Andrew Reynolds: The Boss at 46, Sober and Still on Thrasher
March 2025. Thrasher publishes its 536th issue. On the cover: Andrew Reynolds, 46, with a flawless kickflip wallride. It’s his fifth cover for the magazine. Twenty-five years after The End, The Boss is still here.
⏱ Reading: 4 min
From Lakeland to Thrasher: The Birth of a Boss
Andrew Reynolds was born in 1978 in Lakeland, Florida. A city with no legendary spots. No proper skatepark. Just raw concrete, stairs, and a desire to escape mediocrity. This environmental brutality forged his style: direct, massive, no frills.
In 1998, he dropped his part in Birdhouse’s The End. Tony Hawk was in the same video. The result: Reynolds walked away with Thrasher’s Skater of the Year. At 20. The Florida kid just dropped a layer of history on everyone.
What stood out back then — and still does — was the amplitude. Kickflips over stairsets no one would have imagined hitting. Ollies that swallowed entire rails. Like Kareem Campbell before him, Reynolds turned street obstacles into his personal playground.
Baker Skateboards: The Garage Empire
In 2000, Reynolds left Birdhouse. Not to join another brand — but to create his own. Baker Skateboards was born in a garage with Jay Strickland, a crew of bad boys, and zero compromise. Jim Greco, Erik Ellington, Dustin Dollin, Bryan Herman: riders no big company really wanted. Characters, not billboards.
Baker2G dropped the same year. The tone was set: no formatted music, no corporate sponsors in the background, just raw skateboarding footage. The community immediately felt it was different. Baker became the most cult brand in street skateboarding within a few years.
In 2007, Reynolds went even further. With Ellington and Greco, he founded Bakerboys Distribution. Baker, Deathwish, Shake Junt, Brigada — an independent empire. In a market dominated by groups like Globe or Collective, it was a calculated snub. A bit like The Gonz did in the 80s: carving his own path instead of following others’.
The Fall and the Comeback
What magazines didn’t show in the 2000s: Reynolds was destroying himself. Alcohol, cocaine, endless nights. The style was there, the tricks too — but behind the cameras, it was chaos. Arrests. Rough mornings. A life spiraling while skateboarding, itself, moved forward.
He got clean in his twenties. In August 2023, on the Hawk vs. Wolf podcast, he publicly announced: twenty years of sobriety. Not an anecdotal detail. This is the story that explains everything else: how a man who could have disappeared like many others of his generation is still here, skateboarding three or four times a week, in shape, present for his daughter Stella, who also skates.
46 Years Old and Five Thrasher Covers
March 2025. Andrew Reynolds is on the cover of Thrasher for the fifth time. A kickflip wallride. The amplitude is still there. Shoulders still square over the board. Almost a quarter-century after his first cover, and no visible sign of slowing down.
Following this, New Balance Numeric releases the NB Numeric 933 model, his first signature shoe with the brand. After years with Emerica, Reynolds joins a structure that allows him to continue on his own terms. The documentary Regarding Reynolds accompanies the release: 20 minutes that capture what it’s like to be him in 2025 better than any magazine.
What’s striking in the doc is the tranquility. Reynolds has nothing to prove, and that’s precisely why he proves everything. He skates because he loves it. He skates because that’s what he’s been doing since he was a kid in Lakeland. Sober, plant-based, a present father — and still capable of pulling off kickflips that twenty-year-olds watch with their mouths open.
Some legends become statues. Andrew Reynolds is still alive.
