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"\"&lt;p&gt;&lt;div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-1000021401 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'&gt;&lt;figure class='gallery-item'&gt;\\n\\t\\t\\t&lt;div class='gallery-icon landscape'&gt;\\n\\t\\t\\t\\t&lt;a href='http:\\/\\/snowboarding.transworld.net\\/uncategorized\\/web-exclusive-interview-jp-walker-on-stepchild\\/attachment\\/jp_headshot_m-2\\/'&gt;&lt;img width=\\\"195\\\" height=\\\"117\\\" src=\\\"http:\\/\\/snowboarding.transworld.net\\/wp-content\\/blogs.dir\\/442\\/files\\/2008\\/07\\/29\\/jp_headshot_m.jpg\\\" class=\\\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\\\" alt=\\\"jp_headshot_m\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;\\n\\t\\t\\t&lt;\\/div&gt;&lt;\\/figure&gt;\\n\\t\\t&lt;\\/div&gt;\\nHe doesn&amp;#8217;t need an introduction, and now he doesn&amp;#8217;t need a board sponsor either. JP Walker is a free agent no more. Back home in Salt Lake and fresh off his first trip of the year filming with the MDP crew again, we caught up with The Don as soon as he could speak on the big news. We&amp;#8217;ll go ahead and raincheck the rest of this long-winded intro and get right into the meat and potatoes of it all.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;So the wait is over, and we can lay all speculation to rest, you are the newest addition to the Stepchild pro team. Don&amp;#8217;t think too many people saw that coming. How&amp;#8217;d did you come to the decision to go with those guys? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I was looking at offers from a lot of different companies but nothing felt that good to my besides StepChild, I didn&amp;#8217;t want to sign up with a lame brand or a ski company. I want to stay true to what I believe in, and not sell out. I&amp;#8217;ve kept it one hundred for my whole career. If I did anything less it wouldn&amp;#8217;t be right.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;How many different options were you considering until you made the final call?&lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Five board companies.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Have you been riding the boards at all yet or did you have to keep it on the super DL until right now? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve had to keep it on the super DL for sure. I got some boards a week ago took one run on it at a resort. From there I dove right into a film trip in Minnesota and took it to some huge rails. It worked perfect, and what better testing grounds?\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Are you working on a signature board yet?&lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Yeah, I&amp;#8217;m already working on three boards\\u2014a 147, 151 and 154. All of &amp;#8217;em will have an option for a StepChild exclusive feature called, RETT (round edge tapper tuning). The board comes from the factory with pre-dulled edges between the binding that gradually gets sharper as it reaches the nose and tail. Basically you can put bindings on it and dive into you local double kink without any hesitation. I have a prototype one right now and its sick.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;With those still in the works, what board are you riding right now on that local double kink? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Simon Chamberlain 148.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Besides the obvious differences in the size and scale of StepChild as a brand compared to what you were doing before, how is this going to be different? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;To me riding for StepChild is like taking it back to my roots and what I remember a snowboard company should be like. StepChild is a super tight knit company that is true to the core. The team is involved and their input matters. Being with StepChild my opinion and involvement actually has some merit and it&amp;#8217;s not lost in an octagon of confusion of a corporate brand.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Should we be on the lookout for a cameo appearance in one of the StepChild Saturday videos on twsnow.com?&lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Anything&amp;#8217;s possible!\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;If you could draft one more rider to that team right now who would it be? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Seth Huot\\u2014son is killing it!\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Everyone&amp;#8217;s already in the know but you also just signed up with ThirtyTwo for the full package\\u2014boots and outerwear. How&amp;#8217;s the scene over there? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m super stoked on the direction of the brand and the team right now. ThirtyTwo has been in the game for a minute and they know the deal. I&amp;#8217;m stoked on their affiliation with skateboarding as well. Same thing too, I get to be involved and I&amp;#8217;m working on signature products right now. It&amp;#8217;s good to work with a TM like Eddie Lee who&amp;#8217;s been in it for a long time and know&amp;#8217;s what&amp;#8217;s up.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;We heard outerwear&amp;#8217;s not officially dropping for ThirtyTwo until 2010! That&amp;#8217;s going to be a serious hype machine right there. Are you running their kits yet? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I got a couple sample pieces but we&amp;#8217;re really going to spend the time to dial in every piece and make sure it&amp;#8217;s super tight. They&amp;#8217;ve hooked up some amazing new designers and are planning some ill stuff. They have a diverse team of shreds so the line will be diverse as well.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sponsor stuff aside, you just got back from your first rail trip of the year back with Dawger and the MDP crew again, filming for &lt;i&gt;Double Decade&lt;\\/i&gt;. How did that go?  &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Man &amp;#8230; lets just say that I forgot what its like. I didn&amp;#8217;t even have to think about anything other than tricks the whole time. It&amp;#8217;s good to be filming with Jeremy and Seth again. I love those dudes. Everyone is a true professional, the MDP filmers included. I was stoked to have Darrell and Aaron out there also\\u2014it was a solid crew.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Along with Seth, Darrell, Aaron and the rest of the crew; you Devun, and Jeremy are all in the same flick again. Does it feel like you guys are kinda getting the band back together on that one? &lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I hadn&amp;#8217;t really thought about that until know. That&amp;#8217;s a pretty heavy line up\\u2014I guess we&amp;#8217;re back.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Not to blow up your spot, but is there anything in particular, any moves that you really want in that bin of footage at the end of the year?&lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve got my list! You know I can&amp;#8217;t drop any of that knowledge though\\u2014too many bitters. Plus I don&amp;#8217;t want to disappoint incase something doesn&amp;#8217;t go down.\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;What&amp;#8217;s next for the kid, where do you go from here?&lt;\\/b&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ll be at a rail somewhere until my rail section is done. And then I&amp;#8217;ll be at a jump until that&amp;#8217;s handled. Same places I&amp;#8217;m always at and always will be, son. Aint nothin&amp;#8217; changed &amp;#8216;cept the logo on the base.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://snowboarding.transworld.net/uncategorized/web-exclusive-interview-jp-walker-on-stepchild/?pid=10093>