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[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAMIAN SANDERS: Life is about taking risks.
If you don't take risks, why even live?
What fun is it to walk around on a rubber world and be
afraid of everything?
You got to out there and try to outdo people, because then
it's progression of the world.
It makes it more fun to live.
You got to go big, and the next guy is going to to try to
go bigger, and that's what it's all about.
JERRY DUGAN: Damian was one of the most comfortable people in
the air for sure at that point and probably to this day.
I mean he just had a sense about him in the air where he
was just totally comfortable up there.
DON SZABO: Damian was real influential, and go, go, go on
building jumps and having fun and getting footage and just
riding, you know.
We just loved to ride.
TOM BURT: Damian Sanders was so much fun to watch because
he had just incredible style in the air.
Pretty much no one touched his style for years.
When the video realm came in, it was kind of like Damian was
on top of that.
KEVIN ENGLISH: There's this one shot in "Snowboarders in
Exile" where the camera's real low, and it's looking at
Damian, and he's just pointing up, and that's how I felt.
It was like that's Damian.
DAVE SEOANE: Well, the first time I saw Damian, I was
actually still in high school.
And I knew Damian from--
he lived near where I grew up in an area
called Calaveras County.
And he had a big quarter pipe at his house which is like a
half hour away so we'd skate.
And then the first time I saw him snowboarding was in Iron
Mountain in probably '85.
And I remember they were all riding these Avalanche
snowboards, and they were kind of really like really stiff
ironing boards.
I watched Damian ride down the hill, and he grabbed the lift
tower, and he grabbed it, and he spun around 360 like a
couple inches off the ground.
I was like, wow, he's so good.
That guy's spectacular.
He's got good hair.
I think he was just like the city kid who moved to the
hills, and so he had spiky, blond hair
and spider web eyeliner.
So Damian learned how to fight really quick.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I was moving from San Jose where I lived as
a city boy kid, skateboarder and stuff, and I was young, 13
years old, and we were moving up to Bear Valley.
And I wanted to buy a Burton snowboard, it was the only
snowboard company that even existed, or that I
knew about back then.
And my brother told my mom to hold off because he was going
to make a snowboard.
He had a little wood shop going, and sure enough I got
that snowboard, the first one he ever made, the first
Avalanche ever in '83.
We went up to the local mountain.
I made about six or eight turns on my first run ever
just in the powder, just bouncing turns, and was
flipping my lid, thinking it was the
best thing ever invented.
There was a competition at Soda Springs, the world
championships, and this has would have been about '85.
And I didn't even know there was other snowboarders in the
world, let alone have a world championship.
So I went over to that, and I remember walking around the
corner from the parking lot, and I saw about 50 boards
lined up in front of this lodge, and I
about *** my pants.
I couldn't believe there was 50 other
snowboarders in the world.
And so I went into the lodge and everybody's all the same
type of people, these surf rat looking guys, skaters.
Back then, if you snowboarded and somebody else snowboard,
you were instantly friends because there
was so few of us.
I had way more balls than brains back then, so I would
hit any jump just for people to go, holy ***, you see that
kid fly off that jump.
I had a little, white mohawk, and I just dressed like a
little new wave ***.
So I was hitting all the jumps I could, and just to show off,
I would break my neck to show off, and sure enough I ended
up in the hospital on that Soda Springs competition, but
it was pretty fun doing it.
MIKE MCENTIRE: Damian was one of the most ballsiest people
that's ever been involved in snowboarding.
To this day, you can look back at his footage from like
20-plus years ago, and it's fully legit.
The guy was jumping off 60-foot cliffs for fun.
And I would go up and riding at Squaw, and I'd just be
taking runs with my boys and look up, and there's Damian
popping off mainline going like 50 feet
for the hell of it.
And you're like, damn dude, what's up with that guy, he's
freaking nuts.
I saw him bust out some stuff, no cameras, just
gigantic, for fun.
That's killer, man.
I love that.
That just shows you where it's in someone's heart, you know.
SPEAKER: What do you think the silliest
snowboarding trick is?
DAMIAN SANDERS: Every trick I did last year.
When people started flipping that was a huge deal.
The first flips ever, we were all on this little jump exit,
Donner Ski Ranch.
It was right underneath the chairlift, and it was like a
little ski jump kicker.
I think it was Steve Graham and myself.
Steve was a nut.
He would do anything any time.
I remember trying it over and over again, and doing 3/4 of a
flip so many times, just clearing my head, and smacking
the snow again and again.
And then finally one time they came all around, landed on my
feet, and I about *** myself.
I'm still standing!
Rode away from it and then started getting bigger and
bigger, and then I started laying them out, and then once
you can lay it out and control your spin, then you'd sit
there upside down, and go do I want to pull around yet.
And then you can do it off of anything.
So I was hucking huge airs off of cliffs or huge kickers, and
just stalling it out in the air, and grabbing the board
and, poking it, and just looking down on at the ground.
Back then it was so cool because no one could do it.
Now it would be nothing, but it was cool at the time.
There was guys that could flip before I could, but nobody was
grabbing their board or anything.
I think I invented the iguana back flip and some other
things where I was trying to grab different ways upside
down, and that was like after doing flips for almost a year.
KEVIN ENGLISH: Damien, Squaw Valley, doing massive iguana
back flips, and it was ridiculous.
TODD RICHARDS: For a while, he was full grabbing wherever,
like back here, but you couldn't even say *** because
Damien was going 10 times bigger than anybody else.
I still say that today.
Like if you're going 25 feet out of the half pipe and you
just happen to just do the wackest grab, we'd be like,
oh, that's gay.
The dude is still going way bigger than you'll ever go,
and it's insane.
At some point, you're just like, who gives a ***.
STEVE GRAHAM: Damian was always my favorite rider.
I still wish he was riding now.
I'd love to ride with him.
My funnest times ever riding was back in the early days in
Tahoe just chasing Damian, and we were just a couple idiots
that wouldn't look at anything.
Just, what do you think?
Oh yeah, [INAUDIBLE].
No landing, no woo-hoo.
And just we pulled that off for awhile.
I don't know how I'm still even walking.
I was taller.
The scariest time I've ever had snowboarding is really any
day we'd go riding with Damian 'cause if there's anyone
[INAUDIBLE] that.
He's going the biggest, the highest, the fastest and
pushes you.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I'd have to say Steve Graham was probably
my favorite of all time because he was such a badass
rider, and he would do anything at any time, hucking
off of cliffs and stuff, and he really pushed me.
He pushed me more than anybody ever did in snowboarding.
We saw things different than other people did because we
were both at the same talent caliber.
We could see how you could hit a jump and fly 80 feet over
there and land on the downhill.
It was something else that nobody else could see because
it was just out of their realm, and I had more fun
riding with him than anybody because of that.
DAVE SEOANE: I think that Steve Graham is a total
catalyst to Damian because both those guys were kind of
out of their minds, where I think Damian had a lot more
control of what he was doing, and Steve just went for it,
shoot first, ask questions later type of
personality back then.
And so those two together, that's where I think the sport
really got pushed, with those two guys jumping off of things
and flipping off of everything really big.
Yeah, I guess that's the biggest thing I
was influenced by.
KEVIN ENGLISH: For like personal style?
It was like, Damian was the guy, just
because he was so unique.
My hair was fully blond, Damian style fauxhawk kind of
thing going, and then I'd take the hair spray and get it to
go straight up, and I'd do this before
I'd ride every day.
I'd look in the mirror, and I'd be like yeah, Damian,
that's pretty sick.
I saw how Damian wrote his name in all capital letters.
It was just Damian, that's all it was, so I started signing
my name that way.
I'd say he influenced me a little when I was a kid.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Getting all that popularity was so fun
back then especially when you're young.
You're in your early '20s or late teens, and everybody
knows your name, and everybody's,
can I get your autograph?
TODD RICHARDS: Damian was a spectacle.
In all those movies, he was the dude out back flipping the
landing, landing would just, [WHOOSHING SOUND], be gone.
He'd land out on the flats or go bigger than anybody.
He had the Penthouse chick, was his girlfriend, and she
was always naked, and he was always trying to show you
pictures of her without her clothes on, and he had the
stupid hair, and he had a posse of weird dudes dressed
in black that may or may not have been women, I don't know.
It was just like weird weirdness, but that was
Damian, and it was just like, oh, here comes Damian.
TOM BURT: He's definitely set himself out from the crowd.
He had his Billy Idol hairdo and his headband, but that's
just what was going on, neon was in at that time.
Damian was the guy you wanted in your house to have over for
dinner because he's going to do the dishes before he
leaves, but his image might not have
shown that to the public.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Back then, snowboard
clothes barely existed.
And it was like we were wearing anything that we
either we got off the street that we wore to a nightclub,
or we would wear leather jackets with
logos on the back.
It was pretty funny.
And anything that mixed with ski gear because there was no
such thing as snowboard company or snowboard gear yet.
STEVE GRAHAM: I don't know, I think Damian kind of liked a
couple of pieces more than he lets you on.
Like in "Exile," he was wearing that one, it was like
four colors.
It was amazingly painful, but I don't know, it was
just at that time.
'89 was just neon, and I see it come back like neon tie
dye, and just two things I really love.
TODD RICHARDS: We need someone like Damian in the industry
still, especially someone that's got that much flair,
and he's out there, but at the same time, he could get along
with anyone's grandparents as soon as they got over the fact
that he had a freaking mohawk, he's just a nice dude.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Funny story about how Dana Nicholson and
Jeff Miles and I met.
I was with Palmer on the lift, and we're cruising up, and I
see these two guys in leather jackets, black
pants, and red berets.
They looked like total LA gangster type guys, and it was
so funny, gangsters back in the day with a little bit of
fashion to them.
So they're snowboarding underneath me and, I go look
at those guys, those guys are cool.
And Shaun Palmer's all.
What a ***.
And then I snowboard up to them and, oh, how you guys
doing, and they're all hey what's up, and they acted like
they didn't know who I was.
And so we started riding together just 'cause everybody
kind of was friends back then, and come to find out they
traveled from Southern California all the way to this
resort to meet me 'cause they knew I rode there, and they
had seen me in magazines, and they were all we want to ride
with that guy, that guy should be our friend.
And sure enough, I just saw them and go
these guys are cool.
So the rest was history.
We ended up being friends for 25 years now.
The three of us have never left each other's sides.
We travelled the world like that.
DANA NICHOLSON: You look like a little kid.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Like a little girl.
[LAUGHTER]
DAMIAN SANDERS: I was probably 19, 18.
No I didn't even learn to drive yet.
DANA NICHOLSON: Nah, nah, you were 16 right there dude.
DAMIAN SANDERS: 16 and I didn't know how to drive.
DANA NICHOLSON: Look at you.
You look like a fruit loop right there, look.
I got--
DAMIAN SANDERS: Pink pants!
DANA NICHOLSON: I got pink pants on, but he looks like a
fruit loop.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Look at that, look.
Holy ***, that's Dana.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DAMIAN SANDERS: 20 years ago.
Look at your color scheme.
Holy ***.
DANA NICHOLSON: Somebody should've
pulled me aside and--
DAMIAN SANDERS: And look at those gloves, what the *** am
I wearing, Mr. Roboto.
[LAUGHTER]
DANA NICHOLSON: Holy ***, look at those things, Jesus.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Look at this outfit.
DANA NICHOLSON: Look at that ***.
DAMIAN SANDERS: That's some good-looking clothes.
DANA NICHOLSON: Yeah, that's solid.
Look at your little pink with the white and black ***
Boy George ***.
[INAUDIBLE]
DAMIAN SANDERS: We were like Wham!
This is at the first competition I ever went to,
when I told you I went to Soda Springs, that's from that
competition, that's my style back then.
Yeah, like no high backs, and there's just little straps
holding my feet on these little piece of *** bindings.
DANA NICHOLSON: That's a frog suit for sure, dude.
Damn.
DAMIAN SANDERS: I don't even know how we came up with this.
What it was, we had racing back in the day, everybody
thought you had to wear these speed suits to race.
You might save a quarter of a second off of your time like
it mattered.
DANA NICHOLSON: Did it work?
DAMIAN SANDERS: No, it never worked.
And what happened is I put this on, and then I had a
shirt or a jacket, and then somebody took a picture of it,
and it ended up in a magazine, and then every single time we
had a photo shoot they were all, could you
wear the green outfit?
That photographed real well.
***, the green outfit again?
That's got a Donner ticket on it.
I was in a photoshoot probably 15 years ago
at Donner Ski Ranch.
DANA NICHOLSON: That's me.
DAMIAN SANDERS: That's Dana.
So we used to have to take our shells off because they were
hard boot shells, and we'd walk around in the inner
liners, and then when you got to the resort, you'd
put your shells on.
DANA NICHOLSON: But the thing is, dude, we'd ride these
ironing boards, and we' killed everybody on the hard boots.
We just crushed them.
DAMIAN SANDERS: When this came out, I remember I was so
pissed, because this was the first time I'd ever grabbed
the board on a back flip, and my leg blocked it.
And so I was all ***, nobody's gonna know, and back
then it mattered so much what your friends thought about if
you were the first guy to do a grab back flip or something.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DANA NICHOLSON: We're rocking *** falling posters.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Falling posters.
I was stoked when this came out.
This ad came out, and it was right across the street.
This was in Carmelo or something, but they had one
right across the street where we were hanging out at the
beach, And we'd go down to the beach, and I'd be like, oh
hey, check it out, over there, look at that billboard.
That's me, baby.
DANA NICHOLSON: That was back in the day.
Some funny ***, dude, seeing this *** again.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Here's where I was trying to be a rock star
for about 10 years there.
That's the necklace I was talking about you could take
off and cut yourself.
DANA NICHOLSON: That was your Danzig thing, huh.
DAMIAN SANDERS: My Danzig necklace.
DANA NICHOLSON: That was your Danzig period.
DAMIAN SANDERS: God, every outfit's gayer than the last.
DANA NICHOLSON: Yeah, that paid the bills though.
Holy ***.
DAMIAN SANDERS: That hairdo.
And more gay, gay--
DANA NICHOLSON: Look at that.
DAMIAN SANDERS: --super gay.
Good and Fruity, it's perfect, huh.
[LAUGHTER]