Anyone who skates knows Reynold’s outsized presence in the scene. In 2000, he co-founded Baker, which has become a tentpole of skater-owned-and-operated companies, fostering young talent and producing several crucial videos. Our mutual friend and Baker pro rider Kevin “Spanky” Long puts it best: “Reynolds is our greatest example of a professional street skateboarding career, though what’s kept him on top can’t be taught or emulated. He is street skating’s Michael Jordan, but he is still going somehow.”

Reynolds has just finished his first pro-model shoe with New Balance— the Numeric 933 —a task he didn’t take lightly. It shows. The design hits the sweet spot between skateable and wearable, which is much more complicated than it looks. I asked Andrew to mute the skate video so we could chat about camaraderie, owning a brand, and having a strong idea of who you want to be.

I’ve heard you're doing skate-specific workouts. Did you always exercise, or was it something you came to later in life?

I was probably 29. We were starting to film Emerica's Stay Gold. I started to feel some aches, and I'm just like, if I can avoid as much of this as possible, I want to be able to. Paul Rodriguez was always going to a sports doctor named Dr. Eddie. I trust Paul in whatever he's doing because he's more like Kobe Bryant in how he takes care of his body. He sticks to his workouts — he's not scared to show it and talk about it, he's more like an athlete. He's going two or three times a week to this day. Crazy workouts, hard, hard stuff. So I told Eddie, “Look, I want to jump off gaps, hit my tricks, and be strong.” I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't going there to work out. I asked, “Can you give me some kind of answer or fix it?” Like everything in life, most people probably want the easier way. So he says, “You’ve got to start working out.” Okay, whatever. He showed me all these different things. Sit-ups, and curls, and squats, stuff with weights, stuff with bands.

You had a sport in mind, so there was specific stuff that he could prescribe.

That's what he was good at. He'll do workouts with Paul, which strengthens the exact muscle that has to do with kickflips and taking impact. If somebody's like, "Oh, it's getting a little harder, I'm aching.” I always say, "If you want to keep going for a long time, you have to work out."

There was a point where skateboarders did not do that. Now, it seems more common because you want to skate for as long as possible, and it's the only way.

If I weren't skating, I probably wouldn't work out. That's why it's so hard; naturally, you don't want to do it. I'm always trying to talk myself out of it. But once you're 20 minutes in, you're like, “Let's just finish it.”

Do you skate every day?

I probably skate three times a week. If I'm filming, maybe a little more.

Aren't you always filming?

Yeah, I'm always trying to figure out some kind of plan. The next project or trick I want to work on is always on my mind. It can vary from a real video part where you're working to get 20 or more clips and put it to a song with a group of people. There's always something, even down to just filming with the phone. That's work, too. We get out there, like, "Oh, let's just get some phone clips." 60 tries into it, you're like, "Fuck."

Social media has changed certain industries for the better and the worse, but skateboarding has probably experienced one of the most significant shifts. Guys used to take a year or two to put the video together, and now there's this pressure to do more all the time.

I don't know what it's done for skating. As a skater who grew up skating in the '80s and '90s, watching the whole thing happen in front of me, from the invention of street skating to videos… I think it's too much. I don't know. All old fools in every industry will say, “It was sicker back then,” but whatever. I don't know.

There's some truth to that. There's too much of everything. There's too much music, too much television… It feels overwhelming even to choose what to watch, listen to, or be entertained by, and it's fucked up our attention spans.

Yeah. But once you're in the middle of a trick in a session, and you're sweating and having fun with your friends, that's the same. It's the same as it always was. The act of doing it and how fun it is just fucking around is the same. That part hasn't changed.

The camaraderie is appealing in a similar way to team sports. You're with a ragtag group of people of all ages from all over the place, and I don’t think that changes as you get older.

That's a cool part of skateboarding. All races, all ages, boys, girls, everybody. If you're playing “Skate” with somebody, you're just like, "I want to beat you."

Skaters see the world a little differently because of what you're looking for. Does that turn off, or is that how your brain is wired now?

Oh, no. All I'm looking at all day long is what's skateable. When I'm driving, it's nonstop ideas of things that don't even make sense. For example, when you're a little kid and riding with your parents, there are hills and power lines on the freeway, and I skate them the whole way. Boom, boom, boom. I’m in school, skating on my book. Everything is skating.

Is LA still the best place to live for skateboarding?

That's a good thing about the internet and social media. You could be from anywhere, and people can see you. I can see what's going on with all the skaters in Paris and New York, even down to what's going on in places in Africa when they're getting their first parks. So, it's not as important to be where the skate industry is. But yeah, LA: good weather, a bunch of spots, all the photographers, the filmers…

You've been working with those guys since your early days, correct? Those relationships seem super important.

We've been filming with Beagle [Ryan Ewing] since Baker started. And Atiba [Jefferson] and I have a friendship that's beyond skating. I often hear that when people find out how our industry works. They always say, "Oh, all you guys are just friends." Everybody's cool, even down to meeting a fan on the streets. They're going to come up, and it will just be normal. It's a cool culture.

I've always been fascinated by the fact that skaters own the companies. There is no other industry like it.

Well, to an extent. We own the little brands.

These are still profitable businesses that support your lifestyle. It's not like you're doing it for fun.

I'm trying to do what the guys I looked up to did. Rick [Howard] and Mike [Carroll] started a company [Lakai]; we thought it was cool. Jamie Thomas started a company [Zero], and we thought, okay, that's the blueprint of what comes next. We didn't think about it any other way. Like, "Okay, the skaters should take it, have it, and make it about that group of people and what represents them the best."

Baker's a big operation. How often are you in there?

A few times a week. It's not like that. It's like I don't have an office or a schedule. It's more like a group text with the artist and the brand manager. We’re talking daily about things we should do. Videos, trips, riders.

It feels like a natural part of your life.

Yeah. And I'm not the best at it. I am a skateboarder first, so I don't always respond to all the texts, but it gets done. I have good people. I can't do it without Mike Gelati, Spanky, Carly, Rob, and my whole team of people.

Do you still travel a lot?

Yeah, mainly with the new shoe with New Balance. Whatever needs to happen for that, I'm going to do. I'm going to show up for it.

It's like your 993.

So I took a lot of similar lines, and just moved it around, and just made it a mix between a skate shoe and a runner. It's a stiffer shoe, which I like. I'm working with really pro shoe designers. We went to New Balance in Boston, and a team of scientists was around it. No joke. These guys were so excited to talk to somebody who cared. Over time, skating for so many years, I've just learned what works and what doesn’t, to the point that if I'm skating in a shoe that's two millimeters thinner than the one I had before, I can feel it. I went into this thinking about skating first.

It looks really good. Skate shoes can be unsightly.

When I'm skating in the park, people say, "Oh, you're skating in runners?" And that's sick. That's what I was hoping for.

How long was that process, from beginning to end, to get it on the shelf?

Seemed like a year. We had the whole thing designed, and I'm glad that we went to Boston in the middle of the design process because we realized how much more we could do when we came back. The guy said, "Let me take all the shoes that you like and run some tests, and then we'll come back the next day." He put it in the machine, made these crazy pie charts, and showed me how much certain ones flex.

Have you been shooting in them?

Not as much as I'd like, but I got a little bit.

I want to talk about sobriety just because it's a big part of my life, and I know you've been in the game for a very long time.

22 years.

Is it still a big part of your life on a day-to-day basis, or do you feel like you're locked in?

You're never good to go. It's just every day. Every day, you just want to stay sober and try your best to just be a good person that day so you don't build up things, the same stuff that probably made you drink. If you're going around keeping secrets and lying, those things will get you eventually.

Do you think it’s becoming more common in skateboarding?

I was around a lot of people that looked up to a druggie kind of lifestyle.

I did, too. It was music. “These guys do coke and drink. They're cool.”

The whole punk skateboarding mentality is like, "Who gives a fuck?" If somebody passes you something, you're probably not going to be the person to say, "Oh no, I'm good." Yeah, give it to me! I don't even care what it is. It's reckless. I think that's not as cool, but it’s different now. I mean, kids like doing drugs, kids love weed, but I don't think it's as bad. I haven't seen a 20-year-old sponsored skateboarder heroin addict in a long time. I've watched it happen in front of me many times. It’s hard to manage. You could probably party and skate a little, but I can tell that all the guys I know who are hooked on weed are really hurting their careers in skating. People don't see it, and they don't want to hear it, especially young people, but it takes away some drive, some spark in them that they probably had when they were a little kid.

How involved are you in selecting music for the videos?

If it's my footage and I'm editing, I'll pick the songs. But I also run it by all the people I respect and trust their judgment. But if it's somebody else, I'll usually work with them. I like it when people clearly envision who they are and who they want to be. If I meet a young skater who's like, "No, I only skate to country music, and this is my vibe, and this is what I'm about?" I love that. That's what’s missing in skating now. People with a strong image of who they want to be.