Smooth style, great trick selection and VX1000 – Patrick Praman puts all the pieces together in his first solo video part, filmed from coast to coast and everywhere in between.

Photo by Gabe Morford

Sorry, you have to refresh our memories a little bit, how did you get involved with Thunder? Wasn’t it through an Instagram contest, what’s the story?

It was that Spitfire A Year To Burn Instagram contest and the shop that I rode for posted my footage and tagged the contest. I didn’t even know that they did that until my Instagram was kind of blowing up about me making it to the finals and I was so confused. The same time I was in Seattle for a best foot forward contest and that’s where I met Christian and Jim from DLX. Christian recognized me from the Instagram contest, we talked and hung out for a bit in Seattle. I think about a week later I got a box of REAL boards, a set of Thunders and some Spitfires. I was tripping out for sure!

Did you think anything would come of it when you entered that contest? How long ago was that?

No not at all, that was about two years ago I think.

As a skater that has grown up in the age of social media, are you sick of hearing all the old guys complain about Instagram skaters and the golden era of full-length videos?

Not sick of it because I understand where these guys are coming from. I grew up watching full lengths but a lot of kids nowadays just watch skating thru Instagram, and that’s what they’re influenced by. It’s different times now.

What’s your take on it? Individual parts vs. full lengths? What are your favorite things to work on?

I think it’s rare for a group of skaters to come together and focus on a full length because everyone has different projects they have to work on for different companies. It makes you really appreciate full-length videos. I like working on a full-length video, but I also like filming for an individual part. Regardless you’re going to be out there skating with your friends, it’s just where the footage ends up that determines what that project is going to be.

Okay, fast forward to the present day. You just moved out to Long Beach in January, right? Where did you move from and how’s it treating you so far?

I moved out here at the beginning of December from Virginia, and It’s been great. Having so many homies here made the transition really easy, and I left right when winter was getting pretty bad, so I was stoked!

Was it a tough decision to make the move? Or have you always known it was something you were going to do?

It was definitely tough moving away from home, my friends and family but It was something I really wanted to do. I made the decision to make the move about a year ago, but before that, it was always something I thought about.

Was there pressure from your family to go to school & start a career or have they been pretty supportive of your move and skateboarding in general?

I was actually going to college and left right before I got my associates. My family is really big on education and wanted me to finish school before pursuing anything else. They understood that school is always going to be there, but the opportunity to do something with skating isn’t. My family has been super supportive of my move here and skateboarding, I’m very grateful for that.

Have you found a good crew to roll with out here? I know you’ve been rolling with the REAL crew a bit, who else do you skate with these days?

I’ve been skating a bunch with Tyler Bamdas, Josh Douglas, Christian Dufrene, Ryan Hamburg, Will Gomez, Julian Lewis and a couple of other homies. We’ve been filming VX for Variety Vol.2, It’s Tyler’s next video that he’s putting out thru Thrasher. Very stoked to be able to go out with these dudes and work on a project with the homies.

Frontside Hurricane – Photo by Christian Yepez

Your Thunder part has tricks from all over the country, did you film for it on your move out to Long Beach? Or did it come about through other trips?

All of the footage came about from taking a bunch of trips while I was living in Virginia. Jevans lives in North Carolina, so the majority of the footage is there, but every other month we’d try to hit spots in other states. Sometimes Jevans would come up north, and we’d skate spots in Jersey, Maryland or New York but mostly southern states like Florida, Atlanta or Alabama. I always loved going down south, so many good BBQ spots and skate spots.

You’ve only had one other full video part besides this Thunder one, correct? How’d it come about?

Just going to North Carolina as much as I could to film with Jevans. Any free time that I had from school and work, I would just buy a bus ticket down for a few days. Homies from different states would come and meet up in NC, and we’d skate all day, light up as many spots as we could at night. That was the routine for about 2 years, we finished that first part in the first year and just kept filming. Right before I left for California is when we wrapped up this thunder part.

How do you approach filming skating, are you someone that thinks about it a lot and goes out with certain projects and tricks in mind? Or more just rolling with friends and see what happens?

Since I’ve moved here its been more of just rolling out with friends and seeing what spots we can hit, seeing how the day plays out. But when I lived back home, I’d definitely had to plan stuff out only because we would have such a short amount of time to film. I’d only get to film for a few days every other week, so I didn’t want to waste any time on those trips.

You’ve recently gotten a pretty big opportunity to be a part of the Thailand Olympic skate team, how did that come about? Are you already committed to doing it or still deciding?

It’s still up in the air, and they’re still figuring out all the details, but if it does work out, I think it’d be pretty sick. Nate Alton hit me up about it because the dudes over there contacted him about me. I’m not too big on skating contests but I think it’s a cool opportunity and I’d be stoked to skate with the dudes competing from Thailand.

Front Shove-it 50-50 – Photo by Gabe Morford

Does that sort of notoriety make you feel like you need to approach skateboarding differently, to represent your country and all that comes with it?

It doesn’t change my approach at skateboarding, but it definitely makes me want to be a better skateboarder. Skating in a contest and going out to film a trick in the field is two completely different things. If I get the opportunity to compete, I would want to do the best that I could.

Do you get jealous of some of the skaters that have been in it since they were so young that they’ve never had to work a regular job? Or do you think there is value in being able to work a 9-5 job?

Not jealous but It makes you wish you started skating at an early age like these other dudes did. Some of them never had to work a job, and all they ever had to focus on was skateboarding which is crazy. But I think there Is value in working a 9-5, it helps your work ethic and it really makes you appreciate the free time when you can just skate.

You’re working at an office supply store right now correct? How’s that going?

It’s going really good. I have a couple of friends that work there that also skate, and they’ve been super flexible with trips and days off. Living in California isn’t cheap, and I knew I was going to jump into a job when I moved out here, so I’m stoked it’s a place that’s down to work with my schedule and to have my homies working with me.

What’s the end goal for you of moving to Long Beach, do you have a dream life in mind that you’re working towards, or just living day by day, worry about that other shit later?

I’m not really the kind of person to live day by day, you gotta have goals and work hard to get to where you want to be. I definitely have goals that I’m working towards out here, to fully support myself through skating so all I can focus on is filming, skating and traveling as much as I can. That’s the dream for sure.

Any shout outs you want to give.

Nate Alton, Jim Thiebaud , Christian Alexander, Tim Fulton, Quincy Freeman and everyone at DLX, Mike Sinclair, My family and all of my dawgs back in Virginia and North Carolina. Jevans and Tyler Bamdas for helping out so much.

Best of luck with everything Patrick, your future is looking pretty bright from here.

For more, follow @patrickpraman on Instagram.