Patrick Andersen has just released his new video titled “Crunchtime“, which features the BladeWave Crew consisting of Arsenio Patterson, Swigidy DaCosta, Cody Forrester, Josh Appleton, Chris Padilla, and Patrick Andersen. The crew recently premiered their new piece at the CapCon event in Atlanta which was hosted by SK8TL organizer Richard Williams. Our editor Kevin Little had the opportunity to speak with Paddy The Baddy about his hiatus away from the blading scene, learning videography from his brother Brandon, and the short filming process behind “Crunchtime”. Check out ‘Crunchtime” now & read what Paddy had to say about the making of the video.
KL: Mr. Paddy the Baddy! It is great to see you back in the blading game after a short hiatus away, brother. I know you have recently started a family & made some major life changes, but tell our readers a little bit about what prompted your hiatus & what brought you back to blading?
Patrick: Hey man, thank you! It has been quite some time away from the blade world. In 2018 I met my now wife Kenya and her little boy Axxel and the rest is history. I was becoming burnt out from skating at this particular time and was wanting to focus my attention towards both of them and doing things like going to amusement parks, waterparks, aquariums, anything to make memories with them and things I never really did as a kid because my focus was always skating! That led to 2019 where we bought our first home, we had our 2nd little boy Zayden, and I focused on work and family life (while skating once a month of course). In 2020, we got married and I decided to join the military to change my career path into HR.
This was when skating went from once every couple weeks or once a month to almost a dead stop. I shipped out in August of 2020, came home in December 2020, only to pack up our entire house and move it from our Georgia home to Clarkesville, TN starting 2021. I rarely skated the entire year. I think I skated a handful of times, a couple times with Taylor Popham and Zach Leavell and a couple times solo on my box. I was suffering a knee injury I sustained while going through the tail end of basic training which made it very hard to do anything. During this year I was in physical therapy for months which led to me eventually getting discharged after I was told there was nothing more they could do for me. I was told to “Either run on it or get out”, wanting to make sure I could fully recover I chose to get out. I ended up finding a job and moved back to Georgia December 2021. After being out of the blade game for longer then I had ever been at this point when I moved back I tried to do what I could even if it was to roll around through the pain just to be back on the blades, hardly ever posted on Instagram, just wanted to skate for myself and enjoy every day on the blades.
KL: Well, we are glad to have you involved in blading again! Now, tell me about the BladeWave crew! Who is represented in “CrunchTime” & what makes each person profiled unique or special?
Patrick: Mannnn the Bladewave crew is the homies. I’m sure I will leave some details out but will try my best haha. When I was living in Tennessee, Swigidy created “Bladewave”. He made a small run of shirts, created the Instagram account, and everything on the startup side. It’s dope to have a name for our little crew, because back in 2018 and before, when we were skating hard, and Brandon was creating “Moments In Time”, we were always known as the Suburb scene. Our little crew is made up of Swigidy DaCosta, Josh Appleton, Chris Padilla, and myself. When it came to CRUNCHTIME we ended up adding Arsenio Patterson and Cody Forrester to the line up as well. Every skater brings their own flavor.
Swig is the funny guy of the group hands down. To see his skating evolve the way it has in such a short period of time has been really fun to watch. The way he warms up is a bit wild to say the least. He will go from soul grinding something to trying 270 back backslide next try so eyes are glued to him to see when to pull the camera out! (Chris) Padilla is the OG of the crew. His technicality of doing EVERY trick both ways and the way he looks at spots is really different! Arsenio baffled me with his part. I can’t tell you how many times I give people suggestions and they either ignore it or look at me funny. Arsenio (Patterson) would take my trick suggestions, execute them perfectly, and take no time landing it. Cody (Forrester) is DIFFERENT, this guy comes out always consistent and will have a handful of tricks completed before anyone else even has their skates on. He can warm up on anything, and he will skate every spot you take him to. Josh (Appleton) has one of the best styles in my opinion. More specifically one of my favorite fishbrains in the game. From drops to gaps, to any type of rail he is down to skate nearly anything regardless the size of the obstacle.
KL: The video is dubbed “Crunchtime”, as you & the crew filmed this piece under a lot of pressure to get it completed before the CapCon event there in Atlanta. Can you give us some insight into how long it took you all to get this video completed?
Patrick: Man, the name says it all but this is a great story. So back when Montgomery Monsters was filming their video in late 2022 time frame I believe, I went out to Alabama to film with them and Loso Montenegro had just bought a camera. He had me film a clip of him with it and the rest is history. Fell back in love with filming and ended up buying a cam I think in the same month haha. Fast forward, Swigidy is filming me for a section I was going to release when the hard drive became lost. Not sure how you lose a hard drive but there went all these clips I had and I lost motivation. I ended up finding the drive, went to plug it up and that’s when I found my hard drive corrupted. Went from being hyped to discouraged in a matter of minutes to the point where I just said screw it and stopped filming.
That brings me to the end of February. I randomly decided to plug up the hard drive and not sure what happened but I had every single clip again! A few days after Richard and I were discussing the obstacle plans for Capcon this year and it just hit me on trying to crank out a video for a premiere after the contest. I got the homies together, told them I wanted to film over the next two months, stopping on May 1st, I’ll edit what we have and we will release and everyone was on board! We filmed for a total of about 8 sessions, and the bulk of old footage was all my clips and some friends clips, outside of that it’s pretty much new footage!
KL: Aside from the corrupted hard drive & thinking you lost your footage & the limited time to complete this project, what other adversities did you all encounter filming this video?
Patrick: There were a lot of adversities during this entire project haha. You have Arsenio and Cody living in South Carolina and the rest of us living here in Atlanta. I’ve always been huge on filming everything myself or at very minimum on my camera and even given the time crunch on this I stuck to this. The plan was that every other weekend we’d go to South Carolina or they’d come down to us. Unfortunately, not long after we started, it turned into just every weekend being somewhere in Georgia. I also don’t like being gone all day anymore. Now that I have my family I still want to get out at least one day every weekend however I want to be back at a decent time. I was making the guys meet up at my mom’s house at 9:00am to be at the first spot by 10:00am and wrap between 3:00-4:00pm. We all know that a dedicated start time typically doesn’t happen but I can honestly say with this crew we made it happen and it was routine! Lastly the editing of the piece, I told the guys we’d stop filming by 5/1 to give me a month to piece it together, only to end up getting swamped with work and other things to the point where I literally edited the trailer, and full length all the weekend before the premiere. As you can see it was a huge time crunch overall! hahaha
KL: Your brother Brandon is a seasoned videographer himself, was he a big influence on you to make your videos & what were some of the biggest lessons he taught you regarding video production? Or was it mostly self-taught?
Patrick: Definitely was not self-taught. I’d say my style of editing and the way I do things behind the computer screen may be more self taught, however filming style Brandon and I grew up skating and filming together! I always looked up to the way he filmed even way back in the day to the point where I learned how to film the skating the way he used to film skating when he had a skate cam and not a cinema style camera. If you look at some of Jon Fromm’s pieces like his “A” profile you couldn’t tell what I filmed versus Brandon in that lol. Another project was Fromm’s Razors Pro piece, Brandon wasn’t able to make it out and back then and that was back when all I did was skate and travel so I actually flew out and stayed with Fromm for a couple of weeks to film it and then Brandon edited it. I hate to say it but Brandon did teach me 90% of what I know behind the camera!
KL: So I noticed aside from the clip of Mikey Harper ghosting Brandon on his congratulatory daps, there were no clips of your brother in the video. Where’s the brotherly love, Paddy? Haha
Patrick: Hahaha Brandon is so busy these days. There was talks of getting at least one clip for it but there are a couple factors. 1. He doesn’t skate street anymore. 2. He has been slammed filming the Faction team. Hopefully in the next one I can get him to get a clip or two!
KL: There has been a noticeable resurgence in the Atlanta skating scene, not just the blading side, but all skating in general. What are you guys doing over there that has the people so excited to come out & strap on blades, either for the first time or coming back into the skating game?
Patrick: Dude you’re not joking. Atlanta is booming! Honestly I wish I had the answer for you. Richard Williams is the brains behind ATL blading! SK8TL is a movement, I swear this guy doesn’t sleep with all the work he puts in. He is constantly trying to innovate to keep our scene alive. I think it has a lot to do with the time investment Richard is making to our community! He makes SK8TL clothing, he shows up to every single event or session regardless what type of skating it is. If he sees a new blader he is quick to lend a helping hand and make sure they know how to find out about all the skate sessions through Instagram. All that combined with working with the city of Hapeville to put on an event like Capcon every year, he does it all and that’s why it’s as big as it is!
KL: Now that you wrapped up “Crunchtime” in a fairly quick amount of time, what is next? Are you planning on something more extensive & with a longer period to film? What’s on the horizon?
Patrick: Not sure what’s next. Capcon just wrapped, got pretty banged up from that. Personally for me I think once I’m healed up I want to work on a section for myself and I want to get back to posting on the gram more. I also want to try to make it out to the remaining blade comps this year. I know Cody wants to work on another piece as well. Maybe I just work on single sections for everyone for the rest of the year! I haven’t had a chance to talk to everyone else about it yet. I’ll see what everyone is thinking and take it from there. I do want to premiere a new full length every Capcon moving forward if possible. Not sure if it will be a Crunchtime type of vibe or if it will be more planned out, we will just have to wait to see.
KL: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Paddy, it is always a pleasure & I look forward to seeing you in September for the Faction premiere. Who would you like to thank for their support & making “Crunchtime” a success?
Patrick: Thank you! Can’t wait for September! First and foremost I’d like to thank my wife Kenya for everything she does. She is a kick ass mom and wife and she holds down the fort anytime I want to get out and blade or during busy weekends when events are happening and what not! Want to thank the Bladewave homies for always being down to sesh and making the times memorable everytime we strap them on! Want to thank Richard for all he’s done with SK8TL and making the premiere happen and thank you guys for your time! Support your local skateshops and skater-owned companies!
