Darrell Mathes could very well be not only the nicest-looking person in snowboarding, but also the nicest person in snowboarding. And at the age of 27, he's already had a long and lucrative shred career that's nowhere near completion. After putting down roots four years ago in Portland, Oregon (not far from his hometown of Lake Oswego), Darrell's wasted no time climbing the snowboard ladder, so to speak, since first gaining recognition as a contender in the Love Hate video in 2005.
After a day of dealing with the headaches that accompany a window falling out of his fifth storey condo -- almost killing someone in the process -- I was able to talk him down and get the inside info on Videograss, his new video project, and his next moves.

I am going to get right to the point here: Over the last few years you've had some big changes in who you've been filming with, and the media direction of your snowboarding. Can you walk us through those?
Yeah, for sure! Last year I filmed for Double Decade and that was kind of their end. I think they were kind of ready to move on and do other things. Mike McIntyre [Mack Dawg] has been doing it for so long, and I think he was kind of over it, and I know Brad [Kramer] kind of wants to do his own thing. I think it was a good idea because then it would leave room for me to start a video production company with a few other people, which are Mikey Leblanc, Nima Jalali and brothers Lance and Mike Haker. I have always liked the Mack Dawg videos and they've always been really good, but they never really had the style of filming or content that portrayed the personality of the rider very well. A lot of the movies in general don't really portray the riders themselves. There are a lot of unique riders out there when they're off hill and, you know, they're funny and have so much character. You never really get to see that, you know?

It's definitely hard to do, but we were able to put together an amazing crew of riders and we were just like, "screw it, we're going to start our own video and try to get these guys on board." Pretty much everybody that we wanted agreed to film with us, which was amazing! We actually just had our premier on July 21st in Portland, our world premier, and it was kind of just to see what people thought about it before we couldn't make any more changes. We only needed 125 people to show up so we could break even on the night's event, and over 200 people showed up. On top of that everyone that was there all felt the same way. This is what snowboarding needs and this is exactly what's been lacking for so long. I think it's going to be really cool... It's a completely different perspective from all the other videos, so I think it's going to be good.

So what's the working title?
Well, we just wanted to get the name of the production company out there, so we just called it Videograss. Next year -- and we are for sure doing another movie next year -- we'll have an actual title for it.

Now that your role is evolving within snowboarding from pro snowboarder to part-time video production company owner, how has your direction and motivation changed?
I have always been curious about the back-end of snowboard videos. The filming and the cameras, the editing... you know, I've been watching snowboard and skate videos my whole life and have always been intrigued by how they're made. By having Mikey Leblanc be a part of this, I knew that I was going to learn a lot on the back-end. And I've always admired Mikey; he's kind of been my mentor. I won't be snowboarding forever. I'm super passionate about it still, but there are other things I want to learn, too. I just want to progress and this might be an avenue that I might want to go towards when I'm done snowboarding. But yeah, it's something that I'm really into and it's great to be a part of. Just make a movie that I want to see so that at the end of the day I'm like, "Fuck yeah, this is what I want to see in a movie!"

Being involved with something that you are passionate about is a good place to be.
Exactly, exactly... Yeah, for sure.

The current economic state must make it difficult to get this production company off the ground. What types of hurdles have you encountered this first year?
It was definitely difficult to get sponsorship money. Where you get into trouble is when you want these riders in your movie, but some of these riders don't have the capability of getting sponsorship money and so it's definitely a little difficult. I am actually out of pocket with my own money to make this happen this year. I know a lot of the guys on our crew barely have any travel budget and can barely get by because of the whole economic crisis, but you know, they are able to do it because they love riding so much. The kids these days are finding it hard to come up and to find money, and a lot of the companies these days just don't have the money to invest in these new kids, which is super sad because these kids deserve it because they work their asses off. Hopefully things will turn around within a couple years at the most, and these guys will hang in there and do their best. I mean, it will all come together and be worth it in the end.

It's amazing that you guys are giving these kids a medium. Without you, they would have even less opportunities to showcase their talents.
Exactly. If it wasn't for us, these kids wouldn't really have the opportunity to get their name out, or to get people to see their snowboard skills. That's one of the main reasons we wanted to do this video. There are certain riders out there that I think that are amazing and no one knows who they are yet. In a way I kind of relate it to Love Hate. Mikey saw me and he was like, "this kid is really good, let's put him in the video." And I mean, I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't because of Love Hate and the whole Kidsnow Productions, so I am trying to give back to some of these kids that I think could be the new up-and-coming pro, and to give them a shot as well.

Without giving away too much, who are some of the kids that we should be looking for in Videograss?
Let's see here... There's Alex Cantin, he's super sick. Ben Bilocq. I call him Spring Break Jake, but his name's Jake Olson-Elm. All the new guys, like LNP and Louif Paradis. And Nick Dirks, who is super sick... Just check out the teaser; it'll give you an idea of what to expect. We update the website all the time and eventually you will be able to buy the movie on there.

So what's looking good for next year?
Probably just filming with Videograss and doing a couple contests here and there, but I'm definitely just pumped to film again, so, that's it...

Darrell proudly rides for Ride, Vans, Holden, WESC, Spy, Grenade, Kicker and Active.

Videograss teaser:

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