If you’ve been into snowboarding for a while, the name Fredi Kalbermatten will most likely resonate with you.
Style, precision and perfect stomps all instantly come to mind.
Fredi’s background is an evolution that’s as rich as the wider culture he’s contributed so deeply to. But beyond the video parts and covers, Fredi’s true colors result from having built a life entirely around snowboarding. So we sat down to talk about his particularly fluent, distilled expression of it.
The following are excerpts from a recent conversation with Fredi.
On soft snow
“To me, snowboarding has always been about riding powder, good snow, soft landings for when you fall. That's also how I learned most of the tricks - in powder actually. At that time there were no airbags or anything like that. I would just build a jump with a powder landing and try all the tricks.
Now as I'm a little older, I just like to ride.
Strap in and just ride and use the mountain - go fast, jump off this, jump off that. And yes, everything is part of snowboarding; rails, park and pipe. I actually grew up riding half pipe but for me now I just want to be in tune with the snow and the mountain.”
On style
“I think style is something you’re born with. You can tweak it a little bit, but it’s not something you can really learn.
I think I had better style when I was 20.
Tweaking and holding the grab and doing all these tricks. Maybe it’s because it's a little harder when you're a little older, or maybe it has to do with routine - I’m not really going out there anymore and spending the whole day building a jump to hit it five times. But when you’re younger and in that routine I think it comes easier. I just watched my part from Notice to Appear the other day and I’m thinking, “dang, I feel like I made it look easy”.
When you’re older you have to work harder to get things around and maybe the style suffers. But on the other hand you do have more experience, you know more, more of what’s possible. You can look at a way to ride a mountain that you didn’t see the same 20 years ago.”
On the point of no return
“When snowboarding came to Europe and into my life, it was like, man, this is it. This is perfect for me. With snowboarding I could jump off anything, It was better than with skis, and you got to wear soft boots.
I was so hooked on snowboarding and from the moment I got good enough to actually turn and jump off and land in powder; small ollies, cliff drops here and there - from that moment it was like I reached this point of no return. I was so committed, this is it, I just want to snowboard.
At the time, I wanted to learn every trick there was and back in the day, there weren’t double corks yet, it was a little easier to handle the tricks that existed.
I forgot the question. But that’s it for me, snowboarding, this is it, man.”
“On a good powder day, I don’t want to stop, ever. Still now, today, and it brings out that kid in me again.”
On direction
“If you look at the olympics and all that, snowboarding definitely is a sport and it’s hard nowadays. I feel like the level is insane. But to me, it’s still a lifestyle. I do think it’s good to progress, to push the limits. But competing feels like a whole other world now and it’s kind of going in the wrong direction for me.
But you can still push the limits in freeriding. Personally, I like to ride fast. When I ride down a line, I want it to look super fluent, fast and powerful. Even if it’s a technical face where you have to be careful.”
On retirement
“I will never retire. If I have sponsors, it's good, but if I don’t… I will shred till death. I mean, I live in one of the coolest places, resorts for snowboarding, so this is my life and I will never retire. I feel like when a professional soccer player retires, yeah, it's done. But snowboarding, you can keep going. You can do it.”
On contributing
“I would like to contribute to snowboarding, the realness of snowboarding. It's hard to explain, I don’t know if I can explain it. Basically everyone can do whatever they want, right? And there are no rules or, can’t do this and can’t do that. But there are certain things that just don’t feel real or authentic sometimes or there is a fashion phase of ‘this is in right now’ and everybody does the same shit.
I just want to contribute to the authenticity of snowboarding as much as I can, you know what I mean? For example, like knee grabs, right? Coaches tell the riders to grab their knees so you can rotate faster. And to me that's not snowboarding anymore. What is sick snowboarding? Is it really like triple corks? Is that sick snowboarding? I don't know man. To me it's when you still can hold the grab and tweak.
I want to contribute to snowboarding by doing it as much as I still can. I might try a 1080 if the conditions are perfect but I’m just more a freerider nowadays.”
Photography: Perly & Gray
