Page 27 - BackSIDE rollbrett-heft 25th Anniversary

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JonnyGiger JonnyGiger

‘I learned strawberry milkshakes before I learned ollies.

I actually thought I invented it since it was my
brainchild and I hadn’t seen it before.’

From a TV interview I learned that your dad gave you a Skateboard when you were 10
years old. Do you remember why and what kind of board it was?
Hahaha yes I sure do. It was „the big burger board“. A cheap complete from Waro which used
to be the equivalent of Walmart in Switzerland I guess. The graphic contained one gigan�c
burger with like 30 layers. It looked awful, maybe that’s the reason it was le� in the rain for 2
years before I picked it up.

What was your first pro deck?
Almost - Rodney Mullen Round 3 Board, surprise. Hahaha the tail snapped when I did an ollie
on flat ground. That was a sad day.

I also learned from that interview that you only picked it up when you were 12. Which
local skateboarder did you look up to at the �me and why?
I owe to the Mehuka brothers big �me. These two Albanian guys showed me all the basics

and kept me mo�vated. They were also taking me to parks because one of them had a
Jonny. The first thing that I no�ced about you was your Swiss-accent free English
license and a car. We also started to film around that �me and a�er 1 year we already had a
pronuncia�on. Please tell me you were raised bilingual.
crappy street part together. Rodney was their biggest influence as well. They could do
Haha. Thanks. I actually wasn’t. I’ve been working hard on the pronuncia�on part and I s�ll
handstands for like 50 meters and flip it back and had some really high ollies. Mullen was our
mispronounce a lot of words. I s�ll struggle if there’s like too much „r“ in one sentence.
biggest inspira�on because we didn’t know any other skaters and his Globe part was the

Another burning ques�on. Are you related to H.R. Giger (creator of Alien)? most popular skateboard video on YouTube at the �me.
Honestly I don’t know. I’ve never done any research on that one. I was told that there was a Big thanks to Besard & Blerand Mehuka
farmer named Giger in the early 20th century. He had like 20 children and it looks like he’s
the wellspring from every Giger in the Region, hence it could be possible. (Hans Ruedi lived a
30 minutes’ drive away)

You call yourself Jonny Chinaski Giger on Social Media. Where does Chinaski come from
and how is it pronounced? The way I say it sounds like an alpine ski resort in Asia.
I read a lot of books. My favourite author was Charles Bukowski at the �me Instagram was
ge�ng popular. He uses this pseudonym for himself „Henry Charles (hank) Chinaski. These
days I don’t read as much Bukowski but I never changed the name.

Apparently reading is another hobby of yours. What do you read at the moment?
I just finished „kitchen“ by Banana Yoshimoto. I usually read that because I wanted to catch
up with Japanese literature. But I read 2-3 books at once ever since the pandemic started.
Usually a history book plus ecology or economics. I hated learning when I went to school but

these days I just love it.
Tre Flip - Chur, Switzerland - 2012

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