How did you come across the “beyond skateboarding” topic, or what attracts you to this aspect?

So to give a little bit of context, I actually started a first podcast called “Beyond Bars” in November 2020, dedicated to recovery from addiction and finding sobriety. I released 12 episodes of this podcast and then decided I wanted to try and start another podcast dedicated to my life-long passion, skateboarding. I was trying to come up with a name, but I didn’t have any ideas I was very satisfied with. Then one day I was talking about this with a friend and he told me: “Why don’t you just call it “Beyond Boards”? That way it will have a connection to your first podcast and also it kind of sums up the whole purpose of the podcast”. At first I was a little bit reluctant, I didn’t like the name very much. I still don’t love it. But it does sum up the mission of the podcast pretty well, which is to interview influential skaters & skate industry people to talk with them about all the ways in which skateboarding has broadened their horizons and enriched their lives.

Before starting Beyond Boards I had been listening to the Nine Club and The Bunt pretty regularly and liked them both very much. But I felt like there might be space for other kind of guests, that don´t get much attention in skate media, people who run skate-NGOs for example. That’s why I first reached out to Nestor Judkins, who aside from his pro skater career had started his non-profit organisation “Salad Days”. I also wanted to interview a lot of people outside of North America, particularly from Europe since I’m from France. But these days more and more of my guests are actually North Americans and also half of the listeners are located in the US.

My goal is to keep interviewing people from all over though and also try to find a balance between “famous” guests and lesser-known ones.

Have you done anything in skateboard media before “Beyond Boards”?

Nothing. Just this first podcast I mentioned focused on alcoholism/sobriety. But I only did that one for like three months. Before that I had been working in the wine industry, in exports, retail and service, up until the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020

Are there any anecdotes that particularly stick with you?

When I interviewed Kirill Korobkov for episode 33, in the middle of our zoom call I heard a very loud noise, like an explosion or a gun shot, and Kirill disappeared from the screen!

For a few seconds I had no idea what had happened and then started hearing Kirill laughing: the chair he was sitting on since the beginning of our conversation (which must have been pretty old and fragile) had completely collapsed under him, making a very loud noise!!

I’m often amazed of how certain guests “happen”. For example Ali Boulala, I never thought I’d get to interview him, I always figured he’s out of my league. But one day I got a DM from John Dahlquist, Vice Principal of Bryggeriets Gymnasium in Malmö, a former guest and dear friend & supporter of the pod, telling me he had recently met with Ali for a screening of the documentary about his life (“The Scars of Ali Boulala” by Max Eriksson) and he told Ali about my podcast, and apparently Ali was down to do an interview!

So then I started DMing Ali, but he was quite busy touring and promoting the documentary at the time, so after a while I kind of gave up on the idea of interviewing him. But then a year later, after interviewing Michael Burnett, I reached out to Ali again and this time we made it happen! Sometimes things just work out that way, I have to be patient.

Same for Burnett. I didn’t think he’d be down, but I thought oh well, why not give it a shot. I DM’d another good friend of the pod and former guest, Lucas Beaufort, who interviewed pretty much everybody for his documentary “Devoted” back in 2017. I asked him if he would put me in touch with Burnett, so he shared his email address, I sent Michael an email and surprisingly he replied pretty quickly and was down for an interview! I think this interview in particular was a pivotal moment for me, it really opened up a lot of opportunities for guests I didn’t have access to before that.

Describe the process of how you record an episode? What are your future plans for Beyond Boards and in general?

Here’s how it usually goes. We set up a date and time for our chat, we get on the zoom call and talk for a few minutes, then we start recording our voices on each side with our respective phones.

At that point I start asking my questions, I have the zoom call on my computer and also a word document opened with all my questions written down. I go through them one by one, sometimes I skip a few if we’re running out of time, some other times other unplanned questions come to mind and we go in a different direction for a bit…

Every episode finishes with surprise questions from friends of the guest. I reach out to a few people who have some connection to the guest, whether they’re friends, colleagues, former team-mates, their partner, children, siblings… The idea is just to finish the episode on a more familiar note which usually brings up questions I would not have thought of.

I really like this section in particular, especially when the friends share a voice memo and I surprise my guest with it. It’s always a fun time.

In recent episodes and with guests that are very well known I’ve tried to do entire episodes made of surprise questions from friends. I figured, these guys have given so many interviews throughout their career, why bother asking them the same questions they’ve been asked for decades and have them share the same stories over and over? It’s a waste of their time and it’s kind of disrespectful to all the other journalists who have interviewed them before me.

Until now I’ve used this format of interview with Scott Johnston and Tobin Yelland. I have a couple of new ones in the works which will follow this format as well. I’ll try to keep it going with guests like them who are more famous and have done several interviews as I said.

But for people who are lesser known I’ll stick to my regular format of a more “formal” interview first, covering their life and career pretty briefly, and then some surprise questions to end the interview.

I don’t have much plans for Beyond Boards. I started this podcast thinking I would try to do six, maybe twelve episodes, just for fun. It’s been almost three years and I’ve recorded nearly 70 episodes with some life-long heroes of mine. It’s been pretty wild and fulfilling!

As long as I enjoy doing it and can affort it, I will going on. It’s very time consuming, basically a full-time job. I’d like to reach 100 episodes, which should take me at least another year. No idea beyond that! I might just call it quits after that and move on to the next project, whatever it might be.

Thank you so much for the Interview Quentin, all the best for you. Any last words, shout-outs?

I want to thank every guest that has been on the podcast, particularly Nestor Judkins who was the very first one and took a leap of faith!

Also all the people who have contributed surprise questions for guests, all the listeners for tuning in, all the people who ever reached out in a comment or a DM to say they enjoyed an episode.

A special thank you to my mentors John Dahlquist and Eric Swisher for their support, inspiration and friendship.

To my family who has been supporting me this whole time.

And to you Ingo for reaching out and asking me to be a guest for an interview for once, I appreciate it!

Thank you skateboarding.

You can find “Beyond Boards”

here!