Geoff Rowley: The Interview

November 3, 2015

The sun was beaming down in its typical Los Angeles way. The palm trees were swaying and the warm breeze from the beach had blown away the smog, leaving a deep blue sky fading into a white horizon above the Civilware shop. All so stereotypically SoCal, and all so common it’s almost sickening to the point of a Falling Down breakdown. Just as soon as I had arrived in front of the Civilware shop Geoff Rowley pulled up in his properly used Dodge Ram. He got out of the car and walked up to greet me as if we had known each other for years. “I just picked up a new rifle. Tikka T3. You can check it out if you want.” Geoff pulled out the brand new cardboard box and handed it to me. I lifted the lid off, revealing a synthetic rifle still mint in the packaging from Finland. Since I had just met Geoff for the first time I wasn’t about to unwrap his new rifle like an eager kid on Christmas morning…although it is always tempting to seize that opportunity.

Geoff strolled into the Civilware shop and introduced me to the two other people in the shop, both friendly and similarly amicable. After the introductions he dove right in to explaining how Civilware got its start, and I could feel, and smell, the passion mingled with the scent of freshly carved wood in the shop. Right away I knew that this was a man who cherished his work. Geoff then started slowly explaining with his signature California-cool British accent how the Civilware hatchets are made by hand. From the enthusiasm that Geoff projected I knew that this was going to be one good interview.

Geoff loves California and its incredible skateboarding community, but like many other small business owners and people living the firearms lifestyle, he isn’t sure if California will remain his home forever. The skateboard-friendly weather was originally the reason Geoff left England behind in 1994. But while living under the sun has its perks he is now faced with the predicament of living under the California rules, which greatly restrict his business. “I needed a reason to stay in SoCal,” Geoff later tells me during the interview. Even seemingly small things like a common chemical used to refinish wood is banned in California; something that Geoff eventually wants to use on his products.

The future may hold that in store, but for now, we are here in Los Angeles and we have an interview to bring you. Enjoy.

So you started gaining notoriety in the skating community at a pretty young age. Was there a certain point where you just knew that you were going to make a living skateboarding?

No, I’m still thankful that I can make a living skateboarding (laughing). No, never, not one moment. You know, I just liked skateboarding. I was fortunate enough to be good at it, I got sponsored, I kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and I felt like I kept progressing and learning. And therefore I built a sense of confidence that, “Hey, I can do this. I’m enjoying it and I’m going somewhere, I’m learning tricks and I keep learning tricks as I get older.” That pretty much led into it being something that I got paid for. And then once I started to get paid for it and then the skate industry started to grow in the early 90’s and we started to get paid at a point where we could make a living—you know, feed yourself, get an apartment, buy like a cheap car, that’s all I knew after that, y’know? So there’s never been a moment where I’ve gone, “You’ve done it, you’ve made it!” The day that that happens is likely the day that I’m gonna hit the peak and go down. That’s the way I feel about it anyway.

When your sponsorships started pouring in—you were getting shoes all kinds of deals—did it ever make stop and think, “Wow, how did I get here?” Or did you see it as a natural result of your dedication?

As I said, I’ve been super thankful for those opportunities that have been presented to me. And y’know, I took those opportunities and a lot of times I partnered with people and companies that I’m still with now. Like most of the companies I’ve ridden for I’ve ridden for a very long time, and it’s not very often that I quit, drop and change. So with that I’ll say that when those opportunities were given to me and I took them I was thankful that they worked out. And there was always a building block and there was always very small goals of, “Ok, I’m here. What can I do in the next year or two, or what do I want to do? What do I want to pursue? Do I want to keep making these videos? What is it that my goals are this year?”

But I always made them attainable. Attainable goals. Short-term, attainable goals. Because without those building blocks you don’t get to those points. You know what I’m saying? So there’s never a point where it’s been any different for me; I feel the same way I did when I was 18 in my head about my goals. I’ve tried to be really realistic with that. The signature product and all that stuff I’ve been fortunate enough to have my name on, really I’m just thankful for that. But I’m also thankful that I partnered with the people that I did, like Vans, companies like that. They take care of people. They take care of people and they nurture people. They’ve helped build my name…so I’m just thankful for that.

You have an aggressive skating style—something that’s not really surprising coming from someone from he UK. Even in the music scene you have guys that are absolutely nuts, like Pete Townshend, John Bonham, Ozzy Osbourne. Have you ever pinpointed what it is exactly within British society that breeds this sort of attitude?

But what about the politicians? They’re about as drab and grey and boring as it gets. There’s yin and yang I suppose. You’re always a product of your environment to a large extent, whether you live in the middle of nowhere and you’re surrounded by wide-open country—big game animals, small game animals, and the farmer—or whether you grow up in the city and it’s a violent city, or whether you grow up in the city and it’s a wealthy city. You can see those people, where they came from, it comes out in their character and who they are. And where I grew up if you didn’t get back up you’re in trouble. Do you know what I mean? You had to try to take care of yourself. You had to watch your back. You had to be careful or someone would steal something from you.

England is pretty strict when it comes to firearms, but there are still some very serious hunters and shooters there. Did you grow up around firearms?

I didn’t really grow up around firearms in the traditional sense. I grew up in a rough council estate, kinda like your projects. Not what’s necessarily the safest place, a lot of undesirables. You had your neighbors on your doorstep pretty much; everyone’s always in someone’s front yard or back yard. A lot of people around. And I was a little kid. I was born in 1976, and around 1982 Britain was in a war with Argentina called the Falklands War. Well one of my neighbors was in the military, and he came back from the war and he pulled me aside and said, “Hey, can you hide this for me?” And I remember this, I was six years old. Think about it. Six years old. Tiny little kid. He comes back—and he’s a full on adult—and he gives me a gun and says, “Hide this for me and don’t tell anyone I’ve given it to you.” So I hid it to the left of my front door behind the trash can.

And I remember every now and again I’d get it out and I would look at it. Obviously six years old I didn’t know what kind of firearm it was. But now that I remember I know that it was a 1911. I don’t remember what caliber it was but I remember it was a 1911 that had been sanded down with sandpaper all over it, probably to sand off the serial numbers or whatever they were doing with it. So that’s my first memory of a firearm.

And then he came back from the war again and asked me, “Where’s that thing I gave you?” I remember pulling it out and going, “It’s right here.” I’m six…think about it, I’m six years old. And I handed it to him and he’s like, “I’m gonna take it for a little bit and I’ll bring it back.” And he took it away and he took some of the springs out of the trigger, some of the stuff of the mechanism inside. From my memory I don’t know whether it was in working order or not. I remember he brought it back to me, I remember putting my finger on the trigger going, “It’s not working right, he’s taken some stuff out of the inside of it!” I felt like he’d jipped me, you know? That was all I remember about it. Looking back that’s all I remember. I don’t know where it went, I don’t remember anything else, but that was my first experience with firearms in England.

That’s a pretty vivid memory.

Yeah, pretty crazy. Pretty crazy to think that I have almost a five year old little boy, that if somebody did that to him and gave him a 1911…that’s gnarly, you know? So that was my first experience with firearms. But outside of that, growing up, no it wasn’t all over the streets of England. And it wasn’t something that the general public had access to. It was kind of something where if you owned property, or you were a farmer you needed a gun, or a rifle, or a shotgun, or whatever it was to do your job on your farm. Those were the people that were allowed access to that.

But I grew up with a guy that now works for the Forestry Commission, which would be similar to working for the Game & Fish Department…or “Fish & Wildlife Department” (laughing). So around about 15 or 16 years old I started spending a lot of time with a friend of mine who skateboarded, but he also was very much into deerstalking and all that kinda stuff. And then he would come over to the US and he would guide (hunting guide) In Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Saskatchewan. So when I started to go out with him, and I started to stalk deer and all that stuff, he would have firearms here and there. And that was at 16 years old in England.

So it was the same back then as it is now, because that’s what I hear now: If you’re a farmer, you got some land you can have a shotgun.

It’s worse now. I mean, it’s like here in Southern California where the media plays a huge role in how people feel about firearms, not necessarily their experiences with them. We had a brief conversation before this interview—a lot of people that live in Southern California believe it’s well within your right to own a firearm, and they’ve had a good experience with firearms generally. And they’re good people, law abiding citizens, and I’ve met millions of them. There are lots of them.

I find that anyone I spend time with that uses firearms—a lot of people—they handle them the right way respectfully. They do everything they possibly can. The times that it goes wrong in the media…a lot of times, not every time…there are bad people, lots of bad people, and we see all of the bad stuff in the media that’s elevated to just absolute lunacy a lot of times when the bottom line was that person shouldn’t have had access to a firearm. But you find that most of the people I meet handle them the right way, they want to be law-abiding, they do everything they possibly can to do that, myself included. So it gets a bad rap, and I don’t like seeing that. That’s not right, it’s not fair and it encroaches on our civil liberties.

So when you came to America in the 90’s you came to skate. But did you also dive right into the gun culture?

No, I didn’t. I grew up with a guy who was a game warden. When I was growing up he was coming out here and guiding. So when I moved here in ’94 it was a couple of years…because I moved to a foreign country. I emigrated when I was 18 years, I don’t know anybody. I know a few people. I don’t know how this place works, I don’t have a driving license, I don’t have an apartment, I don’t have any money. You know what I mean? I don’t have any expendable cash, certainly.

So after a couple of years of living here when I started to get settled and I started to make enough money to be able to eat some food, and pay for an apartment with a load of other dudes, when my friend would come out I started to meet him out wherever he was at. Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska. That’s when I started to pay more attention to firearms, because I grew up trying to find wild animals. But growing up in England without guns I wasn’t shooting them, so I would go and sit over fox sets or badger sets, wait until the animals came out and play the wind and enjoy it. I would do the same with deer, I would deer stalk. And because I didn’t have a firearm it was, “How close can I get to the deer without it seeing me?” Or me getting in, getting really close and getting out without it even knowing I was ever there.

It was a game.

Same as hunting. Without the end result of firing your weapon. So the more I started to go out with my friend and do that the more I started to get interested in that. So therefore I started looking into, and spending a little bit more time looking into the legalities of the kind of hunting and pursuit of wild animals that I liked, and that was predators.

I read a lot of books. I’ve read almost every single study in North America done on the cougar. I’m interested in the whole logistics of how they use the mountain range and what role they play in that particular ecosystem. To me that’s the side that I really get a kick out of, when I see something and go, “Wow, did that really happen?” Then I see it happen again and I go, “Ok, there’s a pattern emerging.” I can take hat knowledge, join it together and I learn something. And what did I learn? I learned that lion like to go to certain points in their ranges to survey the land. Or black bears like to rub on particular trees year after year after year after year. Sometimes for 10, 20, 30, 40 years through multiple bears…they all like the same tree, they rub on them. So there’s little things you see the more time you spend in the outdoors those little secrets show themselves to you, and it’s very personal and the patience involved with that is something that I get a lot out of.

So the firearm aspect of that goes hand in hand. I went lion hunting for the first time I think in 2002, and the first couple days I didn’t pack a firearm. Because I wanted to see what I was doing. I’d never hound hunted before. I don’t know how you run a lion with dogs, I don’t know what kinds of breeds they are and why they’re those kinds of breeds. So I was more interested in watching, you know what I’m saying? Like understanding what it is that I’m getting into before I was even interested in taking the shot. I was more interested in learning about the wild animal and actually learning how dogs trail lion, and while you’re trailing them, what am I learning from that? Am I just running behind dogs and get to the lion against the tree and shoot it? No. You learn everything. Everything there is to know about deer, elk, other predators in the area, where they go, why they go there. Because when you’re running after hounds that are following lion that perhaps were on their nightly prowl, and you’re getting to see everywhere they went last night and what they did, it opens up a whole new ballgame of information for you.

So I didn’t actually feel the need personally…and I was going out with people and they were shooting the lions. Which I have no problem with. Legal and ethically harvested and eating the meat, and the whole thing packed out. Totally rad. So it took a few years before I started packing a firearm myself. A handy caliber, hand weapon for that kind of hunt is a .357 Mag.

Good caliber.

Yeah. It’s heavy, you can feel it, it’s comfortable in your hand in cold weather. It packs really easy and it does the job. It does a very good and efficient job on an animal of that size, especially with good shot placement. So that’s kind of what started me on firearms and I went from there.

We now see you regularly posting pictures of guns and hunting—which came as a surprise to some people, but as you explained I guess you’ve been into hunting for a while now. And you started a company called Civilware, which seems to be a natural extension of your love for the outdoors. Can you explain what Civilware is and how it came about?

You just answered it with the question! The pursuit of game and my love of being out there and using the product that we’re making. I use knives regularly. I do a lot of back country hunting, where having a good reliable knife along with a reliable firearm, whether you’re hunting or not. I spend a lot of time in the mountains, I camp a lot. So I’m using the product all the time, and as you’ve said I’ve been into this stuff for a long time.

So what does the future hold for Civilware?

We’re in really early stages. Keep the door open, that’s the future. The future is, keep that door open! We’re just gonna go slow and steady, and enjoy it. Try to learn along the way and try to keep the quality of our products up, try to have great customer service and a great relationship with the people that buy our product. Try to be really transparent with them. If someone has a question about the product we try to not hide anything. If somebody says, “Where are the elk antlers on your knives from?” Well they’re farm raised and they’re from Colorado.

So we’re trying to educate people on our product as we’re developing new ideas for product. That’s really where we want to be. You know, not trying to take over the world. Just slow and steady and try to make it a sustainable business that everybody that works in here enjoys being a part of and enjoys that lifestyle.