My Way: Nick Zorlac

Photo’s courtesy of Styley and Richie Hopson

Death Skateboards are a British institution which grew out of the shadows of the warehouses and the sports cars of Harrow’s distribution era to become an anti-brand which has outlived all the gloss and cool guys who surfed the wave of a pumping economy during one of skateboarding’s periodic flirtations with mainstream youth culture.

Death Skateboards has survived the rises and falls which swept other brands away, walking at a tangent from the limelight and speaking its own language of Harrow Privileges and DIY operations, of Houses of Doom and family.

They inspire clannish loyalty from their ratty following, sponsor more riders than pretty much everyone else put together at the moment, and in their own unassuming way they have come to characterise British skateboarding at its most resilient and boisterous.

The chap behind this whole circus is Hertfordshire-born Nick ‘Zorlac’ Orecchio, a resolutely unfashionable Italian rascal who created Power Distribution in 1996, a precursor to Death Skateboards which launched in 1998, taking on and outliving almost all the bigger players in the UK game since then.

Death are twenty-seven years old this year, a relative lifetime in a culture which turns over most of its practitioners in 5- yearly cycles. They have seen claimers and flash in the pan brands come and go and so- having just premiered their latest video offering “Death VX” which follows on the heels of full lengths like Squadrophenia, Better Than Life, Escape From Boredom, Ordinary Madness and Into The Void- we hunted down British skateboarding’s most unsung Total Don to hear what’s what from the horse’s mouth.

Here’s what he told us about…

…where ‘DeathVX’ sits among all the releases down the years.

“ (Mark) Radman did a sterling job making this video- as did the riders. You can’t please everyone- and we have never tried to- but, for me, it’s super enjoyable to watch and is very Death. It never ceases to amaze me that when you think you have seen all the weird and wonderful skate spots in the UK, nope… there are still so many more!

Some serious crust. In terms of riders, it’s a nice mixture of new blood and riders that have been on the team for years- in some cases, for over a quarter of a century. Which I think is pretty mad, if you think about it…that’s a long time to be on the same team. Its quite snappy, editing wise- that is Radman’s style. It’s a concise slice of Death life.”

…surviving the pandemic as a company.

“The lockdown boom didn’t help us because the woodshops were shut.. meaning that we couldn’t buy anywhere near the amount of stock that we needed to supply this new, huge (in fact, craze-like) demand. When the factories finally opened again, they were working WAY slower than normal due to trying to function and abide by all the Covid rules and regulations… oh- and add to the mix that certain raw materials became hard to get hold of at that time, too!

Also, their order books which were rammed full, so there was a seriously long wait for products. Months… and when your products finally did get made, a lot of it then got stuck in transit for many months as there was big problems at the ports internationally. As a result, believe it or not, some orders took a year to get to me, and some even took the best part of two years to get to us from the original date of ordering. Of course, that kills your cash flow. Most brands and distributors had all massively increased their order sizes to attempt to keep up with this bonkers demand. But here’s the kicker.. by the time we finally could get stock, the boom was over. Demand was back to normal. The result was that there was maybe ten times the amount of skateboards floating about than were actually needed. Some skate companies had to sell this excess stock for very cheap to get rid of it. But even then, as there was such a mountain of it and the market was so saturated, some of the stock still went really slowly, even at below cost price. Some of it is STILL- to this day- floating about at half price, or less. Of course, this made it difficult for a lot of people in the industry, from manufacturing right through to retail. I feel blessed that I’ve been able to sell my products at the normal price with no discounts, as I feel selling stuff at a constant discount would have damaged the brand. Our prices are more than fair anyway, especially considering everything we make is pro-quality. But yeah- it wasn’t an easy few years. I’d go as far as saying that surviving them is the most difficult thing I have done in my life.”

…where he sees skateboarding headed in these next few years.

“I have no clue- that’s part of the beauty! I like how lots of styles are acceptable in skating, now-hopefully it will carry on like that. The level of skating is so high now, it makes it hard to imagine how it will be possible for it to get any radder. But, of course, it will- it always does!”

…Eddie Belvedere.

“Part man part skate machine! Power, speed, technicality, style. He’s a man of the people, too: check out Love Park in Falmouth that he runs.”

…skateboarding trends that he regrets not trying to get in on.

“There is not one. In fact, part of why I started Death was to be there for skaters that may not want to follow whatever the latest trend is. We consistently do what we do, no matter what.”

…what comes next for the good ship Death.

“Thats a good question- as I always say, we are ‘like The Titanic, but still floating’.

So, yeah.. staying afloat! It would be nice to make it to thirty years. I suppose more of the same: skating a lot of crusty skate spots and having a laugh. Oh, and keeping the products super-high quality but at an affordable price. That has always been important to me, as not everyone can afford the expensive stuff.

As well as the DEATH VX which is about to drop, we have three other videos currently in the works that will be released over the next year or two. Thanks for supporting skater-owned!”