Prior to this interview, the only dirt I could dig up on Alex Stathis was that he was kind of a minimalist - all he needs in life is to skate and shred - that he rocked boot liners for shoes for a while, that he used to ride Seymour in only his long johns, and his brother always kicked things up a notch by sporting a fedora and a dope tall jacket. But truth be told, both the Stathis brothers are great partiers and often have a circle going around them when they are hammed. Don't believe it? Well then, show up for one of D.O.P.E's DOPE II premieres, get nice and messed up, and judge for yourself.

Heard you kicked off last season with a major concussion?
I was dumb and didn't board enough. I rode two days and went to Calgary on a rail trip. We went to this quad kink and I switch 50'd it and got destroyed. Why would I switch 50 a quad kink when I hadn't done one all year? I got knocked out bad; fully seizured, blood everywhere, and woke up in the critical ward with a respirator jammed down my throat. Someone made it sound like I was going to die to my mom, so she freaked out and flew in – the second time I woke up in a hospital with my mom there.
[ed. - we have photos and story from the trip, courtesy of Mike Helfrich]

Second time?
Two years ago I won a Texas Micky at Westbeach's Game of BEEF. I ended up pounding 3/4 of it under an hour and completely blacked-out before I got to the bottom of the hill. I ran around Creekside (Whistler) telling everyone, including the bus drivers, to chug, then I fell straight back. I woke up in the hospital to find out that I was driven down [to Vancouver] in an ambulance and got my stomach pumped. The doc said I drank the equivalent of 24 beers within an hour.

Damn.
I can't drink hard alcohol. I get black-out drunk, keep drinking more, and do some really bad stuff like passing out in random places and waking up in the middle of nowhere.

Like the tank?
I always wanted to go see what it's like, but it was the worst: you think you are going to be in there forever. The guard said, "Looks like you are going to be in here for a couple more hours," and slammed the door shut. I sat on a cold cement floor without socks. Now I would run.

Yeah, me too. It's sick that you were able to film a full video part after hitting your head.
I still had a good year, but I felt shitty with not being confident. I was scared and wore a helmet for a few weeks. I have a huge head, so they never fit me.

Where did you go when you could shred again?
I just boarded around Seymour until the end of January, and then Brockle, Layne (Treeter) and I took my 1988 hatchback Nissan Sentra and did a month-and-a-half loop: Salmon Arm, Vernon, Nelson, Calgary, Edmonton, back to Calgary and Edmonton, Prince George, then home. The Sentra made it the whole way with out breaking down at all.

DOPE II stories?
We got pulled over past Jasper with a vodka bong in the front seat, cans everywhere, and weed on us. The cop pulls me out of the car, and said, "On your record it says you got caught with weed in Salmo last year. If you tell me where the weed is, I will just take it." I had the littlest bit in my pocket, so I was gave it to him. He asks Brockle if he has weed, and says he's going to search the car, so Brockle pulls out the bong right beside his foot and gives it to him.

His attempt to search the car was brutal - beer cans and snowboards everywhere - but he insisted he could smell it. I told him it was because we were in that car for a long time. He comes back with, "It smells like you have been drinking." I had not. Then Brockle said, "I have. Want me to take a breathalyzer?" Then the cop asked if I smoked weed today, and when I replied no, he said, "You sure? We have a specialist a town up; maybe I will get him to come down."

While waiting, we ended up bro'ing down with the cop. Before letting us go, he said, "Slow down. That's why I pulled you over in the first place." In the end, he was completely stoked on us.

Sounds like your Sentra is pretty badass.
The scariest driving I have ever done was when Layne, Brockle and I had to drive the Duffy in a dark blizzard. We were following Rob (Lemay) and E-man (Anderson), but Rob has a 4x4 truck, so he was gone. It was so sketchy; I couldn't even pull over because I didn't even know where ‘over' was. Luckily a snowplow pulled out in front of us, so we followed it for three hours.

When we left Nelson, they closed all the highways to Calgary because there were 30 avalanches the day after we left. We made it, but Rob and E-man were stuck on the other side. The only time we put chains on was in Nelson - the steepest town to navigate.

(keep reading for tales of Alex's travels to Shambhala, Reno and back to Whis again)