Josh Young Interview

His name is often found on people's "Favorite Riders" lists. He is one of the most original street riders around right now. However dont be mistaken, Josh Young wasn't always the popular rider that he is today. Josh started riding scooters at around 11 or 12 years old. When he first came onto the scene a little later on, he was criticized by a lot of other riders. People would pick him apart for the clothes he would wear, his tight pants, and small shirts. He would get bashed for his lack of spots to ride. Usually filming videos of himself around the outside of his house, stalling pieces of wood and even a tractor. It would have been easy for Josh to call it quits right there, but here it is about 6 years later and he finds himself 17 years old and one of the most praised riders in the sport. Living in Corunna, Michigan doesnt leave Josh with that many people to ride with, atleast not people that ride scooters. Josh is constantly riding with BMXers, which you can easily see in his style when hes on his scooter. He loves doing barspins, lots of fakie tricks, and high speed sliders. He also rides BMX himself and is quite good for the short amount of time hes been riding. Most of that is due to the BMXers that he rides with that completely shred. BMX is a huge passion of Joshs as anyone that knows him well, knows that. He owns over 50 BMX Dvds, and loves filming and making BMX videos for his friends that ride. With this love for BMX you might be wondering why he still chooses to ride his scooter as opposed to his bike full time. When Josh sees a new video on SR, wether it be a good video or a bad one, he pushes himself to ride harder. He feeds off of the riders that impress him and shock him in their videos, riders such as Jordan Jasa and Dan Barret. As for the riders that dont, it still pushes him to want to show them what riding should really look like. He is always working on another video, a video that will once again prove that you dont need to have the newest flip combo, or flyout trick to impress everyone. He simply rides his best, and tries original tricks that you dont see very often. Josh Young has no plans to stop riding scooters in the future, but he does have big plans. He wants to make it to "Scoot Ohio" and ride with some of his favorite guys, he wants to buy a really nice camera and start his dream project which is a full length bmx video with him and his friends, and he wants to turn 18 and get his licence. Josh Young has a bright future ahead of him in whatever he decides to do. Just remember though, next time you see a rider with clothes you dont like, riding in a limited space, and doing tricks that you dont appreciate. Bite your tounge, because for all you know in a few years that rider might turn out to be just like Josh Young, a 100% Boss.


-Steven Tongson
Inward Scooters Team Manager

Interview by Jordan Jasa


How did you first get into riding?

ehhhh. i dont really know, i got a old off brand scooter for xmas wayyyyyyyyy back in the day. i used to ride bikes hardcore in grade school but i sucked so i rode a scooter instead. haha

Did you ever see any of the old RVM movies when you were a youngin?

haha yea man. thats how i learned how to tailwhip. the good old how to's from like brendon smith or somethin like that i think?? but yea i was super into watchin RVM1 when that first came out, only scoot vid ive ever seen

Brendon Smith is an Aussie, I believe. What kindof tricks did you do in your first few years of riding?

ehhh like crappy 180's with monster truck turn arounds, no footers, tailwihps and i would bust out a dub or 2 if the ramp was right.

I remember some videos of you riding some ghettoo setups around your house. Is that all you had to ride back then?

yea pretty much, i would get to go to the local skatepark like everyonce and a great while but i didnt like it back then because it doesnt have many ramps and i sucked so it wasnt fun.

Was there a specific point in time when you started getting good? Or have you just gradually progressed to where you are today?

yea there was. pretty much i started gettin good once i could dub whip. then i started riding street more and going to a indoor park that was a hr away. with the bigger and better set ups i almost had to learn new stuff.

The midwest doesn't have many concrete bowls like California/NW do. Do you think your style would be different had you been able to ride parks like those instead of what you do have? Is your riding a product of your surrounding?

100% yes. anybodys riding is a product of there surrounding. look at J-mac he rode TIC all day long and he ruled the world for a while. Look at McKeen ridin DC all day and now hes powerin down 15 set handrails, i could go on and on but i wont. haha yea im really good at riding bad ramps with holes in them i guess you could say. so to me pretty much any skatepark is a fun one. but if i rode TIC, Woodward, cali parks, im pretty sure i would be wearing knee pads, a helmet, and bossin frosty buttercups like 3 ft below coping allllll day bra! haha.

Would you consider yourself to have a more of a skating or bmx style?

BMX style alllll day. i love watchin freecoaster videos, and ridin my freecoaster on my bike. i try to bring the stuff i see in bike videos into my riding.

I hear ya on that one. Whats the most rewarding thing about riding, to you? Most frustrating?

rewarding would be forsure working on a video and having a trick that im super hyped on in it. then seeing all the comments i get on it. and i really look forward to seeing what a few people say about them, and they all know who they are. haha

the most frustrating would be forsure not landing a trick. and you guys have seen in a couple of my videos i can get a little "aaron ross" as i like to call it about filming. that really only comes around when i cant land a trick i know i can do alll day.

You're one of the few people nowadays riding stock or almost all stock scooters. Why is that?

haha wellll......... pretty much becuase i waste all my money on bike or skate videos. haha i dont know ive broken so many scooters in my life that i dont feel like paying money for somethin i know i will break. but i am goin to make some 1 peice bars in metals class at school thought.

Who are a few of your favorite riders, and why?

1. Dan Barrett- hes always been on top of his game, i still remember seeing the first videos of him in the TPCVJ's and all the stuff he would i have never seen before.

2. Alex Steadman- He is kinda like me but in a dreads rocking, 20 inch bar loving west coast kid. i used to hate his riding but now i love it. i watch pretty much every video hes ever been in or ever will be in.

and last i would say this jordan jasa kid- hahaha i remember watching this video of some tiny kid doing a backwards nose manny and me and my friend went out side for a hr just messin around trying them. ever since then ive watched all his videos and cant wait to see more! midwest alllll day!

That kid sounds like a n00b, psh. You spent a year working on your Basher dvd/minivideo, and it sure paid off. Did you expect to get the response it got?

yea, that kinda died the whole dvd thing. idk i knew that it was gonna be good becuase i didnt put anything out in a while and it had some legit fakie hop stuff and backwards manny stuff i knew people liked so yea i was hyped on the comments and stuff.

That video really put you on people's radars, you've become many people's favorite rider. What do you think of that?

well its weird. like i just saw i post about creative riders and the kid who made it had me on there and was like man im really gettin alright at this whole scooter thing. and i got into the top 5 for most original of 2008 and i was soooo hyped on that!

It was announced today that freestyle BMX is going to be in the Olympics (here). What do you think about that, and do you think scooter riding will ever be in it? Or the X-Games?

ehhhhh im not to hyped on that. its like if they have a skate/scooter/bmx club at school. i would never do that. theres a reason why we all ride what we ride. to get away from all the spandex, mats, gym clothes, pads and sportsmanship. and now there bringing us into the biggest thing ever for everysing real sport in the world?? idk i think scooter riding will never be as popular as bmx or skating. i sound like a jerk right now but im over it. i ride bikes and scooters and i dont want them to turn into BRO sports.

What kind of music do you listen to these days?

i listen to everything, from judas preist, biggie smalls, to Dion and the belmonts and others 50's groups.



How do you decide on what song to put in a video? Especially when editing videos for your friends, do they get a say in it?

hahah naaaaaaa my friends dont care. and im sad to say i get pretty much all my music from my expansive collection of bmx and skate videos. haha. its not my fault that they pick such perfect and sick songs!! and i dont know how i pick the songs, i just go with whatever song im hyped on at the moment.

Why do you use so many exclamation points?

idk. im a pretty weird kid i just do whatever i think is like funny and i like to get my point across i guess. haha to show feeling though a text or message i guess. hahaha

Finish this sentence: My name is Josh Young and...

I like to say alllll day!

That should just about do it, anything else you want to say?

yea id like to say thanks to Steven T for always bein hard on me and always tellin people how im some kind of "Boss" haha jordan jasa for doing this interview, Andrew at scooter resource becuase i would not be doing this right now, or even riding a scooter right now because of him, and last but not least anybody who thinks that im some kind of good rider. if you ride hard and have fun you will get good and you will go far. all day... pop off.


Josh Young 2008 Combo Video from Josh Young on Vimeo.