Talking with Lorifice and Duncombe

So, every skater who registers for the Dew Tour has to fill in an emergency contact. Usually it’s a parent, girlfriend, or manager. When we were flipping through the forms the other day, one contact stood out.

There on Jake Duncombe’s form was the name ‘Rob Lorifice’. Relationship for contact? Best friend. After laughing over the image of Jake and Rob swapping ‘friends for life’ bracelets’ we thought we’d grab the two to sit down for a minute and talk to us about skating together, the Blind video, and Jake’s first trip to the Dew Tour.

So, Jake, you listed Rob as your emergency contact.
Rob: [laughs] You did?

And what was the relationship?
Jake: I put you as best friend.

We thought that was a bit awkwardly sweet…
R: [Laughs] Well we live together, and we have for a good amount of time. We live together in Encinitas.

How did you meet each other?
R: Through Lyn-z?
J: Yeah, yeah, through Lyn-z Adams. I called her up and was like ‘Where are some parties?’ and she was like, ‘Here, call my brother.’ So I called her brother Tyler, and then I just met up with these guys, and we haven’t been separated since.

What’s the best thing about skating together?
R: Just laughing, having a good time.
J: Hanging out with each other.
R: Yeah, just making fun of each other. He usually burns me pretty good. I’m not very good at comebacks, so… I usually get the end of the jokes, but it’s all good.

Who’s better: Rob when he skates street or Jake when he tries vert?
J: I think, we don’t really do it that much, it’s just different so it’s hard to say who’s better.
R: Yeah, he’ll come skate Vert with me, and I’ll go skate street with him.
J: Well let’s just say I’m better.
R: Yeah, I don’t know about that…

How’d it come about that you’re both on Blind? It’s not too often that you get two Vert skaters on a team.
J: I was trying to get Rob on for a long time. I mean Jake [Brown]’s been on for a long time. It’s not weird to have two Vert riders it’s just that most companies don’t appreciate it, they just think that’s too many, I don’t know. But you know, Bill Weiss saw him, and me and Jake–both Jakes–we were getting heard, and he was getting coverage in the comps, so it just seemed like a good idea. We’re all friends already. At the end of the day, if the whole team doesn’t like you, you’re not going to get on.
R: I was pretty stoked. I knew pretty much everyone too, from before, just from like traveling and stuff, hanging around with these guys. So I was pretty good friends with everyone. It ended up working out.

Let’s talk about filming for the Blind video.
R: It was fun.
J: We had a fun couple of trips.
R: Phoenix, we stayed at Ronnie [Creager]’s house. I got broke off ,and he was already broken off, so not much skating went down but it was still good times.
J: We did some street skating, which is how he got hurt…
R: I was just, I don’t know
J: Pop shuv-it down…
R: Yeah, pop shuv-it down a big 4, hurt my ankle.
J: His ankle blew up like huge, and I already had a broken wrist. I just came on the trip to hang out. But it was good fun.
R: Yeah, it was good times.

So did you just get to hang out and watch Ronnie skate?
R: Ronnie didn’t even skate when we were out there. We watched Filipe [Ortiz] and [James] Craig.
J: A couple of other shoots I went on, I was just jamming with them and filming shit, that was really cool. Watching like Danny Cerezini and Filipe-two brazilians just killing it–insane. I’m pretty happy with the video. I think the video came out, not as the craziest or best video ever, but I feel like it was the most fun video that’s been out for a long time.

Yeah it looked like you guys are having a ton of fun throughout it.
J: Yeah, it was. Choosing the songs, and everything. It was fun.
R: Yeah, like hanging out with the whole, like everyone mixes well together. Everyone’s a character on the team.

Yeah, it’s a team that’s stacked on personalities.
J: Yeah, well, the team manager’s got the biggest one.

That’s just who I was going to bring up next, Blind Team Manager Bill Weiss.
R: Oh Weiss–Weiss is awesome. You never stop laughing when you’re with that guy. He’s fricking hilarious.

He gets a bit intense, right?
J: He kinda gets intense. If no one’s skating he’ll just be like ‘maaaaaan’, and then we’ll be all bummed and like not gonna do what he says. And then he’ll like crack a joke, and everyone starts laughing and forgets about it and starts actually skating. He just doesn’t realize that if he’s not so intense, so much more would get done. I mean he does it for the good. I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him, doing that. He just has a crazy sense of humor, it’s amazing. It helps a lot on the tours. Sometimes he causes a lot of trouble… [laughs]

You guys have been traveling a lot lately…
R: Yeah, recently I went out to Australia and met up with him in Bondi and hung out for a little while… Australia is amazing, I’m trying to get him to get a place out there, so I can rent a room from him and go out to Australia whenever I want. Besides Encinitas, it’s one of my favorite places in the world, just amazing down there.

So speaking of Encinitas, sort of, let’s talk about a different topic: Maloof. We just talked to Alex, and he said he was telling you that you could have won Maloof…
R: It was pretty crazy, just a week before we were at the Y, and because of that mini-mega rail thing, he kind of thought I had an advantage because I’ve skated it a bunch of times, so he was just like ‘You could win this for sure,’ and I was like, ‘No, you could win this.’ Obviously dude’s an amazing skateboarder, but he’s always like kind of doubting himself. He needs to get a fire lit under him to get him skating. To see him step up like that, it was awesome. He’s one of the most amazing skaters for sure. I just like watching him, and he’s a good friend. He’s just really shy, but if he gets to skating, it’s amazing to watch.

Was it cool to see one of the younger Vert guys win such a big contest?
R: Yeah, not to take anything away from Pierre, but the younger guys need to come up and take over his spot. We can’t let him win every contest this year.

Yeah, like the Dew Tour… Rob, you obviously have some Dew Tour experience, but Jake, this is your first one. What made you decide to do it?
J: They invited me and pre-qualified me, so I was like cool, I don’t have to skate the first round. I was happy for that. And Rob and a bunch of other guys were coming out, so I was like I might as well. I’ve actually got to fly back Saturday night for another contest. This is the most comps I’ve done in so long. I did like two comps in two years, and those were the Maloof Cups, and now I’m about to do four, so it’s crazy. Because usually Rob’s never at home, he’s off every weekend…
R: Yeah, doing all these Vert contests.
J: So I was like, I might as well start doing them and hanging out.
R: Well, and make some money too. You know, he’s got rent checks piling up, all those bills..

Rob, you made it through International Qualifiers to the the Prelims.
R: I got lucky and made it through. It was intense, I was stressing out for sure. I’m just glad to make it. I’ll just go for it tomorrow and try to make the finals, but you never know–everyone’s just so good, that you can’t really expect to beat anyone.

You’ve mentioned that you get stressed out by the timed-run format…
R: I feel like [a jam session] shows more of your skating, because skateboarding’s not about being perfect, you’re not gonna make a trick every time. So you kind of need those extra chances to try harder tricks and do more intense things that people would be stoked to see. I feel like getting two chances to do 18 tricks in a row is pretty harsh.
J: [Laughs] It’s hard work…
R: I’m not in physical fit condition for sure, but I get pretty winded after 45 seconds of skating. I just feel like, the skating–everyone goes for more stuff when the format is different.

Is it weird that you have to compete more, due to being a Vert skater, than Jake and your other street friends?
R: I still want to come, but it’s stressful to be dealing with all these contests. I definitely wish I could take a couple breaks, but with the sponsors I have, like Rockstar and Vans, and other sponsors, they want me to come out to these contests. It’s always fun, like I said, I love coming out and skating with everyone. I just don’t like the stress that comes with all the contests. I can start stressing out pretty hard.

What’s your Dew Tour advice to Jake?
R: Don’t fall.
J: That’s pretty hard for me.
R: No, he’s good, dude–just skate around and have fun. If you don’t think, I mean I try to not think like I do, but I try to pretend like nothing’s going on and just have a good time. It’s hard not to stress, but that’s the easiest way to do it, just trying to think of it as going out and having fun.
J: Well we don’t have the runs…
R: Yeah it’s different for them.
J: We have the jam, so we really just skate–especially if you know the people in your heat, it’s really like just skating with them and having fun.

So you’re not the only first-time-to-the-Dew-Tour skater here, Jake.
J: It’s my first year here and I was like, oh sick, I’ll have the chance to win some money. And then I saw all these guys, and I was like ‘Dammit, I have to work harder!’ I mean, I’m focused, and I knew I would have to work hard anyways, with like Chaz Ortiz and guys that skate comps always, but now there are guys like Chris Cole too… yeah, I need to go practice.

Well, then we’ll let you get to that.