CATCHING UP WITH ROMES TM ... JOHN CAVAN

1) I heard you guys have had some fun out at Windells. Who was out there this year from the team?
Yeah I just cruised out there to do some filming for web content, and also to check Rome week at Windells. Eiki and LNP were with me for the first week and then for camp week we had Lazz, Paxson, LNP and young gun Stale Sandbech. All around Rome guy Ron Faverty was working with me the whole time out there too so that was fun. I got to see some friends like Pat Moore, Hana Beaman, Preston Strout, and I even got to hang with Shane Flood who is snowboarding once again so that was awesome.

2) You mentioned that you were hanging with Tommy J from EB out
there. Is he taking care of business or acting more like a camper
while he's "working?"
Tommy J is the man out there. He took good care of us, He’s skating like crazy and shralping around on the glacier, he’s not afraid of a little PBR either.

3) Any changes happening with the Rome team? Any young guns we should be looking out for?
Nothing really too big, we are all in deep on the movie. I’m really hyped to have Lucas Debari on our program now He an Bjorn are gonna be a heavy combo in the backcountry. The two Johnnies (Paxson and Lazz) are really blowing up. LNP was jumping at Windells so his back is 100% back from his injury, which is amazing. Eiki for the first time is going to focus only on 1 movie project, the Rome film so it should be nuts to see what happens from him…. I don’t know what more to say…our team is pretty good right now I think

4) How about an MFR update now that she's been on the mend for a while.
Ha ha yeah Marie is doing amazing…like seriously she is doing amazing not just saying that in a lame PR kind of way. I picked her up at the airport a couple weeks ago and I really didn’t know what to expect and she was just bouncing around, she was riding a dirt bike at the office and just super happy and positive. She said her doctors have told her she is making an amazing recovery and she was already pretty healthy to begin with but I think she’s taken this as a way to really get stronger and more healthy and she just seem genuinely excited about everything, so all the positive vibes everyone sent her seemed to work!

5) Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow a beard?
Every day Bub every day…..It takes me like three weeks just to grow a silly looking dirt stash so if I start working on a beard now I may have one in time for the movie premier…next year…HA

6) Have you stacked plenty of bangers for the next movie yet?
I’m not really talking too much about what we have for the movie, but we definitely have some shit. I’m pretty much planning on spending the entire season next year sleeping on floors living out of my truck and chasing winter all over the globe to get this beast finished. I see a lot of cold late nights with generators and early mornings swearing at stuck sleds in my future….

7) Getting any time off this summer for drink and drifts? Skating? Fishing? Basket weaving?
Yeah it’s been fun, I have been working quite a bit I had to bang the TWS Team Shoot Out video pretty fast so I’ve been pretty busy with all of that, but we’ve had some fun hangs in the bustling metropolis of Waterbury VT. I went to Fenway for a Sox game with Bill from Darkside and Sully and George from Rome. Haven’t really made it up to Burlington at all this summer but I think that will change soon.

8) From Rome’s standpoint hows the vibe up there in Vermont with
Burton sort of bailing out of the state? Does Rome have similar issues when it comes to conducting business in Vt?
I really don’t know about them leaving VT I have a lot of friends up there and from what I know they are still doing business in BTV, but I don’t really spend any time at all worrying about what those guys are doing. As far as Rome goes, this is our home, everyone is a big family here and I can’t really imagine us moving any other place…..I actually can’t really even imagine the conversation about it coming up

Note: This and other periodicals were published recently regarding moves with Burton.
"Home-grown Burton Snowboards announced Tuesday that it was closing its premium snowboard manufacturing facility in Vermont and shifting production to its plant in Austria.
The closing of the Burton facility in June will cost 43 workers their jobs.
Product design and development will remain in Vermont at its corporate headquarters in Burlington."

9) Romes 2011 product lineup looks really good. Assuming you have seen the numbers, what was the general purchasing trend from shops around the country with rocker to camber and everything in between for 2011?
Whoa whoa Bub when did you all of a sudden become so professional at interviewing people….is this some sort of new career path you are taking? As far as your question goes, Rocker was still very popular shops still however have gone deep with Rome on our quiver story and have gotten both kinds as well as hybrids. Shops seem really positive and excited about this upcoming year. I think everything looks good and fresh so that’s good.

10) After a lot more board testing by the team this summer and time going into 2012 product and beyond, what sort of things do you see happening with board construction and trends?
It’s hard to say but I feel that to me there is going to be a lot more growth in the New Technology/Hybrid camber side of things. I think reverse camber is so new that it hasn’t been perfected yet which is exciting to know that right now there’s probably all kinds of new camber designs and shapes that board designers are playing with. This year alone I rode a new Agent Rocker that had a camber that is reverse between the feet and regular on the tip and tail and had a new type of side cut called quickgrip that rides like a longer board but feels short. I also rode our MOD board with Hot rods built in to the board that you can noticeably feel the pop with. All of this new technology is fun when you really see differences in how it affects your riding popping stronger out of turn or feeling a higher ollie is great especially for fat old guys like ourselves who can take all the advantages we can get HA HA HA
".... especially for fat old guys like ourselves ...." nice Cavan...Let's just call it an insulating layer.

11) What sort of travel plans have you got lined up for the team?
Hopefully we also see you guys on the road again doing some more cool low key stuff with the local kids.
Yeah well we are gonna be on the road non stop for the new movie, but a big focus for Rome has always been getting into the shop and actually seeing kids, although I don’t know for sure what we will be doing this fall I’m sure I’ll be spending a good chunk of time coming through shops with team guys, it’s always cool to come through an hang with different shops, being from a shop like EB has always kind of reinforced in me the importance of local shops and the local crew of kids and employees that really are that area’s scene, anything Rome can do to fuel that scene is something I want to be a part of.

Thanks Bub, you’ve really stepped up your interviewing game here pal. I hope I can get back down to the greatest state in the union soon and have a hang. I attached some photos. Some are of me and some are some sneak peek video grabs I took from some "shred remains" stuff.

Thanks Cavan. Sorry about the more formal questions. I'll try and think of more "beard" type ones for the next time we catch up.