1. Please introduce yourself, where are you from, what are your supporters/sponsors?

My name is Zebastian Cassel Karnevik, I`m 26 years old and I`m originally from Linköping, Sweden. My sponsors & supporters are: Shima Skate Manufacturing, Swankrolling Distribution & Hangaren Skatepark.

2. Can you tell us about the Sweden Blade Scene? What are the most active cities/ blade clusters around the country?

The Swedish blade-scene is quite spread out and mainly concentrated around the good indoor parks we’ve got I suppose. For example Eskilstuna/ Zero One Six Skatepark is crawling with young potential thanks to Fred & his dad as well as the love from Hedonskate. My hometown Linköping has Hangaren Skatepark and we got a rather small but strong scene that I along with some friends try to expand any way possible by throwing events and creating a national association with the main objective to keep us alive and growing. We have a FB-Group called Swedish Rollerblading Org at the moment and we are over 500 members in that group so I mean if you somehow channel all that energy that I know is out there into one strong-minded rollerblading-association there’s really no stopping us.

You also have the Hanglosers posse concentrated around Stockholm which are pretty active when it comes to online-content & attending European events & showcasing blading with a sense of humor and self-distance which is quite refreshing I think.

3. What’s the deal with Shaped by The Cold project? It seems that’s the one of the few last clothing brands that still exists in EU, will we see some Fall/Winter line?

Shaped By The Cold started out as a fun project as I got tired of wearing the same kind of blading-brand tee’s with kind of almost the same design even tho they were different brands. I made a few tee’s by hand along with Stephanie Midhammar and we used them for awhile before friends & bladers started asking me about where they could buy them. So naturally we started making more of them and as requests came in for other colors & models we expanded in a pace our own personal economy could allow & picked up riders we think deserved more attention and represented our garments in a natural way.

Shaped By The Cold is not for you if you like machine printed/machine sewed garments that will look exactly like your buddy’s tee but rather if you value the fact that your garment will be truly unique/one of a kind and sewn by hand. We invest in between 3-4 hours of manual labour into EVERY tee & print to make sure they are what we set out to be. Some like em’ some dont !

We don’t really follow the summer/winter/spring/fall line convention as we can’t afford to keep such a large stock anyways. We added tanks to our product line this summer which was our Summer line then I guess haha and also we started making baseball jerseys which came out DOPE!

All our models/colors can be customized and are always available for pre-orders. Checkout www.shapedbythecold.wordpress.com for more info or hit us up on [email protected]

We are always looking into ways to expand and we will hopefully be here for a long time supporting the events & bladers out there that keep on pushing our industry in a good direction.

4. Blades Of Glory contest that you are organizing is getting close (25.09) – looks like a pretty big event, the Hangaren park has been rebuilt and some Pros have already confirmed their attendance – can you elaborate on this? What can we expect?

Second Annual Blades Of Glory Competition will surely be one of the Swedish highlights from 2014 with a great competition in Hangaren Skatepark with afterparty & a small tradeshow. Leon Humphries, Fredrik Andersson & Josh Glowicki will be attending as our special guests. I also heard rumors that Spanish powerhouse Michel Prado will show up as well as the majority of the Swedish blading-scene along with bladers from Norway & Denmark. The new obstacle is too good to be true and I`m quite sure some amazing stuff will go down that weekend. We have a collaboration with Winterclash which Im really happy about where the junior & senior taking first will receive a free weekend pass to Winterclash. We also have 4000 Swedish kronor in prize money as well as tons of stuff from our sponsors. I really hope to see you and everyone else there !

5. How do you feel about riding SSM what do you appreciate about the image SSM is porttraying about blading?

I’ve been riding the SSM blades for quite some time now and I love how they feel & look. I recently had some issues with a heel-pad injury and thought I was gonna have to let go but thanks to Shima & Ashley I was able to work around it and solve the problem so now the blades feel even better then before and I`m really grateful for the family like treatment I receive from my sponsor which is something I value if I bleed for a brand.

As for the image SSM is portraying I love it even more then the blades I guess haha, blading should be badass, big stuff, big balls, men as wolves & heavy music. I mean I enjoy other aspects of blading too but for me the stuff SSM pushes is truly what I would buy as an outsider and when I show people my gear I can truly say I`m part of something great. Blader-owned is the way to go and Shima is a legend period, just look at the recovery he’s doing now, inspiration for ages to come, no bullshit!