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» Christian Hosoi
» Lance Mountain
» Richard Mulder
» Brian Sumner
» Ray Barbee
A true prodigy, Birdhouse team member, Brian Sumner went pro after only two years on a board. Born and raised in Liverpool, England, Brian has become one of the bright lights of modern skating.
Brian was brought up in a Liverpool neighborhood called Walton, which he describes as "pretty rough, not a good setting. Liverpool is a tough city. People are mean and have problems with everything and try and tell you what you can and can't do.
One day on a trip to the city center with his father, Brian caught a glimpse of something that would change his life.
"I saw this guy ollie up a curb on his deck." Brian says the sight blew him away,"I was probably 11 or 12 and had never seen anything like it."
The next few years saw some geographical changes for Brian as he moved to the United States to Belmar/Spring Lake, New Jersey. Then on his 13th birthday he decided to get a skateboard.
"My sister's boyfriend over there used to skate, his friends still skated and I had been riding around on his old deck. I ended up buying this Powell "Pat Brennan" R.I.P. deck. It had Ventures and some Bullet wheels."
The next few years were spent getting more into skating and the culture that surrounded it.
"These next few years I skated everyday, at first outside my house, and then my parents eventually let me go into the city."
Brian says it soon became that he was either skating, doing something to do with skating or asleep.
"I skated all the time, met so many people, would travel everywhere, it just took over."
By the time Brian was 15 and had been skating in the city, sometime he had fallen in with a group of skaters that would assist in taking him to the next level. Geoff Rowley who was already a professional became Brian's personal hero.
"I looked up to Geoff like crazy," he says, "he could do all these tricks and seemed like he knew where he was going."
Brian says that eventually, through skating spots and going to contests, Rowley was able to garner some sponsor interest for the young Sumner.
Around that time, Brian was invited over to America to stay with Geoff at the Flip house.
"I got back to Liverpool and remembered hating the idea of being sponsored. Here was this thing I was in love with and I had started hating something about it."
But many sessions with a couple of Birdhouse pros would eventually change his mind.
"We would just go goof around or play skate. I really had fun and felt more relaxed. I got a call one day from Jeremy Klein and he wanted me on Birdhouse." Things ended up working out for the best and Brian came around to the idea of going to America again.
Leaving college and everything else at home, Brian moved out to California to live with Andrew Reynolds, Grecs, Ali Cairns, Chad Bartie and Mehmet Iodine.
"It was awesome. We were just little kids down to skate in this house that Birdhouse was paying for."
Brian ended up living in the house for about 4 years.
Eventually he became a character in the latest Tony Hawk skateboarding video game and "it just blew up."
Brian currently resides and skates in Huntington Beach, CA.
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