Claus Grabke | My God Rides A Skateboard

Who came first to jump the fingerflip to tail? Who was team rider for Tracker Trucks, later on for Independent Trucks, and finally had his own decks at Titus, Powell & Peralta, Madrid Skateboards and last but not least Santa Cruz Skateboards? Who was, apart from all that, also on tour with his guitar an his bands, as support for Bon Jovi, Oasis, the Fantastischen Vier or the Ärtze? Nobody. Except for… Claus Grabke. Oh right.., and who does still ride rails? Claus Grabke.

Since 1976 he has been riding the Skateboard on soft trucks. At around the same time he started making music, his older brother brought home the first records those days, starting off with Deep Purple and David Bowie. His first experiences singing he made in the curch choir and soon, influenced by punk rock, started playing the guitar.
That was at the age of 13, only one year later he won his first skateboard contest. Later on in his successful years as professional skateboarder he achieved 19 times Geman Champion, he won two times official European Champion, several times the European Cup, twice 6th place, once 4th place at the world championships, and finally four times the German Monster Mastership.
Today he is 41 years old, married, lives in Gütersloh, and still loves skateboarding. While nowadays he does it rather just for himself. Or together with his 14 year-old son, who shares this passion as well as that for making music, with him. 1981 he was one of the founders of Monster Magazine, and soon after that one of those, who originated the Monster Mastership as first German Skateboard Competition.
"Since 1981 there was just this demand for a skateboard magazine to tighten the scene. I simply said, there is a lot to say, a lot to report on - and I wanted to do that. I noticed, there were all kinds of magazines, why not also have a skateboard magazine in Germany, so we founded that. It was published on a irregular basis at that time, but at least it came out, and united the scene in a way. That sure was an amazing experience for me", says Claus Grabke.
With glue stick and type writer he timbered together the first 35 issues on his own at home those days, Titus took over the financing.
When in 1986 the offer from Santa Cruz Skateboards/USA came, "golden years" were lying ahead of him, Claus continues:
"I had an apartment on top of a flat supermarket on 44th street in Santa Cruz, which used to be the janitor´s house. Santa Cruz had rented it for all the Skaters, that were visiting. A rampant commune, but those were funny, good times: I had a bike, a surf board, the beach was right in front of the door, I skated with all the best Pro´s ..- it was awesome. I toured a lot through America, but also through Indonesia, the former Czechoslovakia, and travelled through all of Europe."
When he was riding for Titus at that time, there were five signature boards and the mutual support continues up until today. In April 2004 a new Claus Grabke Board was launched by Titus. During the time of the cooperation with Santa Cruz there were also five different decks with his signature. Among those one was a top-seller for quite a while, and has been re-launched last year: "A real old school deck", says Claus.
He quit his professional sateboard career in 1991, decided he wanted to ride only for himself from then on, without having to tell someone which place he made when and where and why .. or why not - he wanted to keep this love for skateboarding real and to himself that way. All the trophies, memories, achievements and awards mean a lot to him, even though they are resting in a box on the attic, they take care of a special kind of relaxation today:
"Just to know, you´ve already reached a certain goal. But now, without the ambition, it is even more pleasant, to look back on all this."
Together with his son Fynn and his friends he´s still riding…
"just with a little bit more fear I guess", he says. And that he doesn´t jump the real big stairs any more, that he has to be careful with his knee a little bit, as he has only one cruciate ligament remaining in his right knee. "Sometimes , at the end of the day, things actually do get a little sketchy."
But not only with his Skateboard he toured through the whole wide world, also with his bands Eight Dayz, Thumb and Alternative Allstars he rocked the stages all over the world.
"There has always been a manifoldness in what I was doing: I produced a magazine, made music, skated…. Eight Dayz was my first band, where I played the guitar and sang. That have always been flowing frontiers."

With Thumb there were all together 3 records, between the second and the third the first Alternative Allstars record came out. While he was only singing with Thumb, his love playing the guitar remained continuously. A lot of songs had accumulated, that simply had to be let out:
"When I play the guitar and sing, I create totally different songs, as if I am just reacting to something, somebody else is playing," he continues.
This first Alternative Allstars record 'rock on' (2000) was more like an experiment those days, to do something beside Thumb. Yet it turned out to be a very successful experiment, and they played gigs with bands like Oasis, Die Fantastischen Vier and Die Ärtze.
"That was really a lot, we were everywhere, and it worked out everywhere. We hadn´t thought so, it has been sheer lunacy!!", Claus says looking back on those days.
Then another Thumb Album came out and in the meantime (Thumb remain in a creative break at the moment) the own studio was built at a beauty spot out in the countryside near Gütersloh. That´s also where the new Alternative Allstars record, '110 % Rock',was produced, which is available in stores since March.
The Allstars are, by the way, Mark Wiechert playing the bass, Sven Pollkötter on the drums, and Claus Grabke playing the guitar and singing. The construction of the studio got done two years ago, and Claus and Mark own it. That´s where they record all their music, but also produce other bands. On the one hand newcomer bands, if for example recognized at a contest not winning, but being good… (like the combo Fallaway, that was just taking his advice that day of the interview, working with him on the song "smell of changes"). On the other hand also keen bands like Dog Eat Dog. Those guys from New York have just recently been in Gütersloh, recording the first four songs of their forthcoming record, and will soon return to the countryside studio to complete it. Some other people will be joining them, like Marta Jandova (singer of the band Die Happy) or Dr. Ringding, a trumpet orchestra will be there, "there is no limit to your own creativity and the possibilities of an own studio", says Claus happily. He produced already nine records, tells us more about Dust Sucker and Good Witch of The South, as being bands one should hear out for. Several recording sessions ran from progressive rock "off the trolley" with complex strokes and a string orchestra to rather sad music of another own projects of Claus, Sad Robot, where a mandolin orchestra came up.

How did things develop those days, skating to the music?
"In 1989 Santa Cruz Skateboards published a video, named Wheels of Fire. And we did the soundtrack with Eight Dayz, my band, that was still running around without a record contract those days, Santa Cruz paid for the studio costs. Many Skaters, till this day, love especially those songs. A German record company heared them, and wanted to release the record. That´s how the first record was released at Roughtrade Records, all together there were three Eight Dayz records and lots of touring. When Eight Dayz somehow was without a contract again, I started different, new bands. One of them was Thumb, the other one was Tree. The latter was very sad music, I was playing the guitar and singing. Thumb was consciously the hardcore project. We did demos of both bands, handed them in at the Popkomm (German Music Fair), and Thumb got a well endowed record contract. That´s when it started bigtime, and a whole new period of life began.
Before that, with Eight Dayz, I and casually a little music was made. Eight Dayz was more guitar pop side, ranging in REM- like spheres. Thumb, on the contrary, hit really in the knob. We played over 100 concerts a year, the comlete WARP Tour in the USA and Europe, all the Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park festivals. That was a whole new lifestyle, whereas not completely new, as it was kind of the same with skateboarding: just people being on tour. But to me it was very nice, that this love, the music yielded fruit, and you could be actually on the road all over the world with it, and make a living."

110% Rock now comes up with what sound?
"That´s rather on the dirty side. Real and plain Rock. With some glamrock elements, but also with pop-punkrock elements and melody. The video we just finished, however, contains no yelling people shaking their fists, but sexy ladies instead. We simply filmed a live concert with 8 DV cameras. Yeah, that´s my new field of profession: video director. As the material for the production of a music video is very expensive, we decided to document a great party and try to capture everything that happens around it, as good as it gets. But you can dance quite well to the stuff we do... it is 110 % dirty, danceable rock."

Your reflection on the current situation in Germany - regarding the music?
"Among some other cooperations there is a duet with Ingo Knollmann, the lead singer of the Donots, on the record. And we actually do get het up a little bit over so much qualitatively very bad music, we have to listen to these days. And we fret over the fact, that people don't feel this excitement any more, as it has been the case in the past with the Clash for example, when one nearly could have cried while listening to a record. Simply because it has all been so exciting. This excitement has indeed a little disappeared in the music nowadays, I think. Every once in a while there is something exciting, but to a large extent it doesn't come through. Stuff that actually does come through always appears to be made in one pattern, kind of arbitrarily. I would also wish for such an audience, as some of these complete idiots do have, who are on TV permanently. If some Rock 'n' Roll bands are interviewed today, they often just jabber the same shit to promote their album. I think, there is in general too little content and meaning behind. Then you are reading in any teen magazines, in which they fill out any warrants of apprehension: what do you do in your spare time? Well, Video games…
We sent our video away to the broadcast stations yesterday. We hope they will play it, but we don't know. However, we also have a good deal of possibilities online; we have a huge mailing list. Via different people we know we already reach scantaly 200,000 people and we will continue that way with our guerilla methods. The skateboard magazine 411 did together a skateboard video to the theme song of the album, 110% Rock, with all kinds of crazy stuff that happens aside. Anyway, we will distribute the song online, in a guerilla manner. One just doesn't get this Jeanette Biedermann rotation, at least we don't. But one way or the other it is possible, to be creative and to do something - this simply is the other way."

What exactly would you want to say?
"I would like to be as much in the media as a Daniel Küblböck for once, too. However, I wouldn't always defend myself for who I am. Instead I would tell something, I would say, ey, I am a vegetarian, for over 20 years. I think that it is bullshit to kill animals only because somebody is hungry. For we know better than that, we are able to overcome our nature, so we should do it. One has to grow, esthetically as well as ethically. That´s what I would really like to couch in terms for once. Also that I don't drink any alcohol, don´t smoke, don't take any drugs ..and never have done in my whole life. I simply always considered it to be foolish, and this will never change. But as a little artist who worries about his music is being played at all, there is no use for me to constantly kick up my heels. I would rather wait until I am in a big television show. But in order to get there, you cannot scare people away in the first place. I will be waiting in silence until the right chance comes along. And then there will be said, which party should be voted for, which animal rights have to be changed, and that it also works without drugs and pills etc… In doing so, one at least has an alternative for once to all the balderdash; people don't dare any more to have their own opinion. In private conversations it might be different, but I do get the impression, in public nobody dares to speak out on their own opinion. Furthermore I read a lot. In my opinion people don't read at all any more. I think people are assessed too little philosophically and spiritually."

What do you think everyone should have read?
"Definitely everything from Milan Kundera - a wonderful writer for sure. "The unbearable lightness of being" is surely an absolute classic of philosophical lyric. Depending on the mood, Rilke is a good choice as well, whereas he is not really as positive as a lot of people are thinking. Furthermore, as I am a big supporter of Freud, the book "The Discomfort in Culture", if it is understood at all, because it is very hard to understand. This is such a book, all of us would understand our cohabitation and the interrelated psychoses a little bit better. It is written terrifically, a little bit contemptuous of life maybe, but that is also a habit I tend to . Not everything is always positive. I have very dark doors inside of me, which I avoid to open. One has to pay attention, you can fall very easily and very deep - at least if you are someone like me.

A darkness that you can scenarize a little bit?
"I am ridden by fears of loss. This goes presumably back to the fact, that at a very young age I had a bursted appendix, or to some cats that were run over and died in my arms in Öesterreich years ago.., while I was on vacation there... Thousands of things like that, that magnify themselves. A good moment to me is often clouded by the gray veil that it will go away again anyway. But I am able to close this door. A high level of happiness can bring with it a high level of tough luck as well. It is better to stay at a certain moderate level, and remain silent, so that you only stumble a little bit to the right and to the left, but do not loose your balance completely. I like to stumble from one extreme into the next one. But I can also sit at home thinking, shit, that doesn´t make sense at all. Yet I have learned not to open certain doors at all, but that is only a trick as well. Same as if you are standing on the skateboard, you have to learn the tricks first."

What is philosophically and spiritually of great importance to you?
"I believe for sure in God, in Jesus, in my family and I believe in...., this is what Karl Jaspers said, who was a great philosopher to me: everyone has to take care of his own little world, literally speaking for the square meter around himself. Then it could work out as well on the whole. Karl Jaspers was raised near the North Sea and he always used to compare life with the ocean: The ocean is like our life. One always tries to stay above and the deep, dark sea always draws one down. You think, above the water surface, where you can breathe, it is good - you cannot go up any further. All waves are like people: all alike, yet none the same. Life undulates and wafts like the sea... - I think Karl Jaspers was the boss alright. Similar to the categorical imperative of Kant. As he said, all of your action should at the same time be able to resemble a law for all people. If you say now, I don't kill any animals, then this is a good law. If everyone acts like that, everything will be wonderful. While if you say now I devastate everything that comes into my way, then this isn't a good law. That is also what fascinates me about Jesus. Whereas it is up to each individual´s point of view how to see it.. I sure don't want anyone to think I am running around as a preacher, but there is definitely not any bad action this man has done. It is just a book, which says do it like this, love the one next to you like you love yourself, then everything will be good. Of course, there are critical passages, and it simply remains a book written down by people, but I think the story itself is very beautiful. My son is indeed religious as well, and always kisses his cross before making a trick. It is simply a basic faith. I am not a churchgoer either, but I think that God does exist and that he is there. Everything here cannot just have arisen the way it is just by coincidence. Yet, who, what, and how that looks like..., and who is in the position to preach what..., that I consider as rather silly. It is a kind of spirituality, everyone has insidehim-/herself. Then sometimes one is attracted by Buddhism…, by this and that .., and is kind of collecting together a religion, which isn´t right either, I think. What I believe in is based on the Christian faith.
My God rides a skateboard…, but this is again a matter of taking care of the world by starting with the small space around you. People often cannot see something greater in the little things. I am somebody, who´s able to talk and turn little things into something really big.

Your personal foresight, your wishes and plans...aside from making music and skateboarding?
I would like to write something later. Nothing autobiographic like Dieter Bohlen or those guys. I have been always writing a lot, but never dared to publish it yet. It is still too dark. It has to get brighter. It is still more like letting off steam for now. I realize them, the dark sides, most people don't. Life has been treating me very well indeed. One still analyzes here and there, and there are definitely dark spots hidden in my childhood, that one takes along. But I can handle these things. That´s the way the cookie crumbles, you have to learn your life as well first. Unfortunately, life is always the first take. An ulterior motive always remains… what for? The general nonsense of life. Such a where? The endless sea…
www.alternative-allstars.de | www.upstairs-studio.de

band photos Christian Eusterhus | skatepix und portraits Gerd Rieger
interview Regina Schier