Hump Day Goes to 1817 with Joe Sexton

Peep that new ThirtyTwo pro model. Photo: Brooke Geery

Joe Sexton is the quintessential video pro. Even in this day of internet videos and a surplus of snowboarders, he is on his way to legend status with solid part after solid part, a humble attitude and insane snowboard ability. Though a head injury took him out for most of this season, he still managed to stack some clips for Videograss’s Mayday, and make it out to the Holy Bowly. It was there I took advantage of the situation to get the Hump Day the people have been asking for.

What happened to your head this season?

I fractured my skull, broke my cochlea, which effects my hearing so I’m deaf in my right ear, probably for life it sounds like. It’s not the end of world, could be worse. It messed up my balance. It’s been three months now, but it took like a month and a half to feel even remotely normal. I’ve just been doing rehab. I fell on a rail, stupid mistake. I guess it just kinda happens. As soon as it happened everything was put on hold and I just had to focus on getting healthy again.

Why aren’t you wearing a helmet?

Right now I’m just kind cruising, and I feel like I don’t think I’m gonna hit my head keeping it really mellow. I’m not sure if I’m gonna wear one in the street rails or not. I’m not opposed to it, it’s just not how I grew up, I guess. Just a personal choice. I gotta figure it out.

Do injuries like that ever make you think, this is too much, it’s not worth it?

Not really. I think snowboarding is all I care about in the world. My whole life it’s all I’ve done it’s all I want to do. Even when I’m sitting there hurt with a fucked up head I can only think about tricks or stuff that I want to do. It’s not something I can just turn off and go, this is too scary, I’m just gonna get an office job. I can’t. It makes you think and it was scary and it made me wanna be a little bit smarter. And it put a little bit of a perspective on things, but it also just made me wanna go snowboarding again and get healthy and go back to it.

Did you manage to get any clips for Mayday?

Yeah, I might have a part. There’s rumors. I was able to film quite a bit before it happened on January 25th so, I’ll have clips for sure. If I am able to get a part I’ll be really, really fucking psyched.

Is there anyone’s part your looking forward in particular?

Danimals, I’ve just seen what he’s done and he’s like the best snowboarder. Jake OE is great to watch. Nick Dirks has a lot of good stuff.

Dirks is on a tear this year, seems like he’s actually trying for the first time in years.

It’s awesome, he’s just so good, if he just tries a little bit he’s gonna get stuff. Everyone in the movie really. Grenier’s got a lot of good backcountry stuff too. It’s gonna be a good movie for sure.

I heard a rumor that the House sent 1817 a cease and desist. True?

Yeah it’s true. I understand it in a way. They have the word house trademarked in different avenues, so basically they own the word house in snowboard clothing. So they have every right to do it. We were at the time of trying to transition out of that anyway, because I like 1817 as the numbers, it’s just a lot easier to catch on. We were already in the process of it. They kinda called us in, we had no idea what it was about, but it went good. It was like mutual thing, they’re a cool shop and it was just kinda like they asked us to do it and we said yeah, but if we were like no, it probably would have gotten worse. I’m not about trying to start shit about, the guy that called us in was really high up and he didn’t really know it had like a local vibe to it, and just thought we were trying to use the “house” to sell clothes for us. We kinda explained to him but also just told him we wouldn’t use it anymore.

What do you guys have in the works?

A lot more stuff. It’s hard, it’s been a crew vibe for so long and with everything that’s been going on, I’m like, really want to turn it into a real company. So we’ve been making hoodies and Tshirts. I don’t want to stop there. I want to have something behind it, so we make a product but we also sell that stuff too. We’re working on doing some bindings. So it’ll be really, really limited and really really awesome. It’s a hard one to do because there’s so much that goes into it. It won’t be for a couple years, but it’s something that I’m really excited about. It kinda needs it too. We just have an idea of what we would wanna wear. What the whole team would want and no one really makes that right now, so we’re just going to make our own. Dude soup. Photo: Jake Durham

Are you ready for bass season?

I am ready for bass fishing. We got like a month left of not bass fishing. I have my boat, I’m gonna get it all fixed. It’s not even a boat, it’s just like a cooler that I bought. It’s made out of cooler material and there’s two chairs and I have like a five horsepower electric motor. Me and Jake (OE) go at 4 am and like take it so serious. It’s really fun.

Do you get up earlier to fish or snowboard?

Fish. We’ll like jump out of bed to go fish. Not even hit the snooze we’re just like up and ready to go fishing. Snowboarding it’s always a little harder to get outta bed.

What’s the trick to hooking the big one?

Find em first. Use the right thing. Some of it’s luck, just where they’re at. But we’ve gotten pretty good at finding them. Big ones are hard. There’s so many medium sized ones but there’s not that many big ones. Plus, they’re smart, they’re older, so they know. They’re a little more wise.

Do you ever feel insufficient because your brother is a pro hockey player?

Yeah. A little bit. Not insufficient, it’s two different things. I’m really proud of him, he was playing in Russia this year and the KHL and made a lot of money. Same thing, he’s doing what he loves to do and getting paid for it. It’s amazing. It just different, unrelatable. I know hockey, but he doesn’t know about snowboarding. It’s cool that we’re into totally different things.

Are you guys twins?

Yeah.

What’s it like having a twin?

It’s not that weird. We’re so different. When I was growing up in high school people thought we were like cousins, not even brothers, much less twins. We’re fraternal, and from day one we’ve just been into different stuff. I’ve never been the kinda twin that’s like, “that’s my brother, gotta do what he’s doing.” Every day he would play hockey and I would play hockey too, but I was just trying. Once I started snowboarding we just grew way apart, listened to different music, totally different stuff. We still get along, he’s still my brother. This is the only boarding shot we got kids. Deal with it. Photo: Riley Erickson

What’s the most tries you’ve ever done at one spot?

I don’t know, like probably 200 something. It’s so bad. I can’t stop it. Even still I’ve been doing this for so long. This is like my tenth video part, or ninth or something. I still care just as much about getting this trick as I did my first video part. Which I like, I’m not mad about it, it’s just funny.

Would you rather: Bogart or Hondo?

Hondo. He’s just a little more cuddly.

What’s the most kinks you’ve ever hit?

There’s one that was like 12. It’s hard to count it because some people call down flat downs triple kinks, but I think those are just double kinks.

Are you as kinky in bed as you are on your snowboard?

Yeah, probably.

How many tinder matches do you have?

I don’t have tinder.

Why not? I don’t like it. Some of my friends have it. Some of my friends that have it, they match all these girls and they talk, but they don’t ever meet up. I feel like it’s made for that and they don’t, I’m not feeling it. I don’t have a Facebook either. That’s the main reason why.

You’ve never been on Facebook? I run the 1817 one and that’s it.

What’s your favorite Pandora station? I usually just listen to artists. Dire Straights radio, probably. Just depends. Right now Chief Keef radio is on there, just depends on what I’m doing.

Is there anything else we should talk about? Any trips? We did this really fun trip at the beginning of the season with 1817 and Videograss. This Trip X thing, we rented a van with everyone. That was back to how we did it as a kid, so it’s like me, Jake, Danimals, Fronius, Riley, Sam Fenton, Jake Durham. Just those guys, it was amazing. Everything would come so easy because those guys are so good and we all like each other and it was just such a blast.

Sponsors? Stepchild Snowboards, ThirtyTwo, Etnies, Howl, Ashbury, Coal, Bear Mountain, Cal Surf and 1817.

And JP Walker.

(laughs) And JP Walker. JP’s doing good.

What has he been doing?

I haven’t talked to him too much, but he broke his foot earlier this year really bad so he’s been dealing with that. I think he’s up in Whistler right now snowboarding. I’m sure he probably filmed some stuff before and he’s killing it. Despite what everyone thinks, he’s a good guy. I think everyone at Yobeat should know that.

He’s just cocky, but I guess that’s his thing.

Yeah that’s his thing, it’s always been that way. Maybe now since people can see it now it rubs them the wrong way, but you look at the forum videos it was the same way. He was an original doing that kinda stuff. I don’t know, there’s a lot of younger kids that don’t realize how much impact he had on snowboarding, it’s sad. You can’t keep talking about skating, but you look at how much respect these older skaters have. They get jobs as team managers and go that way. Our industry is a little bit different where they’re always kind looking for the next kid. And that’s fine, totally down to look for the next kid, but there’s just guys that have given so much to snowboarding that just should be getting the respect their due. Mikey Leblanc, JP Walker, Bjorn. These are guys that not only did new tricks but changed the way people filmed video parts and changed the way people look at snowboarding. The kid that’s talking shit on JP doesn’t even realize the way he’s doing a nose press is because of him. Know what I mean?

Man camp. Photo: Riley Erickson

Now go check out http://www.1817co.com/