Al Hodgson interview

Interview & portrait: Genualdo Kingsford

Tell us about where you grew up.
I was actually born in London, but I basically grew up in Brighton. We moved there when I was five.

What prompted your family’s move to Brighton? 
We couldn’t really afford to live in London and Brighton was a lot cheaper back then. Also, I was quite asthmatic when I was a kid and London was really polluted at the time.

How did you start skating? 
I wanted to skate when I was a little kid because of the Tony Hawk’s games, but I never really plucked up the courage until secondary school. A friend of mine called Luke Frisby told me: “We skate at this little skatepark at the weekends,” so I started going there with him and his little crew. It was by the Marina, one of those crappy metal parks from the late ’90s, but we skated there because The Level was way too scary.

In what sense?
Just kind of aggro and very boisterous. It was just intimidating and not very nice for younger skaters.

When did filming skating come into the picture?
I always liked filming. I had my dad’s little Handycam and I would make silly videos even before I started skating. After I started going to that park by the Marina, I met some more skaters, and when I told them that I was too intimidated to go to The Level, my friend Isaac Miller, who was already part of the scene there, said: “Just come down with your camera. Everyone will be nice to you.” So I took the camera there and obviously everyone wanted to film. From then on, even though I liked skating, I filmed a lot more because it made me feel safer there. Everyone had my back because I guess they just wanted to be filmed (laughs). I probably owe getting into filming skating to Isaac.

Did you ever have ambitions to be a sponsored skater?
I was always around skaters like Isaac who were a lot better than me, more so after I started taking filming seriously, so the idea of being sponsored was pretty much off the table from the beginning.

What is OWL?
It stands for Orwellian World Landscape. We used to make a lot more product – including boards – but now it’s essentially a moniker or pseudonym for the skate video stuff I do, or we do.

You seem passionate about documenting your local scene through your videos, but also through archiving those from the past. Can you talk a little bit about this and what motivates you? 
I’ve always followed and been really interested in local skating. There were a lot of filmers making videos in Brighton and the surrounding areas when I was young and I found that super inspiring. More recently, I realised that if I didn’t upload some of these videos people made, they could be lost forever. In some cases, there was just one DVD copy floating around. So much time and effort went into them and they’re kind of like subcultural benchmarks in the scene, so it’s quite important that people have access to them.

I’ve been enjoying your deep-dive spot-specific Instagram posts lately. Tell us more about those.
I think it’s interesting to show what happened at some of these spots by putting all the interesting tricks that have gone down together in one place, while also including a bit of architectural history. It’s funny, a lot of people comment things like: “It’s like This Old Ledge, but Brighton,” and obviously I appreciate that because I absolutely love Ted Barrow, but I always try to caveat that by pointing out that I’ve been doing those posts for a little while, since 2019. At the same time, I’ve just recently picked it up again and Ted doing those documentaries really inspired me to get back on it. A lot of the spots down here have some pretty interesting heritage that sometimes gets overlooked. Also, it’s an opportunity to show off some of the first tricks that cemented these places as spots. 

Back in the day, I remember people saying that Brighton didn’t have many street spots. Were you aware of this opinion, and if so, was that a motivation for you to document the scene?
That definitely was a reason. I always got annoyed when people said there were no spots. I was like: “Well, you’re not looking hard enough.” OK, it doesn’t have spots in the conventional sense, like Lloyds in Bristol where everyone meets, but I always thought there were a lot of spots in Brighton and, to be honest, there were way more back then. The other important thing to say here is that people used to skate The Level so much back then. It was in every video. It sounds harsh, but I think people were just too lazy to leave and that fed into what people (elsewhere) thought of the street spots. That was another reason why I wanted to start trying to do more stuff in the scene here. I knew there were spots and I knew that you didn’t just have to go to The Level to film.

What’s your favourite Brighton scene video?
Brighten by James Cheetham probably had the most impact, but I always really liked death aesthetic by Sirus (F Gahan) because that was the first all-street video. Harrison Woolgar’s recent video (Headz) is definitely up there too.

Who are some important and influential people from the Brighton scene over the years, from your perspective?
There are obvious people like Don Brown, who’s from here and went on to do all sorts of stuff, but for me, the person who made the biggest impact in terms of putting Brighton on the map through going down the industry route – having photos and interviews in magazines and doing video parts – was probably Louis Cooper-Robinson. He definitely did the most in that space and he was very good. James Cheetham did a lot for the scene with his videos, especially when I was growing up. From a completely personal perspective, Joss Heierli’s part in Brighten changed the way I looked at Brighton skateboarding, specifically how you could approach skating a city that doesn’t have conventional spots. 

It seems to me that, partly because of the popularity of recent videos made by yourself and Harrison, Brighton has become more of a skate destination of late. There was the adidas x Flatspot event in Hove earlier this month and it seems like more skaters have been visiting to film and shoot photos in the city. What’s your take on that?
I think you’re totally right. This might sound weird to say, but that was directly my intention. I’m not saying it’s all down to me, but when I started filming and making projects here, I wanted to try to show off Brighton’s potential. Between 2023-24 there were three (magazine) covers shot in Brighton. Sometimes I look at them and think: “Yes, we did it!” I really wanted Brighton to have more of a presence in the UK skate world because I felt that there was so much skill here – Harrison, Dan (Fisher-Eustance), Dougie (George) for example – and people were motivated. I thought: “Let’s try to put this on the map,” and the fact that it’s happening now feels really good.

You are an avid spot hunter. Talk us through your process.
I’ve lived here forever, so there probably isn’t a road that I haven’t walked down. It’s not a massive place, so I know the city – Brighton and Hove – really well, but for Sussex more widely, I spend an obsessive amount of time on Google Maps. I pretty much always try to check a spot out as a civilian before I go to skate or film there. I also really like driving around Sussex with my wife and I find lots of things that way. I look up abandoned property on auction houses and I do a lot of lurking on urban exploration forums. I even found some spots on a forum about telephone exchanges recently. 

Tom (Pickard) spoke about that briefly in his Debris interview. One was the ledge with the small bank after, right?
Yeah. So there are forums for people who are really obsessed with these old BT buildings that were built in the ’60s and ’70s. Lots of buildings from that era have been developed into housing or knocked down, but because these exchanges belong to BT, they’ve remained as storage houses. I went on one of these forums, looked at all the exchanges in Sussex and found a couple of spots. 

What’s your policy on sharing spots?
If I’m working on a project with someone and I find a spot, or we find one, I’ll save it for that project. Once it’s been documented and been in a video, I’ll share the pin for sure. I have a public spot map with all the pins from our videos, plus a few extras, which I share with anyone who asks for it. I don’t want to gatekeep people from skating down here.

The other day you told us about how you incorporate checking online spot finds in person into your regular days out around Sussex with your wife, Amy.
She really understands the labour and craft of it, so if, for example, on a day out I say: “I’m just going to quickly detour into this industrial estate to check something out,” she’s usually down to just hang out in the car for a couple of minutes. I’m never gone for long, but in the past I’ve cheekily checked out six or seven spots in a day. She’s very patient. I appreciate her. Thank you so much Amy for putting up with my obsessiveness.  

What is your most satisfying spot find?
Hodson’s Mill (no relation to me) is definitely my favourite. It’s an abandoned flour mill deep in East Sussex. I found it on an urbex forum, we went to check it out and there were two really sick manny pads. There’s footage in Debris and Tom has been back more recently. It’s so fun to skate.

Which of your video projects are you most proud of?
I was pretty stoked on Maritime because it was a concept project that I felt actually worked out. I was really happy with Dougie’s Periphery part for Free because he’s so easy to work with and it performed super well. Quentin (Guthrie) worked on that initially and kindly donated clips, but I think we (Dougie and Al) only filmed for about two months and ended up with two thirds of the part. It was sick how fortuitously it all came together. I was also really stoked on Somnium because I felt like that was the part I always wanted to see from Harrison. He fully pushed himself for every clip and I think that shows.

Run us through some influences on your skate filmmaking.
When I was filming in the late 2010s, I was really influenced by Zach Chamberlin, Colin Read, Yoan Taillandier and Josh Stewart. In terms of their filming and approach, they were so game-changing at the time and still inspire me to this day. More recently, I’ve been really inspired by a plethora of filmers in the US who are really pushing spot hunting and the east-coast aesthetic, which I think is super sick. Some examples are: Zach Sayles, the Threads Idea Vacuum crew, Justin Funk, Tayrn Ward, Aaron Christopher, the Rust Belt Trap crew, Paul Young, Adam Bos, Kevin Delgrosso, Logan Matthews, Jeff Cecere, Tyler Smolinski, Justin Bohl and Jake Todd.

Name some influences on your skating, past and present.
When I was younger, I absolutely loved Wes Kremer and Tyler Surrey. I’ve always really liked Mike Anderson, Jake Johnson, Evan Smith and Guru Khalsa. Who else? I’m a big fan of Matt Militano, the Sour guys – particularly Simon Isaksson – and more recently, Jameel Douglas. So many skaters are inspiring, but I’d say Tyler Surrey is my favourite.

I remember you saying that Gradient (released by Vague) would probably be your last part, but the following year you filmed another for Debris with Tom Pickard. How did that come about?
I’d filmed loads in Brighton and I really did think that Gradient would be my last part because my body is pretty toast. I’ve got so many injuries – I’ve got arthritis in my foot and my ankles are fucked – but when Tom said: “We’re doing this project where we’re journeying around Sussex and finding all these spots,” I just couldn’t turn it down. I knew there would be a lot of fun adventures. I was filming at the time – I was working on Dan’s Free part (Centrifuge) – so it was pretty gnarly and it burned me out, but working on Debris was super fun and I have a lot of good memories from that project.

Tell us about your working relationship with Tom. 
Tom is so sick. He’s just got such a drive to go out and explore, find new spots and document them. I really admire his motivation and patience, but worryingly, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t experience pain or fear (laughs).

Your relationship with Harrison has been quite interesting over the last few years. You already spoke about filming Somnium, but at the same time he was filming you – along with Jude Harrison – for Gradient. Then a year later, he released a full-length video – Headz – that was really well received. Would you say that in some ways you were a mentor to Harrison? I know you were helping him get to grips with the VX1000 for a minute there.
I guess so, yeah. Not to be big-headed; he would probably say the same thing. Harrison cares about all this local scene shit as much as I do, he loves the craft of filming and making videos and he fucking loves skating, so it only made sense for him to learn to use the VX. Because we have worked on so many projects together, we both have a pretty good idea of what the other likes. I knew what he wanted to achieve with his video, so I just wanted to help with some of the technical stuff. He’s doing it all himself now. He doesn’t really need my help any more and I’m stoked to see him doing his thing for the scene.

While we’re talking about filmers, do you want to say a few words about Jude?
Jude is rad. I’ve always got his back. He used to hit me up on Instagram when he was first getting into filming. Now that Quentin doesn’t film VX any more, I’m going to go on record to say that Jude is the best VX filmer in the country. He’s so good at it, he just needs a working VX (laughs). I feel really lucky to be filmed by people like Tom, Harrison and Jude because I know how taxing it can be to film projects. On top of that, it takes me fucking ages to do anything, so I’m really appreciative that they have gone out of their way to film me. I want to give credit where it’s due.

You and your wife Amy are expecting a child soon. Congratulations! 
Thank you. 

I’m guessing that in the short term at least, this will mean less Al Hodgson output, both in front of and behind the lens. You told me that this interview was partly motivated by your upcoming responsibilities. 
Yeah. I realised that this was maybe the last opportunity to do something like this because I just won’t have much time when the baby arrives, which may have happened by the time this is out. Obviously, the (video) parts in previous years took up a lot of time. This year I thought: “I want to try to get some photos,” so thank you for the opportunity and to everyone who shot stuff with me. I still want to skate often after the baby arrives and hang around with everyone, but I want to take a step back and take the pressure off when it comes to working on projects, especially filming. I’m really obsessive and overthink things a lot. Whenever I agree to a project, I take it on super intensely. I want to move away from that when I’m a father so that I can be very available as a parent and put the positive energy I used to give to skate projects into fatherhood.

That makes sense. 
I felt a big responsibility to represent the scene in Brighton and Sussex when there weren’t many people doing that, but now Harrison is killing it in Brighton and Tom is doing the same in Sussex and Kent. If anything, I feel somewhat surplus to requirements. It feels like the right time to take a little bit of a step back and chill.