Matt's Interview

This post is momentous because it kicks off the interview season here at Bolts of Thunder! And who better to get in his first few words that Matt, my brother. He is probably like 60% of the muscle and brain behind Bolts of Thunder, I will not lie. We say that it was a joint venture, but he owns more of the stock, if you get what I'm saying. So me and Matt have pretty much witnessed life hand in hand, in a metaphorical not literal way, so we have a million stories that we can share with each other about people starting fights with us because we scare their horses, being kidnapped by strange towel-shorted men for throwing rocks off a cliff, and about every other thing you can imagine. So if some of the questions and/or answers seem a little vague, just know that there's a good story behind it, and it will hopefully make it to see the light of day on the blog. Let's hope so... So here is Matt's interview. Enjoy!

(MrBoltsofTunder) So what's going on in your life now? Why are you not living in Provo anymore?

(Matt) I live in Omaha, Nebraska right now. I'm gonna live here until December 2015 cause I'm in graduate school. I'm going to school for occupational therapy. It's a physical rehab job, kind of like physical therapy. People who have never heard of it think I'm becoming a therapist for people who need to find jobs or something. But that's not what it is. It's really similar to physical therapy. My teachers would hate me if they heard me saying that. Ther's this competition between OT and PT. I think PT is winning. Anyway, when December 2015 comes around you can start calling me Dr. Hart.

Tell us about Don Juan and Lila.

Those are my two cats. I got Lila first cause I saw her at the petsmart and thought she was really cute. She was on loan from the humane society, which means they'd have to put her down if someone didn't get her. So I took her home. I got Don Juan a couple months later. He's crazy. He's a mix between a serval (a wild cat from Africa) and a domesticated cat. He's called a Savannah cat, and they cost thousands of dollars. But I got him from the human society too. Someone just found him walking the streets. He likes to play in water and take showers with Hannah and play in the snow. And I take him on walks everyday. He has to wear a pink harness cause it was the only cat harness I could find. He can jump higher than my head and his teeth are bigger than normal cats teeth. Savannah's are the biggest domesticated cats in the world, but I don't know how big he'll get. And he likes to rip up stuff with his big teeth, mostly cardboard and toilet paper. Anyway, my cats bring me constant entertainment. Don Juan is getting ready to attack me while I'm writing this. He's sneaking up behind me.

Do you have any good bum fight stories from Omaha? The downtown area seems like it'd be a prime place for bum fights.

I wish, but I haven't been around too many bums here. I haven't spent enough time downtown. The only altercation I've seen was in the drive through of a Burger King. It was between two different cars. Hannah got caught in the middle and became the mediator. It all worked out and they got their Whoppers in the end.

So now that you're not in Provo, you can't manage Bolts of Thunder like you once did, leaving me in charge of this operation. What do you think of Bolts of Thunder's current direction? Does it feel the same as it did before, or is it kind of like Star Trek: The Next Generation. In many ways it's superior but will never be as recognized as the original.

The Next Generation wasn't superior to the original. Lets just get that straight. Not that I care much for Star Trek anyway. And although I'm far away, my presence is still known among the bolts of thunder underground. The kids in Provo might not know it, but believe me, if I don't want you in the video, you're not gonna be in it. So as far as the videos go, I have a lot of control. And that's all I care about. Control.

Speaking of Start Trek, what's your favorite one, old or new generation? I know that Jerry would tell you that the Wrath of Khan is the better picture, but for me, I always thought the Search for Spock was better.

Um, I think I like the Search for Spock. Actually, I liked Nemesis, but apparently I'm the only person who does. Actually, Jon likes it too. I don't know why more people didn't like it. It was the only Star Trek movie that had any type of good production value. Oh, and the Undiscovered Country was pretty good. Anyway, I'm not a trekkie or something, I've just seen all the movies.

Now we enter the therapy section of the interview. It's to analyse your mental fitness to be a member of Bolts of Thunder. When I say a word or phrase, I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind. You can keep your answers to one word, short phrases, or however long you want:

Ice cream

ice cream man

Ice cream man

The worst two days of my life. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then just go look up the story on the original blog.

I'll f---in kick you a--, f---in skater punk mother f---er!

Crazy hick in St. George

Daniel R Shaw

enigma

Towel shorts

"you got mush for brains?!" it's a long story

Never Nude in France

Oh man, I totally forgot about that story. That was disgusting. A gay guy with little tiny cutoff jean shorts putting his crotch in our faces.

Havasupi

best place ever. broken bones. a lifetime of good stories for when we want to sit around and make fun of a certain pathetic southern california boy

Murder

bolts of thunder history

Skyfall

daniel craigs tight pants

Now let's get to some Bolts of Thunder talk. What would you like to see in the next video?

I don't know. Just cool tricks from lots of people. People that I don't normally see. And I want it to be filmed decent. Not that my part will be. That's all the expectations I have I guess. That's kind of sad that I'm not achieving for a little more. I just want to see lots of people in it and I want them to get really good footage for it.

Whose parts/footage are you excited to see?

I'm excited to see everyone's stuff. I hear Zak is getting good stuff. And I hear that kid Kenzo is really good, so he better not let me down. Apparently Alex Washington wants to have a part. That would be cool. I hear that Nick got some footage. That's always a pleasure. It's been a long time since we've been graced with some aggressive Nick footy. I'm sure his stuff will be epic. Those are the parts that I'm most excited to see cause we haven't had those in the other videos.

What are some of your favorite tricks from the past 3 videos?

You mean tricks that I've done? I've only done about three tricks. And I only like two of them. I like my hippie jump over the guard rail into the grass hill and I love my butt board riding that I did down that little euro gap. That was awesome. Tricks that other people did, I loved Dave's ollie at the U, his front board at the police station, and Nick's roof drop. I like a lot of other tricks, but those were the first three that came to mind. Good times.

What are some of your favorite tricks that you like the way there were filmed? This can be for any video we've worked on, not just Bolts of Thunder.

I have no idea. That's tough. Nothing really sticks out. I liked how I filmed Jon do a taildrop into a bank in bolts of thunder gone wild. At the end of Jon's part in the first video I like how I filmed his boardslide attempt on the double kink rail, although it didn't end up going where I wanted it to. But if he had rode away it would have looked good. I kind of like how I filmed AJ do a fakie manual fakie 360 flip out at Lions Park. Not that it was filmed amazing or anything, but the angle worked good and that's a hard spot to film at cause you have the table in front of you so I had to stand up real tall and hold the camera high and try to film over the tables. I've never seen anyone else film like that there, so I like it. Usually everyone films from the same angles there, so I liked that I did something different.

Back to Star Trek, if Bolts of Thunder was in space on the USS Enterprise, who would play each character from the movie? Let's do first generation here. So who'd be Spock, the Chinese guy, the black lady, etc?

Obviously that kid Kenzo would be the asian guy. Dan would be Spock cause they are both very fascinating and smart. Well, smart is in the eye of the beholder, or something. Anyway, Jon can be captain kirk and I will be the black lady cause no one in our video is black, no one in Utah is black, but there are a lot of black people in Omaha. And I have a black guy living with me, so I'm like half black now or something. Nick can be the doctor cause Nick's really smart and he's in a Phd program. I don't know, Dave can be the Chekov for no obvious reason, and Brian can be Scottie cause he's an engineer and Scottie probably has some engineering skills.

What mission would we be on? Why are we in space?

Probably looking for skate spots. Stupid answer.

That's all I've got for now, so do you have any last words you'd like to say?

I just remembered that I'm going to a Fleetwood Mac concert in April. I'm pretty excited for that. I can't think of much else to say. Oh, I want to see AJ do a fakie front crook fakie 360 flip out, and I want him to do a fakie flip crooked grind fakie flip out. He's gonna say he can't do it, but I know he can, he just needs a push. So here's your push. That's it. See everyone at the video premiere.