the BERINGER interview!!

While Matt was sending the flip on the foot high kicker he thought of all the answers for this interview. Thanks Matt.

are there still parts of utah which music is banned just like in the film footloose? can you dance like kevin bacon???
I don’t think so but I know there are a lot of movies that don’t make it to Utah. Can I dance like Kevin Bacon? I might think so if I’m drunk.

is area 51 real? any sories about it?
I heard it’s down in southern Utah and they have some airstrip that’s like ten miles long. My Dad has a good UFO story, he used to be a cop. He said that a whole bunch of people called it in, a big craft with lights in the sky that made no noise. He said it was just hovering up in the sky, then it went about 30 miles away real quick, then back. Then it just disappeared, I believe him, it’s my Dad.

how does being a dry state work?
Utah isn’t really a dry state, there are just a bunch of stupid rules when it comes to buying alcahol. The beer you can but at the grocery store or gas station only has 3.2 percent alcohol instead of 5. You can only buy beer at the store untill 1:00 am. Last call at bars is 1:00 am. you can buy real beer and liquor at the liquor store but they don’t have a fridge, and they close at 10 pm. If you go to a resteraunt you have to order a meal if you want to get a beer. Any bar is considered a “private club” so you have to be with someone who has a membership, which is about 15 dollars for a year, or buy a temporary membership which is about 6 dollars. People always bitch about the funny laws about drinking here but I’m used to it. I still manage to get drunk. I just get drunk a lot faster when I go out of town so I have to know how to pace myself or I end up puking in the gutter.

do you ever go to the salt flats and attempt a land speed record. is this a typical utah past time. have you ever raced mike aitken for pinks?
It takes about 2 hours to get out there from here and they only race at a certain time of the year. I’ve never been out there when they’ve been racing. Mike’s been restoring his Trans Am for a couple years now, it’s almost done. It’s sick but his regular little car would kick my cars ass.

what car do you drive?
I drive a 1996 two wheel drive Jeep Cherokee. Actually I’ve been driving my sisters little Nissan for the last three weeks because the heater went out and the radiator hose keeps popping off leaving me stuck on the side of the road in the freezing cold.

would you recommend utah as a holiday destination?
For sure. Late Spring or early Fall are perfect. There are the best bike friendly concrete parks in the world in my opinion. Awesome street and trails too. Winter is freezing cold with snow and summer is hot as hell so you’d have to time it right. I love it here, I’ll never move.

james newrick, uk s and m rider asks, on a recent video part your intro is shouting moose and drinking a beer. i assume this is some sort of drinking game. how do you play it?
When playing Moose you need an ice cube tray, a 1 cup measuring cup, a coin, and a bunch of beer. You fill the cup with beer and put it behind the ice tray. Everyone sits around a table with a beer in hand. You bounce the coin off the table and try to get it into the cup of beer or the ice tray. If you make it into the cup you can make anyone in the circle drink the cup. If you make it into one of the last two slots of the ice tray, everyone in the circle has to shout “Moose” and put their hands up to their head like antlers. The last person to do this has to drink the cup. If you don’t get your hands up like antlers and say “moose” you have to drink the cup. False moose means you have to drink the cup (if you think it was a moose and it wasn’t). If you make it into any of the ice tray slots on the right (besides the last one) you can make anyone in the circle take that many gulps of beer (one being the first slot, seven being the second to last). You can divide the gulps up between people too. If you make the cup, “moose”, or any of the right side you get to go again. If you make it into any of the first seven on the left side you have to take that many gulps yourself and your turn is over. If you miss everything your turn is over. If the coin happens to land on the part in the middle it’s called a social and everyone at the table cheers each other and drinks.
Damn, that’s kind of complicated to explain, I’m sending a picture too but I’m sick so I don’t have any beer or anyone to play moose with right now so you’ll just have to imagine there are no ice cubes in the tray and the cup is full of your favorite cheap beer.

the beginning was an awesome video. whats panty boy up to now? and tell us the craic about that huge swimming pool jump thing.
The last time I saw Pantyboy was a couple months ago at a party at Mike Aitkens house. He was pretty drunk and said a bunch of really funny stuff. I wish I could see him more but he got a real job and a serious girlfriend. I’m going to make him ride more this year though.

That swimming pool jump is up by Park City. The arial skiers use it to train in the summer. I don’t know how it got lined up but they used to call us to come jump a couple times in this show they put on. The lip is six feet tall and the bottom of the lip is about six feet above the water. So when you take off you’re leaving from 12 feet above the water. The hill you go down is about 60 feet long with about 15 feet of flat before the lip. The whole run is next to the bristles that the skiers go on so you have about one foot wide wet plywood the whole way to more air than you’ve ever imagined having in your life. The pool you land in has a compressor system that shoots a bunch of air through tubes on the bottom of the tube, so when you land you don’t have that harsh slap. It’s been a couple years since we’ve been able to do that. I want to go back with Nastazio and see what he would do.

john stockton or karl malone?
I can’t watch basketball, I think they need to raise the hoop at least a foot.

whats your favourite metal band
Portals!

it seems like you can shred any device you get on be it BMX, 16 inch bmx, snow bike or skateboard. what mental/physical attribute gives you this ability? are there any obscure sports that you are great at or partake in as well?
I guess I just get interested in weard or funny stuff sometimes and take it too far. It’s all about just going for what you want to do.
I guess I’m pretty good at extreme garage R.C. car.

you kind of remind me of tackleberry from police acadamy. why?
Because my Dad used to be a cop, I guess I got it from him.

do you have a dog?
No, my roommate has a pretty cool cat though.

i saw your motorbike on myspace, are you part of a biker gang? do you think bmx should be more motorbiking than skateboarding.
I saw that chopper when I was out in California and took a picture, I’m a myspace poser!

how many fights have you won and lost
I used to get in fights a bunch when I was little, I remember throwing sand in some kids face at the playground and then punching him a bunch. Besides that I gut sucker punched by a cowboy in highschool and me and Elf got beat up by a bunch of pimps in Toronto, but that’s another long story.

i read in an interview in thrasher that the board buys the car and the shoe buys the house. maybe this quote isnt the same in the bmx industry.your names on a few things: a shoe, a frame, a bar and grips etc. what did the shoe, the frame, the bar and the grips buy?
I don’t have a signature frame anymore but if it wasn’t for S&M and roomates, I wouldn’t be in this house. I guess the bar and bar ends help me at the bar. The grips buy me coffee (but they wouldn’t support addicts like some people I know). And I’m still waiting on the shoe to pay off.

got any rad stunts in the new odyssey video when it come out?//?
I’m completely happy with my part, I think I came up with a couple good things.

what is the best trick you have ever done?
Maybe hop to trampoline to front flip.

what is the thing you are most proud of that you have fabricated yourself?
My Skibike.

what is your favourite movie?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

tell us some random beringer facts..
I was in marching band for a year in high school. I played Alto Sax from 7th to 11th grade. I still play sometimes with some of my friends when they jam.

your backyard is something else. waterslides, roof drops and trampolines must make for some crazy shit. what is the craziest thing to ever go down in you back yard that hasn’t been caught on video.?
Brian Foster dropped off the roof into one side of the mini and jumped back up onto the roof on the other side, he put his foot down but who cares. It was the ultimate line possible here.


where the hell do you get a waterslide from?
Cameron Wood’s uncle owns this place called Classic Fun Center. There are about 3 or 4 of these places, they have rollerskating and waterslides. The one that’s about 75 miles from here had a fire about 5 years ago, they were going to demolish the rest of the slides so we had 4 days to take what was still good. It was so much work and the trailer we used to haul all the stuff to my house with didn’t have brake lights or turn signals. It took about 3 weeks to figure out how to set everything up. We still have 7 turn pieces and one straight piece left.

whats your weirdest collection.
I have every wrist band from any contest I’ve ever been in.

what happens in your average daily life?
I think the most consistant thing now is checking my e-mail now that I’m the S&M T.M.. Other than that my life is pretty random, it depends what time of the year it is too. I never go to bed or wake up at a certain time unless I have too. Sometimes I drink down in S.L.C and can’t drive home. Right now it’s winter so I play Guitar Hero too much.
Spring will be here soon and there will be plenty of digging to do and ramps to work on.

got any secrets to share?
What happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam. Ha!

once i saw you sitting on a wall eating a slice of pizza in hastings. when you coming back to england?
I’d love to make it over in 08′, I don’t know if it will happen or not. Any chance I get I’ll be there, I always have a blast.