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Friday, January 7, 2011

Who is Mike Vallely?

Who is Mike Vallely? The entertainment and skateboarding world knows him as Mike V. He is a professional skateboarder. Mike is also a musician, actor, television personality, and stuntman.

 Early life

Mike was June 29, 1970(1970-06-29)), in Edison, NJ to Art and Mary Vallely. Mike has an older brother, Joe, and a younger sister, Amy. Growing up Mike played little league baseball and describes life as "Doing what most young kids do.", and that was trying to fit in. But in 1984 at age 14 Mike would become what he describes as truly "Becoming alive." This is when Mike discovered skateboarding and punk rock music.

 Personal life

Vallely currently resides in Long Beach, California. Vallely married his longtime girlfriend Ann in 1992 and in December of that year their daughter Emily was born. He has a second daughter Lucy.
Mike also has a long love for Professional Wrestling, he is a trained Pro Wrestler who occasionally wrestles at indy events. He once also wrestled TNA superstar Frankie Kazarian in a triple threat match, which also involved a wrestler called The Skate Devil.
Mike also loves playing ice hockey. He plays at a professional level for the Danbury Whalers in the Federal Hockey League.He signed a contract with the club on June 23, 2010.

 Skateboarding

After getting into punk rock music and meeting some punk rockers at school, Vallely began to borrow one of their skateboards and thus began a life long passion and dedication to skateboarding skill. Mike began to skateboard everyday and naturally excelled at it. On Christmas of 1984, Vallely no longer had to borrow friend's skateboards as a brand new Sims brand, Jeff Phillip pro model skateboard was waiting for him under the tree on Christmas morning. Besides street skating Mike was also a vert skater and often skated Tom Groholski's ramp and The Barn Ramp, both located in New Jersey.He also skated The Brooklyn Banks, a skate spot under the Brooklyn Bridge. It's one of his favorite skatespots.

In 1986, Mike moved with his family to Virginia Beach, Virginia for a short time and while living there befriended the local skaters. Skating with a local team "Subculture" in the Kempsville area of Virginia Beach, Mike honed his skills on the streets in local contests, and on neighborhood quarter pipes and launch ramps. In the spring of '86 the Virginia Beach Skatepark, Mount Trashmore hosted a professional vert skateboard contest. Mike and a few friends headed down to the contest early to watch the pros practice. After a short time of watching the pros and getting inspired, Mike could no longer just sit and watch. He headed to the nearby parking and began skating. After a short while, Mike began drawing attention from the visiting pros from atop the vert ramp. Neil Blender was particularly impressed and came down from the ramp to talk to Mike and asked to show him some more of his tricks. The next day at the contest the word was out about Mike and his new and inventive tricks and style and attracted the attention of professional skateboarder, Lance Mountain and Stacy Peralta, both of Powell Peralta and Bones Brigade fame. After seeing Mike riding a board that was in such poor condition, Lance Mountain gave him a brand new complete skateboard. After putting on an impromptu demo in the parking lot of the contest, Lance asked Mike if he would like anymore skateboards. Confused by what Lance meant at first, Lance was in fact offering Mike a sponsorship to Powell Peralta Skateboards and Mike answered with a resounding yes. This day is also historic for the first interactions Mike had with Mark Gonzales and Steve Rocco.
It wasn't just Peralta who plucked Vallely out of obscurity that day. Thrasher Magazine also took photos of Vallely performing his tricks in the handplant circle, one of which eventually made its way onto the cover of Thrasher's August, 1986 issue. It was also at this time that Vallely's new sponsor had him on an airplane for the first time to fly to California to compete at the Oceanside "Street Attack" contest in July in Oceanside, CA. Vallely won the amateur division which got him a full page spread in Transworld Skateboarding's September issue. Also in 1986, Mike was filmed for a part in the third and now classic Powell Peralta video "The Search For Animal Chin" which premiered in May 2007 in Santa Monica, California.
In 1987, Transworld Skateboarding Magazine published a photo of Mark Gonzales and Jasper McLean, Mike Valley's best friend pointing to Mike. While the two veteran pros were really pointing to a 'recently busted nose' on Vallely's face, skaters from around the world interpreted these pictures to represent Mike's acceptance into their elite street skating clique. This photo would put him on the "map" of skateboarding at the time, and accordingly, make room for the growth and further acceptance of street style. Shortly after Powell Peralta released "The Search For Animal Chin" on May 1, 1987, Mike embarked the first Hell Tour with Steve Rocco, Per Welinder and others. On the final stop of the tour, a vert contest in Toronto, ONT, CAN, Mike turned pro against Powell Peralta's wishes and entered the vert contest. Mike got last place in the contest.
In 1978, Powell Peralta released Vallely's first pro model skateboard. After a bad start of trying to release Mike's pro model with ugly graphics of a large bug, it was later changed to the now iconic "elephant" graphics. Mike states the idea for the graphics came to him after watching a National Geographic television special about elephants and because one of his skateboard heroes, Mark Gonzales, said "Elephants are cool." The graphics to Mike's "Elephant" board were drawn by legendary skateboard artist V. Courtland Johnson aka VCJ.
Mike's pro model on Powell Peralta became a top seller and helped launch him into skateboard superstardom. Also in 1988, Mike was filmed by Stacy Peralta and Craig Stecyk for a segment for the fourth Bones Brigade video, Public Domain. Filming took place in New Jersey, New York City and Washington state over a three day period. Filming for this video part didn't go exactly how john envisioned it and coupled with the request of running through a graveyard for the segment added to the already strained relationship with Powell Peralta. Despite problems and being rushed through the filming process Mike's video part still shines and is considered a classic and ground breaking video part, one that is still referenced to this day.
In 1989, Mike quit Powell Peralta at a trade show. At the time Powell Peralta was the biggest and best skateboarding brand in the world which sponsored the best and most talented skaters. It was unheard of at this time for someone to quit Powell Peralta and Mike quitting sent shockwaves through the industry.
After quitting Powell Peralta, Mike helped form the small skater run company called World Industries with Steve Rocco and Rodney Mullen.When he was with World Industries he help create a new model for the skateboard, which is the model that all skaters use today. The model included rounding both the tail and nose instead of having a just a rounded nose and straight edged tail. These boards he help create, created a new revolution in skateboarding. More flips tricks, "going big" on your tricks and a lot more.
In 2010, Mike quit Element skateboards to start his own company called By The Swords. Mike created this company with long time skateboarder Jason Filipow.
Contrary to the clean-cut and non-racist image he portrays, Mike has been shown on the website www.theberrics.com driving a Hummer, as well as a Firebird with a confederate flag licence place.

Music

Resistance: Mike's first band from 1985. Mike only played one show with the group with 7 Seconds and Aggression. He was kicked out of the band for spending too much time skateboarding.
Mike V and the Rats:

Revolution Mother: Glory Bound(2007), Rollin' With Tha Mutha(2009)
In 2003, Greg Ginn invited Mike to sing for Black Flag at their 2003 reunion shows in Los Angeles. Mike performed the entire My War album from cover to cover.
Mike has also released three solo albums, "Weekend In Pittsburgh" with Joe Grushecky, "California Angel" and "Alone."

Video games

Mike has appeared in the highly successful Tony Hawk Pro Skater skateboarding video game series since the fourth release of the game, appearing as a secret character. From the fifth release of the game he has been a major character in each game. In Tony Hawk's Proving Ground he is also a playable character on two player mode.
The storyline to the fifth game in the series, Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG), is based on Mike V's skateboard career.
Vallely has his own skateboarding video game for iPhones and the iPod Touch entitled "Mike V: Do or Die - Skateboarding".

Hockey Incident

In November 2009, Mike was attending an Anaheim Ducks game with his wife and 8 year old daughter. After the game Scott Niedermayer pointed at Mike's daughter at the glass and tossed his hockey stick over the boards to her. Mike and a man got into an altercation and several punches were thrown. Since the incident, the Ducks have cut all professional ties with Mike and even un-invited him from a charity event that was supposed to happen weeks later. Mike later said on the Jason Ellis Show on Sirius/XM said that he was only party charged.

Filmography


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