Unfortunately due to a server crash, I no longer have access to the original emails from this era, so much of this based on a fuzzy memory. Check out my shoes in the photo above. Those were Tony Trujillo TNT signature Vans. They looked like Ronald McDonald colors but I loved them. – Kilwag
As mentioned earlier, Cold War Skateboards began when our plan to open a skateshop fizzled after the spot we chose was rented to a gun shop before we could sign paperwork. We couldn’t see a skateshop working in any other location in that town, so we put it on hold. Indeed, when a skateshop did eventually open in that same location, it would not last either. They would carry some Cold War boards though, maybe that’s why they went of business? Help us out here, what was the name of that shop in Newberg that was on the corner on the way into the skatepark?
Steve and I were sort of waffling about what to do and from what I recall, we were leaning towards a starting a skateboard company despite no real knowledge of the industry outside of making fun of it quite a bit. We were wary of being stuck with. a bunch of boards we wouldn’t be able to sell so during brainstorming we realized if we started with something that had a built in fanbase we might have a better job of succeeding. Bands were the obvious choice, but who would bother returning a call or an email from an unknown company with no proven track record? We had to think small, but big enough. I had a tenuous connection to one legendary Chicago band that Steve and I both loved as midwestern punk rockers of certain age. What was that connection?
In 1986 I was technically still in college but in reality not doing anything but skateboarding and hanging out with punkers, new wavers and other misfits in the house I would soon move into. One of the housemate’s father worked for the same (HVAC?) company that Jeff Pezzati worked out, and somehow it got to Jeff that his co-worker’s son (Also a Jeff, but nicknamed Oreo) was going to school at the University of Illinois. Naked Raygun was trying to put together their first show in Champaign-Urbana and needed a warmup band. In talking to Oreo’s dad he learned his son had some band connections or lived with a band or something , so he got the number for our house, which was known as Ten Shitty Guys even though it had about 12 people at the time, give or take. One day when I should have been in class instead of hanging out at the TSG house, we got a call from Naked Raygun’s manager who was Jeff’s girlfriend Karen at the time.
Karen gave us the lowdown on the show, said she had heard we had a band, and asked if we wanted to open up for them if we put up flyers. This was a huge moment in the house, at first we couldn’t believe it, Oreo had his hand over the mouthpiece and asked us what we wanted to do. There was no band that lived in the house, but some of the guys were passable at playing a few instruments and one had played in a band in high school. There was a brief, heated discussion before we agreed that we should take the gig and start a band, but not let them know that we didn’t already have a band. I can’t remember exactly, but I feel like we only had a month at best to throw everything together, including writing songs.
We ended up calling ourselves McWilson, a combination of McRad and Mr Wilson, the long suffering neighbor of Dennis the Menace after whom the term “Wilson” was coined, having the skateboard fly out from under you and landing on your back. At this point I was a no-show at most of my classes. I don’t know if my parents had heard from the school, but I had gotten a letter from them saying I was going to have to move home at the end of the semester. It’s was a letter because I had sort of moved into TSG already, crashing on the couch, and they couldn’t get ahold of me at my dorm room phone. I think I only saw my roommate a handful of times that last semester. I called my parents from the club and told them I wasn’t going to move home and couldn’t talk about it because I was about to go onstage. What a dick! In any case, we got our act together and managed to put on a show that went over well, including using broken skateboards as percussion. Raygun liked us enough to offer us a support gig in Chicago, which we were sadly never able to take them up on because we didn’t last long enough. We were the toast of our town for about a couple of months, playing a handful of shows at clubs and parties. Then our guitar player graduated and moved to Chicago, so that was the end.
Skip ahead to Steve and Randy trying to start a skateboard company. Here’s where it gets even fuzzier.
From what I recall, I was traveling when I heard about the death of Joe Strummer, and this is going to sound melodramatic but it really affected me. Steve and I figured a Naked Raygun board would at least sell to our friends and some people in the Chicago area so we had a fair shot at making our money back. Attis point it was just an idea. Strummer’s death pushed me to actually do something. I think it was the next day, I somehow scraped an email address for Pezzati off the web somewhere and sent him an email introducing myself as the terrible singer in the band that opened for their first CU show, and gave him the short version of how we actually formed the band just for that specific occasion. I went on to detail I was starting a skateboard company and wanted to make a Naked Raygun skateboard, and we would pay him the industry standard of $3 a board for signature models. I don’t know where Found that number but I believe it was the going rate at the time we made the offer.
To my surprise, Jeff replied fairly quickly and said he was “on board.” At this stage Raygun was not actively together, but I still thought there would be some sort of contract I would probably make up and then sign, but fortunately it was more or less the equivalent of a handshake deal via email. I called Steve to tell him the news and that was the beginning of Cold War Skateboards!
Next installment: Who makes skateboards?
