Caught Up With Joe Sexton

bengal

• October 07 2008
• 4,961 views
• 33 comments

PHOTO: Chris Wellhausen

Minnesota Joe strolled through the office under the watch of JP Walker and Roberta Rodger recently. The crew was helping Sexton heal up his knee with a visit to the doc while pulling him out of his late day routine. Time spent healing gives your mind idle time to wander, and in Joe’s case he’s been sleeping in till three, watching every episode of the Office, and exploring how things are made—from pictures to goggles to magazines. Although wading through injury, Joe managed to bang out an impressive part in the People video Down With People. The kid’s head is clear and level and with all that patient waiting he’ll be ready to blast down some rails come snow time.

So what’s new in the life of Joe?
I moved into an apartment with three other friends, I live in a closet. It’s been pretty cool and rent is super cheap because of that. I’ve been rehabbing my knee. I blew my knee out at the end of last year and I’m four months out of surgery and I just saw a doctor down here and he said it was all good. I’ve been riding my bike and I got a gym membership and I’m trying to eat better—a whole life change (laughs).

How did you hurt your knee?
I hurt it at the beginning of the year filming, like in January. I jumped down a set of stairs and hurt it then so I went to the doctor to get it checked out and he said it was all good so I was like, “Okay, cool.”  Then I went filming all year with the People guys and every time I came off a rail weird it would hurt and shake and do all this crazy stuff so I knew it was messed up, but I didn’t really want to go see a doctor. At the end of the year in Mammoth I came off this park rail all weird and just felt it totally slip. And then I was done, I went to get it checked and I had torn my ACL.

That was the same trip JP blew out his shoulder right?
Yeah, that was the same trip, the next day. It was funny ‘cause Darrell [Mathes] fell super hard and kinda got shooken up. I was like, “Oh man that sucks.” Then JP got hurt and blew his shoulder out and I go, “Man I’m next,” but Darrell said naw you’ll be fine. Don’t curses always come in threes?

As soon as I hopped on the rail I knew it was going to happen.  There was a hole at the bottom of the landing and I hit the up slope and snapped my knee. I had to walk down the whole mountain and it was my first major injury so I was tripping, I didn’t know what to do. The thought of not being able to skateboard all summer was crazy.  I thought, “How is that going to be possible?”

Yeah, how do you usually spend you summers?

Skateboarding. Well, I had a couple summer jobs and stuff and then worked for my dad for a while installing sprinkler heads and seriously skateboarding. It’s what I do to stay in shape and it’s just my passion. I love skateboarding so much and when I couldn’t I was like damn it this sucks. And all my friends come back and go skating and on these skate trips which was hard. I‘ve been taking pictures of them skating though so that helps.

How have you been healing up?
Well, everyone said I would get fat, but luckily I got that gym membership and I got this girl’s cruiser bike. I’ve been watching movies and playing mad video games—Bond 007.

Nintendo 64 or what?
Yeah that one and the Xbox version.

What’s the word on the new Stepchild/ThirtyTwo movie project?
It should be fun, Sean Johnson is producing it and Ilari, the same guy that did the Child Support movie is going to film it. And then we have a couple more filmers and it’s basically going to be JP, Simon, Markku, Stian, Risto, Fredu, and I.

That will be a tight knit crew.
It’s going to be pretty small which is good. It’s just fun because we all have different views on things and I guess it just works. Like Simon, JP and I went to Bear and I never really knew JP very well, but by the end of it were just hanging out.

Yeah you guys are homies now.
It’s seriously like a family. I’ve been with Stepchild three years now and I just can’t see myself anywhere else. All those guys make it super fun. I can’t really complain.

When can you plan on getting back on the snow?
The doctor said I have about two more months, which is okay because stuff should just start rolling by then. Nowadays it seems like we start filming later and end later so that should work out. I’m just curious to see how it feels to hop back on my snowboard. My steeze will be all weird, I’ll probably look like a rollerblader.

Are you stoked with your part in the People vid?
Yeah I like it.  They made the movie really well. I like a lot of the parts, Jordan’s, John’s, Simon’s and all the guys that I filmed with this year. I think they did a super good job. Do you like it?

Yeah, I’ve only seen it once so far but I really dig the fierce pow blasts. They just kept firing those off at the camera and it gets you stoked to shred.
Yeah I was anxious to see it again too so I went to a shop and bought one. I wanted to see the bonus too because the bonus has all the good stuff.

I know you’re a big skate fan, any recent skate outings?
I went to the Goofy versus Regular of skate. It was awesome. I got to go in the park and sit down by all the guys. I’m a pretty big skate nerd when it comes to that stuff so I kind of fan out about some am kid or something. I saw Dylan Rieder and Chris Cole, I never to get to see any of that in Minnesota. I was there for like five hours just watching.

Just tempting eh?
Yeah I wanted to skate so bad. Random kids were skating the park and I could have been too if my leg was better.

What are some of your favorite new skate vids?
The new TWS vid And Now. I saw the Fallen vid Ride the Sky a couple times it’s pretty good. I think And Now has some more appealing riders though. I’m just waiting to see the other flicks come out.