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ARTO SAARI: I first met Dylan in Barcelona.
He was just a little kid, and he had massive audios on,
birdhouse board, hat backwards, long hair--
same long hair.
And he must have been like 14 or 15.
He didn't talk much back then.
INTERVIEWER: He was really quiet?
ARTO SAARI: Yeah, he was pretty quiet.
I was recovering from my first knee injury.
I wasn't able to skate, but I was just wanted
to go out and stuff.
It was just me and him.
I ended up filming him on some random spot, skating.
I was like, come on, do something.
I'm pointing the camera at you.
INTERVIEWER: You were filming?
ARTO SAARI: Yeah, I was filming him.
And I think Anton was around.
So I just tried to shoot a couple of photos and stuff.
But no, he didn't have a crazy kid style.
It was like--
or maybe it was right at that time that he started
developing it.
It was early, early stages of his style.
No, he was already good back then.
He was actually [INAUDIBLE] before me, I think.
MARK OBLOW: Basically once he started coming on all the
quick trips, he just started coming into his own.
And then at that time, Reese was a pretty big
influence on him.
And then Reese started Rasa Libre.
And basically they were just like, come to Rasa Libre.
And it was on.
DYLAN RIEDER: Reese asked me to ride for him, Reese Forbes,
because he started it with Matt.
He asked me to ride for him.
I was like, yeah, *** it, let's do it.
INTERVIEWER: It seemed like it had really good
art direction, also.
DYLAN RIEDER: The graphics were sick, man.
They had awesome graphics.
I think it was all like Michael Leon and stuff.
I don't know if you ever saw the board.
It was like, the wine bottles, and like
the flowers and stuff.
And then there was this one with this snake stuff on the
back of it, just blank wood.
There was a bunch of cool ones.
I think a lot of people were paying
attention to Rasa Libre.
It was such an awesome company.
I think that helped me out.
ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN: I had seen the kid around, skating,
and knew that there was some special about him.
Because no one had seen anything of Dylan either.
All he had was this Quicksilver promo thing.
MARK OBLOW: I think the TransWorld part really set him
from being a little kid to being a good amateur.
HEATH KIRCHART: That was kind of him coming into his own,
showcasing his style of skating.
So the TransWorld video was I think when probably most
people learned about him.
ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN: I feel like he was on the--
he was working on that, riding for Rasa Libre.
And then Rasa Libre fell apart, I feel like, in the
middle of that video.
And he finished it out riding Workshop boards.
I want to say that he did.
Or that transition was happening, or something.
DYLAN RIEDER: I don't really know, honestly.
I mean, I was pretty young at the time.
I didn't think it was like, oh, it's
going out of business.
I mean, whatever, cool.
MARK OBLOW: You know, at that time, when the Rasa Libre
thing was going out, he had numerous phone calls from
other sponsors that wanted to hook him up.
Out of all the thing when the Rasa Libre thing went-- he was
like, there was Omar, there was Reese, there was all those
guys I was dealing with.
But Dylan was by far the most that everyone was wanting.
Everyone was calling, going, all right,
what's up with Dylan?
GREG HUNT: People were saying that he kind of wanted to
maybe ride for Anti Hero, but he wasn't sure.
Because he was through Deluxe, too.
He'd been talking to those guys, maybe.
MARK OBLOW: Yeah, obviously he had to get
voted on to both companies.
I don't think he was voted on completely with Anti Hero.
I knew he definitely looked up to those dudes.
DYLAN RIEDER: They asked me to ride for Anti Hero.
Which I was super psyched on.
Then I talked to Jim.
And he wanted me to ride for him.
And I remember thinking, ***, I don't really fit the roster
for Anti Hero.
I'm not a super gnarly pool skater.
Because at that time, there wasn't any Vans on the team, I
don't think.
It was just Tony and Stranger and Hewitt and stuff.
I went on an Anti Hero Vans trip, but I didn't really get
along with one of the riders.
So I told Stranger I was over it.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: Do you want to tell me who it was?
DYLAN RIEDER: No.
Not really.
I probably shouldn't even have brought that up.
At the same time as well, AVE had asked
me to ride for Workshop.
So that was a big factor in it as well.
I don't know.
I just felt that Workshop was kind of more my steez.
And *** AVE and Dill and Heath
were my favorite skaters.
So I was like, ***, I want to ride for the company with all
the dudes I look up to.
Not too many kids get to say they ride for their favorite
company with their favorite skaters.
GREG HUNT: He got on right before that TransWorld video
part came out that he was in.
And he just seemed like he really fit, especially with
where Workshop was at the time.
They were talking about starting to do a video.
And at the time there weren't a lot of young guys-- like new
ams on the team.
HEATH KIRCHART: I mean, Greg was the main
motivation behind that.
He was really psyched on Dylan.
It was all Greg trying to--
because Greg was working on "Mind Field."
And at the time, he was like, well, the video needs these
younger kids, and stuff.
And I agreed with it, and everything.
And it did.
And so Greg was the main motivation to
make the video better.
ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN: We were starting the workshop video.
I was living with Greg.
It was 2000 *** 6, or the end of 5, I think.
And I think we were kind of riding out that lull of when
Pappalardo had originally quit.
It was a slow start.
And there was no real new blood on the team.
And we knew we needed that in the video and just for the
Workshop in general.
I remember talking to Greg.
And I was like, dude, this kid--
Omar and Dylan being a ideal package.
We were talking about both of them at the same time.
We needed to kind of jump on these kids, you know?