Lone Expression: Tommy Guerrero

Living legends are an endangered species. While new prodigies come out of the woodwork to surprise and inspire, the heroes of yesterday begin slowing down, gradually assuming their enshrined places history. One legend that continues to make history and inspire us all in the process is Tommy Guerrero.

We’ve recently seen Tommy tour the world as a guitar-toting musician but if you remember far back enough, Guerrero was a key member of the most prominent professional skateboarding team ever. The Bones Brigade was formed by epic skate brand Powell-Peralta and dominated the 1980s as a platform for the best skaters of the day like Tony Hawk and Lance Mountain. Guerrero became known for his effortless skating style and smooth flow that developed from riding the hills of the Inner Sunset area of San Francisco. As a teenager, his calendar filled with international tour dates as well as appearances in now-classic team videos like Public Domain and The Search for Animal Chin. After a few years of the pro circuit as the norm, Tommy started his own skateboard company, Real Skateboards.

While riding that wave of success, Guerrero concurrently followed his second passion of music. For Guerrero there is always a connection between the two forms of expression, they are inseparable, “it’s a release from the daily tribulations and bombardment of life, it’s a way to relax and to let go, a way to think without being conscious of the moment.” Back in his teenage years, Tommy recounted picking up his first guitar, “my brother and some friends formed a punk band, it was pretty much as anti-social as skateboarding was.” Downplaying the significance of his first instrument, Guerrero jokes that his first guitar was a piece of junk and actually considers his first instrument to be a Fender Musicman bass. Up until the 1990s, Tommy’s main instrument was the bass until he switched back to guitar and started making the music we hear today. “I always hear melodies but I’m, not much of a singer so I would start to play them on the guitar and that’s how I came to be known as a guitar player. Even though I would still like to think that I am still a bass player to this day.” While playing in skate rock bands and veering into experimental music over the years, Guerrero has found more success as a solo artist with albums such as Year of The Monkey (2005, Galaxia Records) and Soul Food Taqueria (2003, Mo’ Wax) appearing on several annual top ten lists. Tommy’s latest is a progression in many ways, encapsulating Latin rhythms, stripped down folk, laid-back jazz, blues guitar, minimal funk and soul.

Even on his most recent, From the Soil to the Soul (2006, Quannum), Guerrero continues to express maturity in his song writing and playing. Guerrero’s style is horizontal- evolving from skate rock to a a level plane that is a minimal yet inventive mix of jazz, funk, soul and Latin. To better understand that hybrid in his music, it helps to know Tommy is the an epitome American of sorts- a self-declared, total mix of Filipino, Chilean, Portuguese, Ohlone and even a bit of Irish. Although when pressed to describe his own style, Guerrero isn’t shy to come up with a response, “my style is pretty crude and raw, it’s really about emotions and trying to communicate without words- language can hinder anything creative.” If there’s anything I want people to get from it is that it’s all about a sense of freedom, for people to do whatever heals your soul.”

Although Guerrero’s father was absent from his early childhood, he knew close to nothing of his culturally entwined roots. Rather, Tommy was raised by his mother in San Francisco, an urban upbringing to which he feels a sense of indebtedness as his bedrock of culture and heritage. “I think I am lucky to not have grown up with any preconceived notions regarding religion and traditional customs, so that has allowed me to have been able to create my own identity and beliefs to some degree.”

At the same time, Guerrero hesitates that his geography had such a major impact in his development as he would like to admit. “We are all informed of the environment we are in and we are unknowingly absorbing history and well, just regurgitating it all to varying degrees but then again San Francisco has such a rich artistic past. Its in the soil and in the air.” Personally, Guerrero has been able to develop close and fruitful relationships with other remarkable artists like Stephen “ESPO” Powers and Barry McGee or legendary skateboarder Mark Gonzales and contemporaries like Aaron Rose. An opportunity few would have otherwise, Tommy and his circle friends came of age at the same time and ended up influencing an entire generation all around the world. “We have a lot of mutual respect for each other, its all very reciprocal. Aaron Rose played a major role in connecting all of us, he is the link.”

Still today skateboarding continues to be a big part of Guerrero’s lifestyle. “Back when I was skateboarding, I never felt that I was trying to express myself, it was more of a loner trip, one for the solitary man and it was something to keep sane.” Today there is a sense of gratitude from skateboarding that has stayed with Tommy all these years, “it saved my life and gave me one at the same time. Skateboarding taught me about perseverance.” Based in San Francisco, Guerrero and Mark Gonzales work together with Gonz’s company, Krooked. “Now I mainly sit in front of a monitor laying out skateboard and graphic designs.” Perhaps its somewhere he thought he would never end up and while Guerrero claims he is not “built” for it, necessity calls and if he can even find time to go skateboarding, it’s now got to be scheduled in line with family, work and music. “It’s like having three jobs…not to mention trying to maintain my sanity so I just put everything I have into music.” Add some aching bones and Tommy has happily gotten comfortable in his new surroundings, “even my hair hurts” he jokes, “but there are ways to self-medicate. I take lots of supplements, glucosamine, omega 3, Vitamin B, beer and once in a while I’ll take an ibuprofen when it all just aches.”

Instead of skating from one end of the city to the other, Tommy is constantly driving everywhere, “I just didn’t need a car, we would skate from one end of the city to another. Now life is like I am moving everywhere all the time, I am constantly moving music gear from one studio to another and at times I don’t know when that is going to be, I’m still a spontaneous person and I need to be, stagnation is a killer.” Even though his role has slightly changed, skateboarding is more about preparing to slam rather than making video clips and shooting advertisements. Time has not faded Guerrero’s interest but rather he’s recalibrated to make it more about battling the impatience to stretch and making sure there’s a bar nearby to relax at afterwards.

Guerrero has also found inspiration outside of his San Francisco melting pot. As a traveler, Tommy has toured the world with skateboarding and music and somehow along the way forged a relationship with Japan. “It all started in 1989, a whole crew of pros came over for a contest. Then I would come back every year for demos and tours with Real Skateboards.” With several friends throughout Tokyo and beyond, “I have to say that Japan is one of my favorite countries to explore for one main reason, you don’t have to worry about being a victim and you don’t have to be constantly looking over your shoulder like one would in other big cities. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to let your guard down. I wish the U.S. has the same sense of respect for others as the Japanese do, it seems to be so steeped in the culture that it is not even a conscious way of being, it just is that it is.”

This story originally appeared in Paper Sky No. 31 (Denmark, November, 2009)

In 2009, Tommy Guerrero played the Sunset Live Festival in Fukuoka.