SLUSH CART

John Shanahan on his Public Guest Board

  |   Norm Schoff
Intro by Jeff Brown
I started flowing John shoes about 13 years ago.  Watching his career evolve, I’ve always admired his originality and eye for style, as well as trick and spot selection. I’ve also run into John on snow several times as we ride the same mountains. Last winter I saw John had been snowboarding a lot on a very old board and asked if he would want to get on one of my PUBLIC boards. He really liked the board and the clips started blowing up. I’ve always liked the skateboard/snowboard crossover boards of Salasnek, Cardiel, and others and reached out to Joe about the possibility of doing a guest board for John.  Joe was hyped on the idea and John was immediately down and we started the board design process.  I think Joe and John have some parallels. When Joe didn’t see any board companies that spoke to his aesthetic he created PUBLIC much like John has done in clothing with Pangea.  I’m extremely happy with how the board turned out and that we could do it exactly how John envisioned.
John with a very low tide ollie on his new board | Photo: Mike Heikkila

Are we going to see a part now that you have a board coming out?

Shit I would love to do something like that but we ain’t really getting too much snow out here in the recent years. But I started filming some clips with the homie Wes. He’s making a video but I didn’t get too many clips. I think I only got one or two. 

Is that Wes Heffernan?

Yeah. So, I actually just ran into him. I went to Bethlehem one day. We got a snow storm so I was all hyped up. I was like, I’m gonna go out there and see if I can find some spots. And I just went out there and ran into his crew in the street. They already had a rail set up and I was like, Oh shit, I’m gonna pull up and watch. And from there I started linking up with them and just got a couple clips. But if they’re out I’ll definitely try and get out with them and film shit. 

The aforementioned tide | Photo: Mike Heikkila

Ok so you got a Public board this year. How did that relationship start and, I guess, why Public?

So basically, I was just snowboarding a bunch this year and I was just kind of getting boards wherever I could. DC gave me a couple snowboards. I was just posting a lot of clips and the homie Jeff Brown who used to work for DC, actually I think he still might still be a rep for DC skateboarding, he’s around the area snowboarding and he worked for Public I think. He went into one of the local shops and was like, Oh, I see Shanahan’s been snowboarding a lot, I’d definitely hook him up with a board. So, I hit him up and I was like, Yo, I heard someone said you were down to give me a board. I’ve been snowboarding up just fucking my boards up, it’s always sick to have an extra board. So, he gave me a slightly used one and I just started riding that, started posting more clips, and then I got in contact with Joe. It kind of just happened that way. 

 

So, did he just approach you and say, Do you want to do a board?

I don’t really even…I’m trying to think how that all went down. Yeah, I feel like he just hit me up and wanted to know what I thought about it. I was kind of like, Damn, that’s crazy that you brought that up because that’s always been a dream of mine. I thought it would be cool. I feel like you don’t really see too many things like that, other than like, the John Cardiel shit, like skaters having a guest model snowboard. I don’t know, he just hit me up and I was super into it. 

Do you know anything about the board? 

I think it’s a 154. It’s a little smaller, which I like because it feels more like a skateboard. But I don’t really know, I’m not super technical with that kind of shit, but I feel like it will feel like a pretty universal setup. 

On his trusty steed | Photo: Mike Heikkila
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