“A place to get in touch. A place to stay in ‘the loop’.”
We caught up with the founders of Precinct Skate Shop in Mermaid Beach, Trent Bonham & Julian Lee. A skate shop that isn’t about pushing sales but a hub for skaters on the Gold Coast. We talk about the philosophy of the store, not skating schools, collabs, olympics, tunes and set-ups.
Check out the edit below made by our good friends at 98 Collections.
“This is more than a ‘business’ to us. We live for skateboarding, and for the Gold Coast scene that has been the backdrop to our lives of rolling good times.”
Why did you decided to open Precinct Skate Shop ?
Trent:
We opened this for ourselves and the skate community to keep the fun in skating on the Gold Coast and to provide the best products to the skaters.
Julian:
We have been skating our whole lives, it was only natural that once we had the opportunity we would open a skate shop.
We had a different vision from the other skate shops. A lot of other skate shops are more old school, whereas there were a lot of new things happening in the skateboarding, new brands coming up that we thought we could cater to; which other skate shops weren’t.
Did you want Precinct to be more than just a skate shop to sell stuff?
Trent:
Definitely. To us, skateboarding is a complete lifestyle. So people can come in on their way to the next skate spot, find out where new skate spots are or talk about new products. It’s not all about sales, were not forceful like that at all.
We have the ramp out the back but unfortunately it can’t be for everyone, we kinda just let people in now and then. It’s for us and the team riders to take advantage of the rainy days.
What type of boards do you pick for the shop?
Trent:
Everything you see in the shop is from Julian and I picking it. We are so fussy with what we put on the wall. We never buy bulk, we hand select everything no matter what the cost. Everything you see we like for a reason and it’s usually the graphic, the shape and the brand.
What’s your favourite board in the shop?
Trent:
The freddy krueger. No doubt, best board on the wall at the moment. I got one for my collection straight away.
Favourite pump up music for skating?
Julian:
I don’t listen while im skating but before I go skating of course. It’s good to amp up in the car on the way there. Definitely some motorhead, I’m into a bit of the cure at the moment and a bit of rap too.
Trent:
I don’t skate with headphones of anything. But music plays a big part in my skating. A lot of the times I’m making the clips for our team videos so it’s a lot of my music choice taste. Definitely TSOL, a lot of exodus at the moment – I like a lot of 80’s metal and punk – oh and slayer as well.
Can you tell us a bit about the Precinct Skate team ?
Trent:
Where definitely try to building up a team and if they want to have a career in skateboarding it’s their choice and we will help them with those steps, but the choice is theirs, its not easy these days, skating standard is so high, they really gotta to do stunts now compared to when I got into skating haha. The tricks are a lot bigger, the stairs are a lot bigger, the rails are a lot bigger, its a lot more full on now.
The Team:
ADAM PIRIHI, BRANDON KEIR, CHASE JAEGER,INDI RUSSELL, JULIAN LEE, MIKEY MENDOZA, RILEY PAVEY & TRENT BONHAM
What do you think about skating as an olympic sport ?
Julian:
There are a lot of skaters who are against it but it’s because there are so many different genres and types of skating. If you like to compete and your a competitive person in that way, you can go down that road and you can train to improve your career. But it’s okay to not be into the olympic skating, you don’t have to watch it, it’s okay to not be into that. There is so much more to skateboarding now, you can just concentrate on what you like and find your passion for it in your own way.
What are your favourite schools to skate at the moment?
Trent
I wouldn’t even name them haha.
I just paid a $1600 fine 2 days ago for a trespassing and wilful damage fine for skating a school.
Julian
Which is like a first though, we’ve never really seen that happen before.
Trent
There is something to skate at every school, put it that way.
Do you get in trouble a lot skating street on the Gold Coast ?
Trent
Yeah you can do, you get kicked out a lot. The confusing thing for us, and the general citizens too, is that skateboarding is an olympic sport that is illegal.
And yes skateboarding does some damage and they will always see skaters as being destructive, causing damage, making noise and just being pests. Whereas we all see it as ‘we’re just practicing our tricks’. So Your never going to have a common ground with it.
Tell us about the custom precinct skate decks.
Julian
We like to do collaborations with anyone we feel fits our kind of vibe and anyone that were into at the time. They have to be organic and pretty natural. We don’t like to force it.
Precincts brand direction is more aimed around art, more so than corporate branding. Like any sort of products we make, we like to put a bit of art direction into it more so than just a massive logo of our name so everyone just sees what the shops called.
We have done a few in the past with big companies, like cliche skateboards but also we’ve done collaborations with local artists like Joel Rea, who is a quite well known painter and our most recent board with Nadeem Tiafau(@tiafau_).
Trent:
Every other shop does there own board but it’s usually a blatant banner advertisement. Where trying to be a bit more creative. Even the precinct logo is small, in the quickest spot that’s going to get taken off the board.
The board on the wall is the second one we have done with Nadeem. He basically just walked in to the shop and introduced himself, not knowing that we already had an idea in our mind that we wanted a graphic with wavy lines. Something that we could experiment with raised print. That was 2 years ago and it just happen spontaneously. Others are from personal friends of ours who have been doing cool art for a long time. They are the things that we are the most proud of, it helps local artists, it helps us and we think they look great.
What is your setup?
Trent:
I ride and an 8 inch board,139 low indies and at the moment im riding 49 mm spitfires. It’s not all the time i can get 49mm so the most part i ride 50’s. Always modus bearings with the shields off. The deck is one of our latest precinct boards, done by our friend Nadeem Tiafau(@tiafau_). That’s about it.
The boards get worn out a bit differently theses days, as opposed to before I hurt myself, now its all in the middle and the tail. Whereas the nose doesn’t get hit because it was my front foot that got injured.
Julian:
I pretty much ride exactly the same haha .
Do you guys surf?
Julian:
I just got a surfboard this week so Im gonna learn haha.
Trent:
Yeah, I started skating and surfing when I was 10. I love skating and surfing equal. I follow surfing as much as I do skating. There completely separate but personally I love doing them both. I definitely don’t act or dress like a surfer though.
What is one of your favourite skate trips?
Julian:
We organised a trip ourselves, just all our mates. It was definitely a highlight just being with them for a couple weeks. Road tripping is better than flying. You don’t get as much skate time when flying, whereas when your on the road, you see a spot as your driving and you just stop, pull over and get something done.
Trent:
I haven’t gone on the road for skate trips for a while. But I’ve done that many, there is no real defining moment, every trip has something epic that happens. No matter what, whether it’s a funny story, an accident or just discovering new spots. Its hard to narrow down just one trip.
One trip that I always refer back too was a 2 weeks Etnies tour around australia just before I hurt my knee. I was on the road with Ryan sheckler and it was his first trip away without his mum. Stefan Janoski was on the trip aswell and he was telling me all about his shoe design that he wanted to submit. Now he has the best selling shoe on Nike for the last 10 years.
I got to skate with those guys, hang out with them and chat with them before they were these sensations that the world sees now. There where a lot of other people on that trip as well and seeing Bastien Salabanzi just make everyone seem irrelevant. We’d go to demos and he’d just destroy it. We would all sit down cause everything we did didn’t matter, this kid was just the best, and just seeing that is pretty humbling haha.
If you need some new some new gear or just feel like having a skate chat, head on down to Precinct Skate Shop in Mermaid Beach. If you can’t get down to the store, don’t stress, you can grab all of their products online here.
Keep up to date with all things Precinct on Instagram (@precinctskateshop ) and Youtube.
Photography credit to:
📸@precinctskateshop, 📸@wade_mclaughlin, 📸 @tamas_keefer & 📸@juliancklee