Daewon Song Nearly Quit in the Middle of His Glory: Why He Keeps Filming 34 Years After Love Child

1992, Love Child drops from World Industries and a kid from Gardena nails a hardflip that everyone keeps replaying. A year later, that same kid can’t decide if he still wants to skate. Today he’s 51 and still filming. What kept him going?

135th Street, Gardena: Rodney Mullen spots a kid

Daewon Song was born in Seoul in 1975. He grew up in Gardena, in the south of Los Angeles. And it all starts in a schoolyard.

He tells it himself in the Chrome Ball Incident in 2013. One day he sees Rodney Mullen skating solo at 135th Street School, a neighborhood school that’s not exactly chill. His first thought: he’s gonna get wrecked, and Gardena’s gonna look like a dump. But Mullen had already seen him skate the week before, at another school. He’d gone to ask his buddy Pat who that kid was, then left in his Camaro. The next time, he grabbed his number. World boards came free to his house.

At 16, he’s sponsored by World Industries, the brand of Steve Rocco and Mullen. The one that upended Powell and the whole late‑80s industry.

Love Child, 1992: a hardflip filmed in headlight glow

In Love Child, World’s third video, Daewon lands a hardflip. He’s often cited as the first filmed. He stays cautious: others claim it, he points to Dan Gallagher and Shawn Mandoli. He mainly remembers “crushing that thing,” eyes closed, at a time when nobody knew what it meant to “catch your board.”

The wildest part is he didn’t even know he was filming a part. Socrates, the cameraman, just asked if he had a trick. Night sessions at Beryl, they lit them up with a fluorescent camera bag for rollers, stuffed with wrapping paper, that Socrates’ brother brought back from his job at a roller shop. They’d set him up in front of his pickup’s headlights as a reflector. Zero budget. A part that still sticks in heads 34 years later.

In 1993, New World Order nailed it. On paper, Daewon was set to go.

The kid who didn’t know if he wanted to skate anymore

That’s when he drops the mic. He says it straight: he meets a girl from Long Beach, dives headfirst into cars, buys gear, crushes other guys’ setups, heads under the hood. He loses touch with his skate crew.

Honestly, at that point I didn’t even know if I wanted to skate anymore. Daewon Song, Chrome Ball Incident, 2013

Let’s be real—skate didn’t pay the bills. He summed it up in one line: with a press tour, he’d have made more.

Meanwhile, World Industries was wobbling. A bunch of riders walked out to jump on Girl. No one came after Daewon, and he admitted, “I didn’t even exist at that point.” Then the phone rang. It was Rodney, right after the others had left. He was crushed, convinced it was over, that World wouldn’t bounce back.

Daewon didn’t know what to say. So he apologized. For not being there. He thanked him for everything and promised to get back to skating, filming more, giving it all, because he felt he owed that much to Rodney and Rocco. “That’s how we got everything back on track.”

Twenty years later, he jokes about it. If World had folded and he hadn’t come back to film Rodney vs Daewon, he says, he might be pulling your oil change right now.

Rodney vs Daewon: the clash between two bros

The comeback had a name. In 1997, Mullen dropped Rodney vs Daewon with him: two friends pretending to battle, each with their own side. Round 2 hit in 1999. Round 3 was the first Almost video, in 2004.

In the meantime, he’s still moving. In 1999, after nine years at World, he left to start Deca with Chris Haslam, JB Gillet, Shiloh Greathouse and Marcus McBride. His favorite part of his whole career is the Deca video. To wrap it up, he slept two weeks under a warehouse office: a blanket stretched over, an improvised tent, and the next morning they hit the cameras again.

Deca wound down in 2002. He jumped to Artafact, a brand that lasted less than a year. Then in 2003, he founded Almost with Rodney Mullen. The kid spotted in the 135th Street yard became the partner of the one who spotted him.

2006: Skater of the Year at 31

Round Three in 2004. Cheese & Crackers in 2006. And that same year, Thrasher named him Skater of the Year, a year after Chris Cole. At 31, an age where many start to step back, he snatched the most coveted street title.

The next part is a long list of proof that he never put his board away. In 2014, he won the 2UP, the Berrics manuals contest: a trophy and $10,000. In 2017, he entered the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. On October 26, 2018, he left Almost, his own brand, and launched Thank You with Torey Pudwill. In 2024, adidas released DaeTrip: a video with Mike Arnold, shot in San Pedro, just steps from his place.

So, why is he still there?

Because at one point, he stopped skating for others.

He almost bailed when the skate just wasn’t paying off and everyone was ditching the ship. He came back out of loyalty, for Rodney. And once back, he knocked out everything that could hold him back one by one.

First the trip. He hates that, he says. He always thought he could keep a ten‑year career just by skating his backyard, and Koston once pointed out that all the footage he’d shot over ten years came from South Bay. He spends his days cruising through parking lots, and behind the known spots he finds the ones he loves.

The spot rules, next. For his last Almost part, he asked himself what he’d skate if there was nothing left. Rocks, trees, grass.

Who wrote a rule that says you can’t land in the grass? Daewon Song, Chrome Ball Incident, 2013

And the look of others, finally. He says it outright: from that point on, he doesn’t care what people think of his parts. It wasn’t for them, it was for him. No need for a skatepark to have fun on a board.

Then the bosses. Deca, Almost, Thank You: since 1999, Daewon’s been rolling for brands he’s built himself. No one can tell him to stop. The kid who was torn between skate and garage found the only way to last: be his own spot, his own audience, and his own boss.

The manual wizard isn’t a survivor. He’s a dude who almost left, and decided that this time no one would make that call for him.

Which Daewon part is your favorite: Love Child, Round 1, Cheese & Crackers, or the rocks and trees? Drop it in the comments ↓

Correction dated October 3, 2026: an earlier version of this article claimed that Daewon Song founded Deluxe Distribution and had disappeared from the scene. That was wrong. Deluxe is a San Francisco distributor (Real, Anti Hero, Spitfire, Thunder) he was never linked to, and he never stopped skating or filming. The article was completely rewritten from verified sources.