Blasting Off!! Interview with Blast Skates owner Matthew Bromley.

We spoke to the owner of UK skateboard company Blast Skates to talk all things inspiration for the company, graphics and all things Blast….

NSS: Firstly what’s your Name?

BS: Matthew Bromley

NSS: What made you want to start a skateboard company?

BS: I’d finished my university degree, no money, on job seekers moved to Brixton pretty much for the skatepark and worked towards a freelance illustration career. Of course being a skateboarder foremost the dream job is to make some board artwork for skateboard companies. I tried sending stuff to some people without much luck, so it was in that nature of ‘if nobody else is going to let me do this, then do it yourself!’ potentially very naive sounding I know but I was so excited about the concept of actually doing this and making it happen so I drew up the mascot logo gave the name some thought, made stickers to then make t-shirts to then fund some boards! I’m so so grateful to everyone who has supported it so far! THANK YOU!

NSS: Why did you choose the name Blast?

BS: So I had my heart set on the logo being a mascot like those in the 1950-60’s and I guess even today, where its very clear the mascots association with the company or products they are ultimately selling! It had to be simple, limited colour and evoke something friendly and fun. After I drew it the name followed pretty easily as I guess you could say the mascot looks to be having a blast, theres also a kind of tiny tiny influence to the band BL’AST which is where it shares a bit of it’s slight aggression too and I wanted the ‘skates’ part to follow as nobody really seemed to be using it since the 70-80’s

NSS: What’s the company’s ethos?

BS: Good clean fun!

NSS: There’s a rad little cartoon featuring the character Smasher on your site. Who came up with ‘Smasher’? What’s his story?

BS: So I drew up the graphic inspired by the old skateboard company called Nash who did the ‘nuke baby’ board which in turn inspired the animation. I didn’t want to just create a graphic inspired by an old graphic and leave it at that, it has to be pushed on and given new life, which is where the cartoon animation came in. A friend of mine called Andy Baker made the amazing animation, I drew up the elements you see in the animation cartoon and wrote down the line he takes through the street to then end up with him smashing through the wall to produce the graphic of the board. Andy did such a great job at bringing that board graphic to life!

NSS: I see from your site that you’re working with a bunch of different artist’s each season. How does that work? Do you give them all a short brief and then leave it up to them? Who comes up with the initial concept? Yourself?

BS: So theres basically three categories within the board releases but all of them are fairly loose and free, there’s a bit of to and fro with each artist naturally. The First is the use and exploration of the Blast Skates mascot kinda like the logo boards really but I want to put this logo through some transformations, play about with it like the animation and keep it exciting! The second is the Project boards, these are the really fun ‘no rules’ (maybe some; like needing the mascot logo somewhere etc) one off opportunities to make something hopefully very creative concepts come to life not just for the board artwork but with a video etc. Finally the Third, Chronological series boards where in each series there will be 3 different shaped boards and three different artists coming together on one pivotal moment in history to inspire the artwork theme; so starting with Dinosaurs, Ice Age so on and so forth in a linear fashion.

NSS: One thing that stands out about Blast is that you’ve a lot of different deck shapes on the go. Nice to see some boards with an optional longer wheelbase etc?

Thanks! Yeah shaped boards are a lot of fun and I’ve preferred skating a shaped board for some time. I grew up skating with my friend Jake Davis and his Dad Karl who skates too, he always has shaped boards around and rips on them too, so it was just a natural step just to try it out when I was younger, skating Black Label boards and then getting flip tricks on them as-well as transition it all just felt and looked a lot of fun! It’s not for everyone I totally understand but why not give it a go, it’s only a skateboard! haha.

NSS: Do you design the shapes yourself?

BS: Yeah I do, it was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing the most too! I just work up the shapes until they belly out and taper in at the right places, cross breed some pedigrees as it where and try to come up with something fun looking but most importantly skateable!

NSS: Who’s on the team?

BS: It’s still early days still, There are defiantly people associated with Blast Skates for sure which I’m super stoked about, let’s just say that this is a work in progress and a ‘team’ of sorts will be established naturally.

NSS: What can we expect from Blast in the near future?

BS: Just to keep on keeping on!

NSS: Thanks for your time.

BS: Ditto! and thanks for the support in Newcastle, STOKED! it really means a lot!

Photos Credits:
Jake Snelling Jump Ramp photo: David V ‘dog’
Callum McRobbie Wall Walk: Matt Clarke
Bromley Mertz Plant: Rob Shaw

Check out Blast on Instagram @blastskates

And their Website www.blastskates.com