We welcome Brett Margaritis to the Slam Hall of Fame.

Each year, we list the top-voted contenders from previous years – they are the skateboarders that had the potential to win Skater of the Year in their prime, with coverage in Slam, and abroad, or have made a long-term impact on Australian skateboarding and continue to do so.

One of Perth’s pioneer skateboarders, Brett started skating in 1987 and soon became the best in the West. The ATV turned pro for Think in the late ’90s, and they put out eight Margaritis models over two or three years. At that point, he knew he wanted to try his hand at something else. He launched Modus Bearings in 2003, now under his Fivefoot4 Distribution company, as is The 4 Skateboard Company. Still based in Perth, Brett remains humbled by the life skateboarding has given him. For more on Brett, read his Where Are They Now article from 2015 in Issue 204.

BRETT MARGARITIS
WRITING THE TEXTBOOK ON SKATEBOARDING IN THE WEST
Words by Morgan Campbell. Portrait by Andrew Peters.

Blue-carpeted walls, disco lights, a DJ booth and the smoothest surface imaginable. It was Balcatta Rollerdome’s weekly skateboard night. It was 1988. I arrived as a total novice in the midst of the “street” comp. There was this miniscule, smooth-styled kid with mad skate prowess, and the sweetest set-up I’d ever seen. I am pretty sure he had a blue Tommy Guerrero with matching rails and wheels. He did a wall plant on the fuzzy carpet and finished his run with the cleanest hippy twist off the jump ramp. He easily took out his division, but could have had a win in any division. It wasn’t ’til years later that I found out that he was skating like this with not even a year on a board.

Let’s rewind to give a bit more context. Brett was born in Perth, Western Australia to Terri and Alexis Margaritis in 1975. He subsequently spent his formative years in Trigg, which is a beachside suburb north-east of Perth. The cul-de-sac the Margaritis’ lived in bordered on hectares of untouched bushland. Brett kept occupied with a healthy balance of trying out various team sports, exploring the local bushland, digging holes and trying to catch rabbits. You know, that regular kid stuff. He had skateboards prior to 1987, but nothing prepared him for what he would see at the Karrinyup shops in autumn that year. Lance Mountain, Tony Hawk and Steve Steadham put on a demo. “Two jump ramps on a slabbed surface that was just horrendous,” Brett explains. “But they pretty much killed it. I don’t remember exactly when I first got a skateboard. But, I do remember when I thought of skateboarding as something I am going tobe doing from now on. And that was after that demo. Before that I probably had a Hang Ten skateboard or something fibreglassy that I was bombing the hill on.”

Over the years the Margaritis household was home to many variations of the backyard ramp. The first of which was assembled just after the demo and did not really show the carpentry prowess Brett has today. “We got half a ping- pong table and put it up on crates,” Margo describes. “We’d do kickturns on it and kind of grind it. Then we graduated to building a jump ramp. We made it out of chipboard and it was flat. It was a wedge basically. We were like, ‘Yes, jump ramp!’ We had just finished it and the guy across the road went for it, he shot out and landed back on the ramp. He focused it. He didn’t even go over the top. We were gutted, but we started again.”

There were no public parks back then, but as we clicked into ’88 a bundle of private, temporary and backyard facilities popped up. The first of the private ones was down in Mandurah, and to say it was subpar would be a compliment. “There were four ramps and they were all vert,” Brett chuckles. “They ranged from four-foot high up to nine-foot high with two foot of vert. The widest was only 12-foot wide. It was covered in tin and there was this ply that they had riveted on to the metal with rivets. The rivets had washers on top, which were kind of like a 20-cent piece. So every six to eight inches were these screw rows, but they were fucking 20-cent pieces. All over the ramp!”

Mimicking Mandurah, but sans the 20-cent pieces, Brett soon built a ramp, which was seven- foot high with two foot of vert. Soon after he cut it down to six with one foot of vert. The tightness of this first halfpipe gives a clue as to his master of small transitions that remains with him to this day. Over the next year or so skateboarding literally exploded in Western Australia. There were kids with boards everywhere, and facilities were popping up in the most random locations. There was a vert ramp at the Maddington Drive-In, and there was one at the Spanish-themed fun park El Caballo Blanco. The Edge opened in Fremantle – a beast of a warehouse with an insane assortment of “totally bio” and often-sketchy terrain. Surfrider’s vert ramp was probably the best ramp of the lot. It was built out the back of a shop not too far from Trigg. The icing on the cake of random facilities was Rollerwave – a dysfunctional, indoor, halfpipe thing with a rotating jump ramp/pump bump disc in the middle of the floor. You could say it was ahead of its time, but I’m not sure if its time will ever actually come. No matter where Brett popped up he was holding it down. Accidentally stealing the show with his effortless grace and bulging bag of moves.

Judo air, Brett’s backyard ramp in Trigg, 1988. Photo: Atkinson

Before I finished high school I’d seen Brett skate alongside the world’s best. Skaters like Chris Miller and Tony Hawk always gave him a solid nod of approval. It was during the ’89/’90 period that Margo started to get coverage in the five Australian mags, Slam included. He won any comp he would enter (due to modesty he would beg to differ). His list of sponsors grew quickly: Parker Skate, Shred Threads, Cockroach, and before long everyone’s dream-sponsor, H-Street, started sending him boards. Brett travelled interstate during this period, mostly across to Adelaide. He would own the gnarly curves of Fulham Bowl with the likes of Steve Gourlay, Pat Roads, Ash and Hogie. He also made the trek over to skate the likes of Fairfield in Sydney. I wasn’t there, but I can guarantee that during each of these sessions he would liquefy eyeballs.

As 1991 swung ’round skateboarding had changed. With the delivery of a street focus in the mags and all-street videos like the seminal Blind video, the yearning for parks began to dwindle. Since all our parks were private, this meant they vanished as quickly as they had popped up. The Edge was included. Yet there was a glimmer of hope. The Lab had opened up in Bunbury. This was a “choose your own adventure” mini ramp with all kinds of split-levels and infinite transfer lines. At 15 years old, Brett would catch the bus down and stay for the duration of the school holidays with his friend, WA skate legend and mentor Shane Hadley. Soon enough though, The Lab joined The Edge in ex-skatepark heaven and the entire population of WA was left with a smattering of three facilities in total. The only one that was anywhere near Perth was a four-to-six-foot, hipped mini ramp in Kwinana. It was the best part of an hour’s drive from Trigg for an arid metal ramp. It was so hot that you could cook your breakfast on the flat, but then you’d probably get rolled for it.

During the lull of facilities of the early ’90s, Brett would skate his Neil Blender-esque own three-foot vert mini. Sometimes he would head down to Scarborough Primary for a session on the stage. It was during one of these normally low-key sessions that Brett noticed there were at least 10 skaters there. He noted that this was pretty much the entire skateboarding population of Perth at that time – and he was right. We had diminished. It was in 1992 when I first met Brett properly. We were holding a makeshift video premiere around at our friend’s house and Brett popped up. I hadn’t really seen him since The Edge, and I was stoked to finally be brave enough to say hi. I was a fully fledged, mongo-pushing street skater from the other side of the river, but as the skate-bubble shrunk you started to meet people from the opposite side of the sphere. “You were hardcore in the streets in Willagee and I was in Trigg,” Brett remembers. “I guess I was a vert skater, and if you wanted to keep skating in ’91, ’92, then you just street skated.”

Come 1993 and The Edge vert ramp had actually dodged skatepark heaven and ended up in a back lot in the dry industrial backwater of Canning Vale. A comp was held and it included all kinds of non-skateboarding divisions. Brett reckons there were only two people in the skate comp. He ended up in first and received a $100 skate shop voucher for his efforts. Brett gives some perspective on this amount: “It is the equivalent to getting five grand nowadays.” He went into the shop with his friend Grant Eastland and realised that the shop only sold rollerblades. No skateboard equipment. So what did Brett do? Bought some bearings.

They got talking to the girls at the shop and realised that they were in the process of buying and reassembling an old vert ramp that had been sitting in a paddock for years. Instead of buying an old rotten ramp the boys offered an alternative: “We can just build you one.” Brett went and got it all priced up and took it to the girls. In exchange for their labour, Grant and Brett wanted a key, and the ability to skate it when they wanted. “They gave us a signed blank cheque and a mobile phone,” Brett recalls. “Wendy and Vanessa were very trusting.” (Wendy and Grant have since got married and continue to own Bladeskate and Momentum Skate Shop until this very day.) Their new plywood gem was located out on Freo’s South Quay and was windswept at the best of times. The lease on the carpark was temporary, so the ramp moved after about six months and eventually ended up at the Momentum Skatepark in Osborne Park. This park was the meeting spot for the year or so that it was around for. I filmed Brett there for the first Momentum video. He filmed most of his part in one session.

Brett was juggling working full-time at the skate shop and travelling. Through all of his travels as an amateur, and later as a professional skater, Brett worked full-time. The Big Day Out was in its absolute heyday and came complete with a touring squad of shredders. Brett was hyped to be included. Not because he was the showman, but because he had a fresh ramp to skate every day.

It was on the 1995 Big Day Out Tour that he heard murmurs of being able to go to the holy grail of plywood: Woodward Skate Camp in Pennsylvania. Brett faxed Woodward and received word that he couldn’t be a counsellor, but he could come, skate and help out where needed. Tickets were booked. “So I went there for two weeks and that’s when I met Sergie,” Brett explains. “I saw his name on the pin-up board as every week they have a pro. The pro that week was Sergie Ventura. I thought, ‘What, that dude still skates?’ Because there was no Internet, there was nothin’. You just thought that those dudes fell off the face of the earth. Probably like me now.”

In that summer of 1995 Brett skated with a then unknown am riding for Foundation. “The main person I got to know there was Donny Barley,” says Brett. “He was filming for Eastern Exposure, and he was about to go to Philly to film. I was skating with him and he is a powerhouse on a mini ramp. You know the mini where Chad Vogt did all the crazy shit in the H-Street videos? We would skate that and the bowl every day.”

As Sergie’s week-long residency came to an end he invited Brett back to his house to stay in Virginia Beach. Of course Brett obliged. When he arrived, Sergie was pretty much: “Cool, man, this is my girlfriend, Nikki. I’m going on The Warped Tour for two months.” Thanks to Nikki letting a random kid stay at her house for several months, he skated the local indoor park and met a young Kyle Berrard, who was the prodigy of the region. He also got to skate the famous Virginia Beach vert ramp with the old school vert skaters from the East. People like Mike Crescini, Allen Midgett, Mike Conroy and brothers Glenn and Henry Gutierrez. Once back in town from The Warped Tour, Sergie let Brett know that Think were coming through town and heading on the road to NYC. Already sold on Brett’s abilities, Sergie asked Greg Carroll: “We’ve got to get this guy, this friend of mine, can he come with us?” Greg didn’t hesitate: “As long as he pays for his shit it is fine. He can sleep on the floor.” “This is awesome,” thought Brett.

Brett jumped in the van with some of the best skaters of all time: Dan Drehobl, Matt Pailes, Paul Zuanich and the one and only Phil Shao (RIP). Then unknown am Stefan Janoski was also along for the ride. In an era that was still primarily street-focused, the entire team could skate anything put in front of them, so Brett fitted in seamlessly. They skated Philly with Sergei Tordonoswki, and they skated Bucky Lasek’s old local, the Blue Ramp in Baltimore. Brett filmed his whole part for Think’s Damage on that ramp in one session. Soon they made their way up to The Big Apple and the hit the East Coast staple: The Brooklyn Banks. Girl, Chocolate, Real and Stereo were all in town, so you know it was a hot session. It was there Brett took to his first proper handrail. “I asked someone ‘How do you do a handrail?’” he remembers. “I am pretty sure I had done boardslides, but only on a four-stair. I had never lipslid a rail.” The lipslide down the Brooklyn Banks 10 was then also in his Damage section. By the end of the road trip, which was less than a week long, Brett had effortlessly landed a spot on the international team.

Summer of ’95/’96 saw Brett back in Perth, once again working at the skate shop. This summer though, Perth was in a different phase to a few years previous. The scene had built and there were once again skaters in every nook of the city. We had filmed for the second Momentum video, Fox Force Five, and Brett even had a Think NTSC Hi8 camera to film with. He had also added Airwalk Shoes and Venture Trucks to his sponsor list. We even skated a couple of demos with Tony Hawk over that summer. Australian Skateboarding Magazine’s Aaron Brown caught the train out to Perth to shoot photos of the mecca that was building out West. Perth’s best-ever street spot, Stock Exchange plaza, was also in full effect – not a cap to be seen anywhere. One night I was there with Kye Stanley, trying to figure out how to grind the rail. About an hour into the session, Brett rocked up out of the blue and frontboarded and lipslid the rail. He made both tricks in minutes, said his goodbyes and I continued trying to grind the rail. Later that year Brett returned to the States to tour with Think, but a wrist break in Virginia Beach ensured he had less fun than the year prior.

During the mid to late ’90s there weren’t that many comps in Australia, but there was one that was growing in stature. The second of the Surf Dive ’n’ Ski comps was held in May of 1997 at the Hordern Pavilion. We flew over there together and had so much fun navigating our way around the hectic intermeshing of hills that is downtown. The fun continued when we got to the comp, but Brett shone like no other. He made a perfect line, ending with a 360 melon grab over the car. He copped a standing ovation. Everyone in the industry was at that contest too, so at that point, whether he liked it or not, he was now in the limelight as one of the island’s elite. Shortly after he went on a Sydney-based street rampage and shot a shoe ad with Mike O’Meally for his new shoe sponsor, Emerica. Later that year Brett again toured with Think, this time on the Aussie East Coast. Brett’s favourite, Drehobl, was there, as was Pat Duffy, and not to mention a certain inventor of the frontside air.

During the summer of 1998 I was in Oceanside, California. One arvo I was around at my friend Rodney’s house when two raggedy skate elders entered. One was called Red Dog and I could tell that he worked with concrete from the moment we shook hands. Turns out he built Burnside. The other guy’s name was Tee-A. I wasn’t sure where Tee-A was from, but I was pretty stoked to meet people that were clearly skaters and were clearly deep in their 30s. You just didn’t experience much of that back then. So Tee-A asks me: “Where you from, kid?”, “Perth, it is in Western...” Tee-A cut me off and said: “Yeah, Perth is in Western Australia. One of my favourite skaters is from there, Brett Margaritis.” I thought, “Wait, I get it, TA is Tony Alva and Brett is one of his favourite skaters!” Turns out, Tony wasn’t the only fan, and Brett turned pro for Think that summer.

Towards the end of 1999 Brett moved to Sydney to head up Addlon Distribution, which was a long-serving distribution of skate gear. Brands he handled were Think, Independent, Santa Cruz, Thrasher and Freedumb Airlines, and he also put various other great things into motion. Brett was amped working with these brands and gathering his skills for his next phase. The millennium came with a plethora of new spots in Sydney, but due to the work commitments that came with living in such an expensive city, we would seldom skate together. I recently asked him if he was skating much during this time. “I wasn’t skating that much,” Brett replied. “People always wanted something. I was probably drinking more than normal to numb the stress of always having a footage or photo deadline. I never thought I would make any money out of skateboarding to be honest, and having bigger responsibilities to others ... well, I didn’t like it.”

By the time 2001 came around Brett was granted an opportunity to see the world once again. This was in a different role, as Team Manager for a start-up shoe company. Brett had met Mike Wilson from Salomon back in Perth. Adidas backed Salomon and Salomon was working with Cliché. It was decided they would start a shoe brand (Link Footwear). Why not pick an all-round nice guy, styler, astute businessman and ripper to fill the role? Brett promptly went about picking a team and Marcus McBride, JB Gillet, Lucas Puig and Alex Moul were added. Cale Nuske and Andrew Brophy were locals that Brett picked out for the operation. It was Brett putting these two on Link that paved their way to be pro for Cliché. Ask either of them to this very day who they owe for their amazing path and they will no doubt mention Margo. Brett always had a knack of not only eyeing out talent, but also giving really sound advice whenever needed. He enjoyed seeing the world and working behind the scenes without the stress of being the spectacle: “Having the opportunity to travel and not do the demo ... is pretty rad,” Brett laughs.

Over those couple of years Brett was formulating a back-up plan. He had gathered the tools he needed in team management, production and distribution to start something of his own. These days we all know Modus Bearings, but I was wondering what inspired him to start a bearing company? “I don’t know, man,” he continues. “I mean even in the Hordern days we had those SKFs from Italy. To be completely honest, everyone was like Swiss are the shit, but every time I got them they died. Literally. At the distribution in Sydney we had been selling a lot of Lucky Bearings and they weren’t any good either. That’s why I rode SKFs. I was like, these are amazing! Starting Modus seemed like a necessity. A lot of the bearings in skate shops weren’t actually of a high standard. I thought it couldn’t be that hard to make a better bearing. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and that’s how it started.”

Like many start-up brands, Link Footwear had the plug pulled on it just as it was gathering momentum. For their newly signed pros this was no doubt a massive blow, but looking back the timing was perfect for Brett. He settled back in Perth and founded Fivefoot4 Distribution. The first bearings arrived in 2003 and I was honoured to be a member of the initial team. My fellow teammates were Brett himself, Michael Davidson and Andrew Currie. And as Brett hoped, the bearings were next level. They really were. It was during this period of being back in Perth where Brett met his current partner, a beautiful soul called Kristine. Kristine had been a huge part of our circle for years, but fate has a way of ensuring that destined partners get together at a certain time.

Shortly after settling with Kristine, Brett was on a 2004 Hoon Run. This was when the direction of Brett’s next few years would be sealed. He was warming up on the fabled Beechmont Ramp. There are no ladders up to the platform, so you have to pump your way up there. While simply pumping to the top Brett popped a little ill-fated backside ollie. He was wearing a wrist brace, and instead of bailing on his ailing wrist, he went to fall the other way and in doing so he dislocated his knee. The dislocation resulted in him tearing his ACL, PCL and his meniscus. After nearly two decades of skateboarding, he was hurt properly.

He spent the better part of the next five months hobbling around doing renovations to the future Fivefoot4 offices. His friend and employee, Ben McLachlan, was also recovering from a brutal ankle break. They were physically hampered, but managed to get their future headquarters to a level where it had a 10-page spread in Homes & Living magazine. Brett had his surgery in April 2005. “I was out for two years,” he recalls. “In a straight brace for four months with no weight-bearing for six or seven months. I didn’t skate that whole time and started working with the distro more and more. It was a natural thing really and growing fast, so it was good to be focused on it. In the first few years we also handled sales for Stussy, KR3W, Supra, DVS, Lakai and Matix.”

Towards the end of 2005, Brett and Ben weren’t happy with the shapes and wood available in the board market and went about getting the first samples made for The 4 Skateboard Company. I was in Scotland when I saw the first round of graphics and contacted Brett to see if there was going to be a team. Yuta Tanaka and Ben Menzies were already getting flowed boards and shortly after myself and Alex Campbell were added to the lineup. The Modus team went on to expand in leaps and bounds to feature names such as Chima Ferguson, Jake Duncombe, Lewis Marnell, Dennis Durrant, Chewy Cannon, Colin Kennedy and even John Rattray. The fact that Brett saw an illuminated path through such a potentially dark period is a testament to his character and flexibility as a human.

As the lengthy knee rehab came to an end Brett and Kristine were blessed with the birth of Rose Margaritis-Lye. Seemingly, every time people are brought into fatherhood or motherhood their life changes for the better, and never have I seen it happen more vividly than it did for Brett and Kristine. I asked Brett to try and explain: “Kristine and I believe that Rose saved us,” he says. “Her arrival made us choose a better path for her, but importantly, for ourselves.”

Frontside hurricane, Albany Snake Run, 2008. Photo: Gourlay

In early 2010, through mutual friends, he was able to get some bearings to Grant Taylor, and they eventually crossed paths at the Belco Bowl Jam where he was officially added to the Modus team. Brett mentioned that it would be awesome to introduce him to the team with an ad. Grant said he had a photo doing a frontside air while biting into a hamburger. “Perfect.” Grant has been on the team ever since, and was even crowned SOTY the next year. At the end of the year The 4 Skateboard Company were featured in The Perfect Amount of Lazy, their first full-length video, which seemed to be well received and even copped a rave review from Pontus Alv.

As we head into the second decade of the new millennium, Fivefoot4 has continued to grow and currently distributes: Rip N Dip, Death Lens, Surprise Skateboards, Modus Bearings and The 4 Skateboard Company. The Modus team has grown organically and now includes names like Sylvain Tognelli, Jack Fardell, Ben Nordberg and Kevin Terpening. 4 teamrider Harry Clark has taken over looking after the 4 team, which at the time of going to press also includes Mike Martin, Louie Dodd, Casey Foley, Ricky Watt, Eugene Stewart and myself. A couple of years back Brett moved the operation from the long-established mid-city location to North Perth. That same week, both Kristine and he moved into a house on the same street! Talk about two aspects of your life converging. Brett now lives a one-minutewalk from work with Kristine, Rose and the seeing-eye dog that they are training, Fudge.

For the years leading up to its demolition his skateboarding was confined to sessions at the legendary Ellenbrook Pool. Its semi-recent demise has seen Brett hitting up a variety of skate locales, including the recently remodelled Subiaco Bowl. Just last year Brett was contacted by an old school friend, Grant Huggins, who was primarily a surfer, but was craving a proper vert ramp. Brett claims he only put three sheets of ply down, but I bet it was more than that. Thanks to Grant, and builder Sam Bennett, Huggo’s Ramp is home to regular sessions. Can’t wait to see some new Margo footage.

I can’t explain how honoured I am to have known Brett through the years and worked on this piece. Saying “he’s textbook” is a cliché, but for us out West, Brett wrote the textbook. If there was a proper way to do something, he did it naturally and with grace. That’s what style is anyway, right? In this instance, true style applies way beyond skateboarding to anything Brett applies himself to. From family, to business, to carpentry, to engineering, to all aspects of life.

Frontside nosegrind tailgrab, Huggo’s Ramp, 2014. Photo: Thompson

Slam Hall of Fame Inductees:

2012 – Dustin Dollin
2013 – Matt Mumford
2014 – Andrew Currie
2015 – Tas Pappas
2016 – Anthony Mapstone
2017 – Morgan Campbell
2018 – Tim ‘Dorfus’ McDougall
2019 – Andrew Mapstone
2020 – Chad Bartie
2021 – Jake Brown
2022 – Trent Riley
2023 – Shane Azar
2024 – Al Boglio
2025 – Brett Margaritis