Robbie Holmes is an amazing skater that's been on the low lately. He's between board sponsors right now, but it's a sure bet that he's far from done and you'll be seeing more of Robbie in the future. We caught up with him recently and got quick interview. The result is below...

48 Blocks: How did you first get started skating and coming down to the Pier?

Robbie: One of the first times was in 8th grade right near the end of the year, when I first started picking up a board. I was also playing basketball at the time. I just went with a couple of my friends and we were just cruising around the city. One of them was like, "hey, there's this place called Pier 7, let's go there." Right when we got there kids were getting chased out by the cops, it was crazy! So that was a weird experience. I remember going home and tripping off of it, I think I even told my Mom. (laughs)

48 Blocks: You were born in the city right?

Robbie: No, I was actually born in LA. I was put up for adoption straight out of the hospital and I was adopted when I was one and a half. My mom and I moved up and down the coast, we got out here half a year before the '89 earth quake. The earth quake fucked up our house, so we had to bounce out for a little bit. We came back six months later and I've been chilling here ever since.

48 Blocks: Who were the first people that you skated with on a regular basis?

Robbie: My homies Mike, Aaron, and Drew...we'd always come into FTC after school. We were like the FTC rats. We'd always just sit on that little bench and chill out. We saw the craziest stuff go down, it was good times though...it was cool. We'd either go to FTC or Wallenburg after school and it was always just the four of us. Then one day at Wallenburg I met Mike York and Karl Watson, it was so random and I didn't even know who they were. This was in 9th grade.

48 Blocks: What year would that be?

Robbie: Maybe like '98 or '99. My friend told me that Karl worked at ZA so we went over there one day after school and got some pizza. It was weird too, cause I had no perception...I had never even seen a skate video before, I just saw kids skating. That whole summer between 8th grade and 9th grade I went to Embarcadero, it was like '98. We stayed there till stupid hours of the night just skating up and down on the bricks.

48 Blocks: So when did you start progressing to the point where people started to notice?

Robbie: I don't even remember that, it all just started blending together and I think one day I was skating at the Pier. I was just filming something for my homies video and then Karl asked me. He said, "I'm starting this company called Organika, would you like to be a part of it?" It was such an honor, I had known Karl for about five years at that point and we had gone skating a lot. This was awhile later and by then I had met a lot of people and just knew them as people and not from the magazines. Nobody had ever really talked to me about getting sponsored. So I wasn't even really tripping on all that. I just wanted to skate cause skating is skating. That's how I still feel about it, it's love. You can tell if someone loves skating by their push, how they cruise around cracks in the sidewalk. Skating is just amazing like that, you can create and express yourself through your board. I think too many people let their style define them instead of defining their style.

48 Blocks: Did you get on Organika before you got on FTC?

Robbie: No, way back in the day around the time that Ando bounced to NYC some people were like "you should ride for FTC." I was like "how do you do that?" They told me, "you go do something crazy and you tell them you did it and they sponsor you." (laughs) So I was like, "allright!" I went with my homie Mike and boardslid the Kezar rail. I ran back over to FTC and was like, "Ian, I boardslid the Kezar rail, will you sponsor me?" He was like, "You did? I don't even believe you dog..." (laughs) He was like, "you gotta film that," then Kamal was like "yeah, you gotta film that." So I went back and was pretty confident about it, I hopped up on there and sure enough at the tallest part my board shot out and I sacked! (laughs) I just fell on the side and was like, "dude I'm done, I don't even care." Eventually I just became friends with those dudes and they started hooking me up.

48 Blocks: Who are you riding for these days?

Robbie: I ride for myself, straight up...that's who I've always ridden for. My sponsors are Satori wheels, Ace trucks, and FTC.

48 Blocks: So what happened with Organika, do you want to talk about that at all?

Robbie: I'm not too sure, honestly I don't really know. I guess I didn't put enough out there for them photo-wise. What I tripped off was that when you ask the magazines if they want to use your photos you either need to have a big name photographer shoot it or you have to have like three or four ads from your sponsors. I've only had a Satori ad and an Organika ad, and Organika doesn't run ads anymore. They haven't been doing that for awhile. It's weird, I guess they kind of got over it when I got a job. Also, I couldn't go on a tour cause of something that happened and I had to stay here with my Mom....I think they got bummed on that. I have no bad feelings about it, I wish they could have seen it from my perspective. They said that since I was working they were gonna cut my check in half. I told them that I was only working part time cause they were helping me out, and if they cut my pay I was gonna have to work full time. They ended up cutting my pay, so I started working full time...then they thought I wasn't skating anymore cause I was working.

48 Blocks: So it was mostly about coverage. Was it Karl that talked to you?

Robbie: Yeah, it was Karl...which is cool. Like I said, I have no hard feelings towards them. It would have been better if we communicated more. I thank them every day for all the help they've given me over the years and I can't be mad.

48 Blocks: So are you just chilling now or are you trying to still do it?

Robbie: Oh man, it's just like it was before...I'll always be on my board and I'll always be learning. Skateboarding is like the mind, it's constant evolution and it's constant progression. It's part of my essence and it's part of my soul, so I'll always be skating.