The Sauce

About

My name is Amrit. This is how Skate Sauce came about:

I have been skateboarding since 1998. I moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California in 2002 after graduating high school.

I tried Community College and working a 9-5 but it just wasn’t my thing. I was super psyched just skating. I would go to Lockwood or the Blocks (USC ledges) as they were the only spots I knew about. Both spots were still jumping off at the time and they were like the Love Parks of the west coast. From skating there I met Ryan Stangland from Seattle, Washington.

At first, I thought Ryan was a schmuck. He would give anyone he didn’t know this look like, “who the fuck are you, you can’t hang with this!” One night after skating we all chilled and drank some beers and after that it was super cool. Ryan was really good – control, style, consistency. Coming from the east coast it was wild to see how good kids were in California. Ryan was barely sponsored and no one was really filming him. I wanted to do something with skateboarding and California skaters were way to tough of a competition for me to try and be a skateboarder. I use to always think of different camera angles for tricks and wanted to try filming. I felt that Ryan needed to be filmed more and it would be fun to try to go out filming in the streets. I got my first camera – a Sony VX 2000 – after reading some good filmers say it was best to start with a professional camera as one day I would have to learn how to use it anyway.

Ryan and I would film whenever he was not working and I wasn’t at school. I also started filming with this kid Robert Santamaria who lived around the Blocks. I finally quit school around 2004ish and got hooked up with a job at a small production company called BHG Entertainment. They were trying to do a TV show with Kareem Campbell as well as some UFC shit. Ryan Stangland bailed and went back to Seattle. Right around this time my friend in Belgium hit me up about doing an Urban Festival in Brussels, Belgium. He wanted to feature US pro skaters, underground hip hop artists, breakdancers, and DJ’s. I met alot of skaters through Ryan- Peter Smolik, Dan Connelly, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Guy Mariano.

I asked them if they were down for this Belgium trip. Peter and DC were super down, Gabriel was older and kinda already over it so he passed, Guy was just getting back on his board and thought it might be a cool little trip. Ryan met Gershon Mosley in Seattle and I was able to bring both of them. Since Guy had accepted to go I was able to tag Robert Santamaria with him. A week before the trip Guy hit me up and said he had cracked his tibula or something in his leg. He couldn’t go. The investors were super bummed, but they had already bought everyones ticket so we all went. It was dope to be able to bring Robert and Ryan to a different country to skate. Unfourtunetly the trip turned into a disaster – the investor fled the country, didn’t pay for the hostels (they were suppose to be hotels), and gave us 40 euros each for food. Our flights back to the U.S. weren’t for another 5-6 days! We managed to make it through the whole trip but it was crazy. The whole Belgium trip is on Youtube and will be posted on Skate Sauce! check it out

After that trip I really wanted to make a full length skate video. I kept working at the small production company and filming with Robert Santamaria.

I made weekend trips down to San Diego to meet up with the Sk8mafia heads to film too.

I lost my job around the end of 2005. February 4th 2006 I broke my jaw in 3 different places and busted 3 of my front teeth out bombing a hill drunk.I was watching the Steelers win the Superbowl against Seattle. I was with Seattle homies Aaron Artis and Tom Carter. Me and Aaron wanted to get more beer but the 7-11 was at the bottom of this pretty decent hill. Aaron bombed the hill every morning for breakfast. I always wanted to but never did. I had already drank a 40 oz. and smoked some doja. Being the drunk Superman I was at the time, I decided to bomb it with my film board (softer wheels and much faster) instead of my regular skateboard. I made it to the bottom but caught wheel bite and flew. My jaw broke on both sides next to my ears, and 5 of my bottom front teeth were folded back into the bottom of my mouth all in one piece. 3 of the 4 top front teeth broke to pieces.
This fucked everything up. It took about 2 -3 months to recover and be able to eat again. While I was recovering I would still try to go out and film with Robert. Ryan made a trip down to film as well. After being fully recovered I worked hard on the video and was able to premiere it November 15th 2006. I called it “Like Brothers” because to me skateboarding was all about this dope brotherhood we all have from skateboarding.

3 months before I premiered the video I met a kid named Justin Guillen.

Robert got me in contact with Justin. He showed me a footy tape and I was amazed. His style was so sick and he was doing tricks that not many people do. We filmed some more stuff and his part ended up being the last part of the video. After the video dropped Justin and I filmed a lot. The premiere and video itself wasn’t as big as I had hoped, but there was a little buzz about Justin’s part going around. We wanted to try to film more and get shit going. It was hard as I had a new job working at a big production company/movie trailer house. Justin was broke and forced to move back to West Covina (30 miles east of LA).

Robert had a baby with his girlfriend so we also grew further apart as he had to take care of that. Around this time me and Sammy Baptista started filming more and more. Sam would come down every weekend and was on the grind. He had sponsors supporting him so he was able to just focus on skateboarding.

Justin would still come meet up with us from time to time and started bringing this kid named Vincent Alvarez. Vince was gnarly, he skated anything we brought him too. At first I was sketched filming him as I didn’t know how I was going to keep up!

Those were super dope times…it would be me, Sam, Justin, Vince, and their homie Cornbread or Noe. We just skated and filmed. Then Vince entered the DC King of L.A. contest and destroyed it. He got on Chocolate and eventually Lakai and it was a WRAP. He was set and able to just focus on skateboarding.

Justin’s family and house situation were messed up and in turn he wasn’t stable enough to just focus on skateboarding. You can’t really skate when your trying to figure out where your gonna sleep that night, how your gonna eat, etc.

I quit/ got fired from the big production company around October 2007. January 1st 2008 I was browsing a website for skateboarding jobs. I stumbled across a new post for a job at a place called The Berrics (Steve Berra and Eric Kostons skatepark turned website – www.theberrics.com).

I had vaguely heard of it and knew it was a private skatepark in downtown LA for pro skaters to train. They were turning it into a website and needed a filmer/editor. I quickly sent my resume and hit up some friends I knew that were friends with Steve Berra. After a month I still hadn’t gotten a response. I was super bummed as I really wanted the job, it was a dream job!  I started to give up and look for other work. 2 weeks later I got an email from Steve Berra asking me some questions and seeing if I could come by the park to talk and film the Real team. Berra was down and I was hired.

We started rebuilding the park and worked out of Steve’s house. Those were such fun times. Even though the park took 2-3 months to be completely rebuilt it was just sick being able to help grow a company that was purely run by real skateboarders. Once the park was done that dopeness was tripled. It was so sick to be able to come in, work, skate, work, skate, work, skate, eat, work, skate, work, go home and repeat.

Around the end of October 2008 I told Steve I would be leaving The Berrics. I was super bummed to have to leave, but I felt it was something I had to do. My friend Justin was still in the same position, the economy was failing, and  I wanted to figure out a way to help myself and my friends do something creative.

In 2008 I met some friends from Philadelphia that were in a band called Fat City Reprise.

They were super nice, humble, and really caring people. Fat City moved out to LA in 2009 and invited me to stay with them. I really wanted to create a company for me and my friends, but I couldn’t come up with a good name. Fat City called me “A1″ or “the Sauce” because I had a lot of connects out in Cali and always hooked things up for them, like how sauce is to food.  I was thinking streetskate.com but it was like 4,000$. Someone said “what about skatesauce.com?”. I called my friend Darby who did the cover of “Like Brothers”. He was super hyped on the name and sent over some shit within the next couple days. From what he sent and the ideas I was coming up for it I said Fuck It and went through with it.

Skate Sauce is a company for all my friends and for skateboarding. It’s a way for us to bring our street skateboarding to the public.

Bon Apetite!