As a man of two names and many hats — creative director, Born X Raised co-founder, film director, designer and more — Alex/2Tone has a keen understanding of duality. During a video call from his home in California, he discusses his recent work directing Vans' new "Always Pushing" brand anthem and the accompanying 60-second spot. He nods when it’s mentioned there’s a great deal of duality in skateboarding: respect and irreverence, solo missions and crew outings.
"Skating is not a team sport, but skaters are wildly supportive of — and respectful to — each other for the most part," he says. "Only they know what it's like to live that life ... there's a level of camaraderie that's really interesting to see for something that started the way skateboarding did, largely alone in streets and pools."
The positive friction between those touch-points (and the energy that friction provides) is at the very core of Alex/2Tone's Always Pushing spot for Vans. Even though it's a concise 60 seconds, it crests and crashes with a great deal of force — painting a warm, romantic picture of skateboarding, but one that also salutes its inherently rebellious nature. From a wild trick on an excavator, an impromptu skate session on the side of a city bus to more relaxed shots showing the camaraderie of skate crews globally, the film crests from respectful to raucous, before ending on a striking last shot that seems to pop off the screen like a sizzling firecracker. All the while, it spotlights skaters and creatives from the wider Vans universe, ranging from Zion Wright to Atiba Jefferson and Paris Texas, whose cut "CASINO" serves as the film's soundtrack.
Ahead of the official kickoff of the "brand anthem," Alex/2Tone shared insights on his creative process, explained why it's so important for big brands to let creatives "cook" instead of homogenizing their output — and further spotlighted the dualities that make skateboarding so unique.
From the man himself: who is Alex/2Tone and what do you do?
I am Alex/2Tone and I work as the brand owner and creative director of Born X Raised. I also work outside of the brand as a creative director and a film director. There are a lot of other things I do as well, but those are the biggest and most notable.
You were recently tapped to lead creative for Vans' "Always Pushing" brand anthem, and your involvement was actively promoted as part of the anthem's rollout. In the past, you've noted that you prefer to work behind the scenes and out of the spotlight, but recently you've taken a more public-facing role in your creative projects, from Born X Raised to this. Do you feel like your recent path manifested itself in this brand anthem?
I suppose so. Vans felt that me being "in front" of the project made sense, and I'm here for it. I never instruct people to go either way — however you want to credit me is fine as long as I'm being credited. In this instance, I think making my involvement more public did make sense because of what the Vans brand means to me and my community, so it was sound in an organic sense.
I'm actually not very good at self-promotion [laughs]. I think a lot of it happens naturally, though it's never been a focus of mine. I'm not going to say I do it reluctantly, though; it kind of just is what it is.
What was your personal history with Vans prior to working on this project?
I grew up on the West Side of LA, and Vans was ubiquitous. They were worn by a lot of kids that skated or were into punk music. Even wider than that, though, you just always had some Vans when you were a kid. It was a standard silhouette. When I got a little older, I really got into Vans Vault as well. The brand has pretty much been a part of my repertoire my entire life, and I feel like they're a very West Side company. If you're on the West Side, you're close to the water and you're connected to surf, skate, the like, and Vans has just always been a part of that.
What were the biggest similarities and differences between working on this project and your "day job" at Born X Raised?
Well, it's interesting because working with Vans was a really unique experience. Typically what would happen if a big company like Vans wanted to employ me for a commercial is that they'd hire a creative agency, then that creative agency would liaise with my production company, then my production company would talk to me, then I'd talk to the creative agency and they'd talk to the brand.
A lot of in-between.
Yup. And that's just usually how things go. Here, however, it was just me talking directly to the brand, which is incredibly rare. You don't usually get to interact directly with the people at the brand who are working on the project. With this project, I was talking to Drieke [Leenknegt, Vans chief marketing officer] and Ian [Ginoza, Vans OTW creative director], which gave me insight and cut through a lot of the bullsh*t you usually have to endure to get something off. Most of the time, when everything you do goes through like three intermediaries, it's so homogenized and watered down that it doesn't even look like something I worked on, whereas with this project I was able to really put my touch on it because they understood what I was doing and I understood what they wanted.
"A company of [Vans'] size is more likely to hedge their bets and avert any risk, but that's not the game they're playing. They're really trying to take some wild swings and they're connecting."
So the project felt very personal and direct?
It was very much like what I would have done for Born X Raised or one of my personal projects, just through a slightly different lens and with an alternate style. There were definitely some style risks that they had to take because the whole project wasn't conventional. Vans isn't a small company, of course, and usually a company of that size is more likely to hedge their bets and avert any risk, but that's not the game they're playing. They're really trying to take some wild swings and they're connecting.
It's not common that a large entity would let a creative partner cook like that.
Yeah, and I think that there's a lesson there that takes a long time to learn. If you find the right creative for something — and this extends to music, athletes, whatever — who does what they do in a very singular way, you just let them cook and that's that. It's hard for brands to step back because they're usually so keen on controlling every bit of their narrative, and what drew me to this project was the fact that Vans is willing to do that, which I first saw reflected in their Frieze LA installation with PlayLab and Sterling Ruby. I saw that and was like "Wow, they really are connecting with what I'm connecting with."
"Always Pushing" is a succinct tagline, but those two words represent so much: the energy of skateboarding, its rich community aspect, its impact on culture, the history and overarching ethos of the Vans brand. How do you distill all of that into a 60-second short film?
There were a lot of pre-production meetings, and I remember that I was building graphs to show how the energy of three different narratives would be moving up and down over the course of the spot [laughs]. The whole thing got slightly scientific for a minute, but the core of the idea was to represent "Always Pushing" with the kinetic energy of the film. It's just like "boom, boom boom," and keeps going, maintaining its energy as the film moves around the world. To maintain that energy is a big job, and if you really look at the film and break it down there are so many tiny worlds in there interacting with one another — they never stop moving, and that was one of the things we had spoken about, making sure the piece felt that way.
"Even with all the money and machinery attached to skateboarding today ... it's still very much in the hands of the kids that are just going out there and f*cking doing it."
Skateboarding has always had this really artful balance of respect and irreverence. Even though those are opposing forces, it seems as if they can be spotlighted in a really unique way if it's done properly.
One of the most interesting things about skateboarding is that it's still in the hands of the people that are actually doing it, even as it's now seen as a "legitimate sport" and is in the Olympics. When I was a kid, people looked at skateboarding as a "crime wave," a cult-y thing that locals did, and people would be pissed at you for doing it, so it's still wild to me that it's turned into this monstrous f*cking thing.
But the beauty of it is that, even with all the money and machinery attached to skateboarding today, like I mentioned, it's still very much in the hands of the kids that are just going out there and f*cking doing it. They have their own structure, their own language, and it's still a super insider thing. There's only one way to really, truly get into the world of skating, and that's by actually doing it, you know?
That speaks to another parallel in the "Always Pushing" film: the balance of individualism and community. Though skateboarding is, at its core, a solo endeavor, there is an aspect of collectivism too, skating with your crew and going on missions together. Even a line from the song that was playing in the film — "all of my brothers close, can't tell us apart" — nods to that.
Skating is not a team sport, but skaters are wildly supportive of — and respectful to — each other for the most part. Only they know what it's like to live that life, and they have a very insulated community. There's a level of camaraderie that's really interesting to see for something that started the way skateboarding did, largely alone in streets and pools.
Do you think the saying "if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together" applies in the world of skateboarding?
Yeah, I'd say it does. It's specifically interesting here, because it's something that you can only really do by yourself, but it's not going to happen without the influence and support of the people around you. Same with filmmaking. I literally can't do something like this by myself. Both are wild undertakings, and you need your "village" of people to lift you up sometimes.
The film showcases skateboarding in a very romantic light, one that feels warm and optimistic, but gradually grows more raucous without losing the streak of “fun” that runs through it. Was that “slow burn” something you knew you wanted to do all along?
Yeah, 100%. That was planned very, very early on. The first thing we thought about was: "Energetically, what is this going to look like? Where is it going to peak?" There were a bunch of different narratives going on at once, and they all have to merge onto the same road at some point before breaking off again.
Two specific moments of the film really stick out: in one, an excavator pulls up to a pool to demolish it, and a skater footplants on it, and in the other two skaters use hastily-dragged kickers to wallride a city bus. Were there metaphorical aspects to those shots, was it just good old fashioned rebellious fun, or was it a little bit of both?
I think it could definitely be perceived that way, or it could also be seen as something that's just sick to look at. I don't want to tell anyone how to perceive anything. I do think that, metaphorically however, the way I thought of it was the excavator coming in to destroy the pool was what people are skating against — the machinery of the world that's kind of beating everybody down these days. Both that and skating the bus were also pure acts of rebellion, which nods to that no matter how big skateboarding gets it is, itself, still an act of rebellion.
There were so many brilliant creatives that took part in this brand anthem. What was the energy like on set, and did that in-the-moment energy inform the final product at all?
I think so. There were things that were obviously controlled and built from the beginning, but a lot of what I aim to do when I direct is create a world, find the people to populate that world, create a loose structure of what should happen and then let those people do their thing. If the casting is good, the photography is good, the set pieces are good and everything gets put together, I want to see people's personalities. I'm trying to find personality more than looks — not to say that everyone in the film wasn't fantastic-looking [laughs], but I'm always looking to find the people that have something to give to the story.
You'd mentioned a moment ago that you want to let people perceive the film in their own way, but what was your personal favorite thing about the project?
I had two favorites, actually. First was that there were a lot of happy accidents — like when we were shooting in Japan at night and it rained, so everything was wet and reflected without us having to pay for a wet down [a filming technique in which a surface is wetted to make it look like it just stopped raining]. Every location really shined as its own character, and that was really cool.
But above everything else, I love the last shot with the excavator. Cinematically, it was f*cking crazy, and it was such a cool thing to watch in person too. If you take out the aspects of skateboarding and sport, you're watching someone do a stunt live and absolutely nailing it. They're not doing it with any sort of protection though, and we're watching them try to pull off some wild sh*t. It's such a crazy element because it's very real.
Did that get nailed first try?
Every trick, nailed first time.
For real?
Vans made me say that [laughs]. Just kidding — I don't want to pull the curtain back too far, but let's just say nothing took a ton of tries.
