 

The photos in this interview have a roof theme. Can you talk a little about this?
I don’t know really. It just started to happen naturally. Some time last year we found this weird drop-in spot, where I got a clip. It was interesting to find stuff that had weird architecture or something you can skate in a way that’s like: “Oh, that’s off a building,” but still, in my eyes, safe. Also, I’m not very tech and I can’t really do many tricks, so if I’m going filming, I try to look for something that I find fun. I do kind of enjoy just lugging myself off something stupid, as opposed to trying a really hard flip-in, flip-out trick. Give it six months and I’ll probably find the next new thing to be hyped on (laughs).

Did anyone inspire this approach to skating?
I think there were a few Knox things where he was skating these interesting things like bike sheds or weird drop-offs into banks.

You’re working on a video project with Nick Richards. Tell us about that. 
Originally, I don’t think he was set on trying to film a full-length video. We were out filming a lot in winter 2022 and I think by spring 2023, he had managed to accumulate a good 10 minutes or so. At that point, he mentioned the idea of maybe trying to do some sort of montage thing. Since then, so much has been getting filmed, I guess it just made sense for him to do his own full-length.

Who will have parts?
Maybe I might have a part (laughs). Jack will probably have a part because he filmed three minutes of footage in three months, which is insane. I’m trying to think. He’s got so much footage of so many different people, it’s actually crazy. 

How is Nick to work with?
He’s got a nickname (Bastard) for a reason, but I do love him. He’s good to work with. The amount of times he said he had to be home for a certain time, then stayed out well past that time because he just got hyped on another spot…

What are your longer-term plans for the future?
I honestly have no idea. I found with getting a little bit older, I just go with the flow. Obviously there are stresses of life like money or your job, but I’m pretty happy just waking up on my days off and being like: “All right, who’s skateboarding where today?” I would like to leave the country more, but I need more money for that to happen (laughs). It would be cool to go on some trips or see some more of the world, but I just feel happy and settled, you know? I don’t really feel like I’m materialistic or I need to have certain things. I just want to be happy and feel comfortable with my life.