The Red Bulletin November 2019 (UK)

UK EDITION
NOVEMBER 2019, £3.50
BEYOND THE ORDINARY
SUBSCRIBE: GETREDBULLETIN.COM
DANNY
MACASKILL
10 years of
bike trials
and triumphs
DEEP
FREEZE
Freediving beneath Arctic ice floes

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EDITOR’S LETTER
PATH OF MOST
RESISTANCE
Whoever said “Good things come to those
who wait” hasn’t met the stars of this month’s
The Red Bulletin. There’s trail-riding superstar
Danny MacAskill (page 56), who, a decade ago,
worked in an Edinburgh bike shop and dreamt
of making a huge gap jump onto the roof of the
store next door. Two years earlier, Anna von
Boetticher (page 30) tried diving without an air
tank. Today, she’s our cover star, freediving
beneath icebergs. Strongman Mike McCastle
(page 40) reprogrammed his own survival
mechanism to motivate himself to help others.
Japanese band DYGL (page 48) wanted to emulate
their western idols; in the process they’ve found
themselves at war with the hypocrisy of their
homeland’s music industry. Meanwhile, Michael
Kiwanuka (page 26) kickstarted his music career
by walking out on Kanye, and actor Linda
Hamilton (page 24) is battling Terminators and
Hollywood ageism at a youthful 63 years old.
CONTRIBUTORS
THIS ISSUE
MAUREEN O’HAGAN
The Pulitzer Prize-nominated
journalist has met many
surprising characters in her
career, but none quite like
strongman Mike McCastle.
“Before I sat down with Mike,
I had a picture in my mind that
turned out to be completely
wrong,” she says. “I don’t
think I’ve met someone so
different from what his list
of achievements would
suggest.” Page 40
STUART KENNY
For the Edinburgh-based
writer, interviewing
Danny MacAskill was an
achievement unlocked. “I’ve
been a follower since 2009,
watching him ride his bike
along railings in The Meadows
without impaling himself,” he
says. “Ten years later, it was a
few hundred yards from that
railing that we chatted. They
say don’t meet your heroes,
but if that hero is Danny,
you’re safe.” Page 56
For photographer Tobias Friedrich, shooting in Greenland’s
fjords wasn’t easy: “It was -2°C, so Anna [von Boetticher] only
had 15-20 minutes in such an extreme environment.” Page 30
TOBIAS FRIEDRICH (COVER)
04 THE RED BULLETIN

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56
The power of 10:
Danny MacAskill
talks us through
his decade of
spectacular trials
and YouTube hits
CONTENTS
November 2019
DAVE MACKISON
08 Fantasy island: psychedelic
paragliding in Bali
10 Ahead of the curve: shadow
skating in Singapore
11 Photo finish: the climbers who
wouldn’t be beaten
12 Perpetual ocean: an encounter
with one of Hawaii’s fiercest waves
15 Can you dig it: Metronomy’s
Joseph Mount shares his four
favourite garden-themed tracks
16 Coffee break: the man who makes
surfboards from takeaway cups
18 Fly by night: check into Tokyo’s
flight-simulator hotel room
20 Balanced view: expert tips from
German slackliner Lukas Irmler
22 Bring the noise: the ‘museum’
conserving sounds of the past
24 Linda Hamilton
Terminator’s Sarah Connor on
reprising her most iconic role
26 Michael Kiwanuka
The singer-songwriter whose
route to success wasn’t Yeezy
28 Beauden Barrett
Back in black: home truths from
the New Zealand rugby ace
30 Freediving
Fjord escort: beneath the ice
with diver Anna von Boetticher
40 Mike McCastle
America’s very own Hercules
48 DYGL
Rocking Japan to its foundations
56 Danny MacAskill
The Scottish MTB rider revisits
his career highlights to date
70 Pressure drop: American
skydiver Tom Noonan and the
Mount Everest freefall that
became a labour of love
80 Meet Erwan Le Corre, the French
physical trainer whose fitness
regime takes you back to nature
81 In the world of gaming, the
FIFA franchise is a colossus.
We explore how the football
title grew from meagre-budget
minnow to league leader
82 Unmissable dates for your
calendar
83 This month’s highlights on
Red Bull TV
85 Equipment: watches for every
terrain, plus the hiking, biking
and grooming kit you’ll want
to be using this month
98 Bird’s-eye biking: freeriding
with a drone in France
THE RED BULLETIN 07

MOUNT AGUNG, BALI
Tripping
the lıght
fantastic
“A trippy full moon in Bali” is
how surf coach Ivan Fominykh
describes this amazing shot of him
paragliding through the air near
Mount Agung, the island’s active
volcano. While it appears to have
captured a psychedelic night-time
light show, the image was actually
achieved thanks to a combination
of clever photography and
specialist equipment. “I took this
shot using an LED light strap,” says
photographer Serge Shakuto. “It
was shot with a 20-second-long
exposure and one strobe light with
a wireless remote.”
Instagram: @shakuto
SERGE SHAKUTO / RED BULL ILLUME

09

SINGAPORE
Curves
and
shadows
Shot from above by drone, this
photo was taken in Singapore
during a session with members
of the country’s tight local skate
scene. The image, which uses
shadow play and the natural lines
of the park, is just one in a
collection snapped by photographer
Ebrahim Adam and shortlisted
for Red Bull Illume’s Instagram
community vote in June. “Stoked
that three of my images have
been selected,” Adam wrote in
his Instagram post.
Instagram: @ebra_cadabra

BIDEAN NAM BIAN,
SCOTLAND
Saving
face
When climbers Guy Robertson
and Greg Boswell attempted the
summer route at Bidean nam Bian,
near Glen Coe in Scotland, in 2017,
they hadn’t anticipated failure, but
that’s how the day ended. Returning
to the location later that year to
complete the climb, they took along
photographer Hamish Frost to
record their triumph. This shot went
on to win Red Bull Illume’s Best of
Instagram category this June.
“It’s awesome for Scottish winter
climbing to get more exposure on
a worldwide stage,” says Frost.
“It’s bold, hard, technical climbing
in unforgiving conditions, and often
it goes without much fanfare.”
Instagram: @hamishfrost
EBRAHIM ADAM/RED BULL ILLUME, HAMISH FROST/RED BULL ILLUME
11

RYAN CRAIG/RED BULL ILLUME

PE’AHI, HAWAII
Rider
on the
storm
Ask someone to imagine surfing in
Hawaii and they’ll most likely think of
blue skies, clear waters, and dudes
throwing the shaka sign. But, as this
image shows, that’s not always the
true picture. The dramatic shot was
taken by Ryan ‘Chachi’ Craig, who
captions it “a tale of trying to wrangle
the biggest catch, on the windiest
day, at a notoriously moody and
dangerous spot, Pe’ahi. [Hawaiian
surfer] Nathan Florence trying to
read a turbulent ocean while also
trying to avoid being blown away into
the great blue ocean. What a day”.
Instagram: @chachfiles
13

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METRONOMY
Hanging
out in
the green
room
When he’s not writing indie-pop
anthems, you’ll find Metronomy’s
Joseph Mount in his garden. Here,
he picks four horticultural tracks
Formed in 1999, Metronomy have
created their own idiosyncratic
synth-pop style over the years,
influenced by everything from
’60s psych-rock and electronica
to Prince and NERD. The
British band regularly feature in
music magazines’ best-of-the
year lists, and their albums have
gone top 10 in France as well as
in the UK. For their sixth album,
Metronomy Forever, founder
Joseph Mount found inspiration
in his own backyard. “Gardening
is something I’ve become very
involved in,” says the 37-year-old
songwriter, and this passion has
had an impact on his personal
playlist. Here are four of his
green-fingered favourites…
Metronomy Forever is out now;
metronomy.co.uk
GREGOIRE ALEXANDRE MARCEL ANDERS
Talking Heads
Pull Up The Roots (1983)
“It’s a pun, isn’t it? It’s about
pulling up the roots when you’re
gardening. It’s what you’ve got
to do with, like, potatoes. In
gardening, I’m sort of the muscle,
and Mariam, my girlfriend, is the
more creative gardener. So I do
things like rotovate, which is
turning the soil. I get rid of weeds,
do big destructive work. That’s
my speciality.”
The Kinks
The Village Green Preservation
Society (1968)
“Gardening is about seeing yourself,
seeing the human cycle and the
seasons and things like that. This is
a good track to play when you’re
literally getting ready to garden. It
gets you in the mood to grab your
trowel and put on your gloves. It
also reminds you about the futility
of what you’re doing, which is
essentially trying to fight nature.”
Stevie Wonder
Come Back As A Flower (1979)
“This is about wanting to come
back as a flower when you die.
Which is a nice idea, but one thing
I’ve learnt is that growing flowers
is actually one of the least
gratifying things. It’s an incredibly
laborious task, because you’re
always having to split them and
reseed stuff. It’s a super-involved
type of gardening, so I don’t really
do that. I destroy things.”
Miles Davis
Concierto De Aranjuez (Adagio)
(1960)
“As a teenage boy, I’d have breakfast
at 11am on weekends. I’d be listening
to some Miles [Davis] and watch my
parents in the garden. I couldn’t
really understand what they were
doing, but this track is 16 minutes
long, so it’s a good one to get you
into some kind of zone. Like, if you
have a long task – weeding, that kind
of thing – it’s nice. Give it a try.”
THE RED BULLETIN 15

Clockwise from left:
Nolan takes his
surfboard back to its
birthplace for coffee;
the board before
shaping; fin detail; the
Vissla contest logo
SUSTAINABLE SURFING
Dunkin’
without
dumpin’
New Hampshire surfer Korey Nolan
is bringing attention to throwaway
culture through his boards made
from recycled coffee cups
As lovers of the ocean, most
surfers are defenders of the
environment. The boards and
equipment they use, however,
are far less eco-conscious, made
from non-recyclable materials
with a large carbon footprint.
One surfer fighting back against
environmentally unfriendly waste
is Korey Nolan, 32, a shaper from
New Hampshire who has created
a board from more than 700
recycled Dunkin’ Donuts cups.
Nolan’s board was inspired by
the profusion of discarded coffee
cups he saw in his local area.
“I wanted to make what people
throw away daily more apparent,
to make them question it,” he
says. “I collected a thousand
Styrofoam cups in less than 10
months, just from family and
friends. They started saying that
I’d made them realise how much
take-out coffee they bought.”
The surfboard was created
by compressing the cups in a
mould, which were then set with
bamboo and bio-based epoxy.
Last October, it won second
place in a challenge, hosted
by Californian brand Vissla, to
make a ride-able piece of surf
equipment from garbage or
recycled materials.
But Nolan doesn’t want his
board’s success to encourage
the continued use of Styrofoam
by companies. “If you start using
these items as source material
for boards, you’re still creating a
second-hand demand. Styrofoam
has been around for almost 80
years and every piece ever made
is still out there, because it
doesn’t biodegrade. I want my
board to raise awareness of that.”
Instagram: @koreytnolan
KOREY NOLAN, AARON MCNULTY LOU BOYD
16 THE RED BULLETIN

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The Superior Cockpit Room at the Haneda Excel: go to sleep in Tokyo and wake up in, er… Tokyo
When touching down after a long
flight, the last thing most people
want to think about is having
to board another aeroplane. But
that’s clearly not the case for
every traveller. Which is why the
Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu has
just created a guest room that
allows visitors to continue their
flight experience.
Named the ‘Superior Cockpit
Room’, the new space is fitted
with a flight simulator that
mimics a Boeing 737-800 flight
from Tokyo to Osaka’s Itami
Airport. Also on hand is an
instructor with extensive
experience of piloting Boeing
planes, so guests can learn to
fly like a pro.
There is some meaning
behind this madness: the hotel
is connected to Tokyo’s Haneda
International Airport and boasts
a view of two of the main
runways from most of its rooms,
so it’s already a favourite
stopover for flight enthusiasts.
“We wanted to create
something very ‘airport hotel’,”
says a representative for the
Haneda Excel. “Under the
guidance of a former captain
who actually has a lot of flight
experience, you can experience
the operation of the aeroplane.”
A night in the twin-bedded
room costs 25,300 yen (£195)
per night. However, guests
cannot simply book in and
play pilot all night long: the
90-minute flight simulation
costs an extra 30,000 yen
(£230) on top of the standard
room rate and must only be
controlled with an instructor
present at all times. Also,
guests are strictly forbidden
from entering the simulator
unsupervised or touching its
handles at any other point
during their stay.
If you fancy a turn in the
simulator at the Haneda Excel,
you’d better act fast: the room
has been entirely booked up
for its first two months, and
there are only a few upcoming
vacancies remaining.
tokyuhotels.co.jp
HANEDA EXCEL HOTEL TOKYU
The ultimate
flying visit
Check into the Japanese hotel with a lifesize
Boeing flight simulator in one of its rooms
TOKYUHOTELSJAPAN.COM/HANEDA EXCEL HOTEL LOU BOYD
18 THE RED BULLETIN

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“It comes down to a
tolerance of frustration.
You’ll fail a lot before
you succeed”
20 THE RED BULLETIN

LUKAS IRMLER
Picking up
the slack
Before you set foot on a slackline,
read and digest these tips from
Germany’s world-record breaker
Irmler walked his first
slackline in 2006 and
has gone on to break
two Guinness World
Records and set various
highline standards
VALENTIN RAPP LOU BOYD
Slacklining is very simple
and, at the same time,
immensely hard. The
sport may merely involve
walking from one end of a
length of flat webbing to
the other, but only a small
percentage of people
have mastered it. One
of these is Lukas Irmler.
“In the beginning,
slacklining didn’t feel
at all possible to me,”
says the 31-year-old
German. “But I kept
practising and practising
and I started to make
progress. After crossing
my first little slackline
and looking back at it,
I was amazed at how
I’d been able to make
something that seemed
impossible possible.”
Irmler has now walked
some of the world’s
most impressive and
intimidating slacklines
and highlines, most
notably this August
when he set the record
for the longest highline
walk ever: 2,000m at
Ville d’Asbestos in
Quebec, Canada.
“It was a long-standing
dream of mine to have
that pure record,” Irmler
explains. “If you keep
pushing yourself to the
outer limits of the sport,
you push the sport with
you. That was a really
special moment for me.”
Here, Irmler shares
five of his top slacklining
tips. “I think [success
in the sport] comes
down to a tolerance of
frustration,” he says.
“You will fail a lot before
you succeed. You just
have to be passionate
and persistent enough
to keep on going and
continue to believe.”
lukas-irmler.com
1. Take it easy
“Start on a short, low
slackline and practise
until you can get across
without falling.”
2. Ditch the shoes
“Going barefoot will
mean you get a much
better feeling for the
line itself.”
3. Face forward
“Place your feet
forward in the direction
of the line, not facing
outwards. This way,
you’ll be facing the line
and the anchor.”
4. Check your poise
“Maintain a little bit of
a bend in your knees
and ensure that you
keep your arms up high
throughout. People
often forget to use
them for balance.”
5. Keep your focus
“Remain focused on
one point at the very
end of the slackline.
Many people make
the mistake of looking
down at their feet.”
THE RED BULLETIN 21

Above: exhibits range from an 8mm film projector to a manual typewriter. Below left: Chun (left) and Derksen
CONSERVE THE SOUND
Blasts from
the past
These once-commonplace sounds have
largely disappeared from our lives. But,
thanks to an online archive, all is not lost
A corded telephone, the handle
to wind down a car window, the
first Nintendo Entertainment
System games console – their
working noises were known to
you, but your children and/or
younger friends have probably
never heard them. It’s almost
as if they’ve been lost in time.
But, for Daniel Chun and Jan
Derksen, the German founders
of audiovisual communication
agency Chunderksen, the silence
has grown too loud, so they have
set up a “museum of sounds
threatened with extinction”.
Conserve the Sound is an
online audio treasury for our
ears, which showcases objects in
danger of disappearing from our
aural memories. “These days,
the visual dominates and sound
seems to play a secondary role,”
explains Derksen. “We wanted to
change that. Normally people
collect paintings, illustrations,
classic designs or sculptures and
curate them in an exhibition or
museum. But collecting sounds
is rare. We were fascinated by
the idea of creating a multimedia
space or a museum of sounds
threatened with extinction.”
Ninety-nine per cent of the
objects and sounds in this
growing interactive collection of
audio memories (free of charge
to everyone) were sourced and
recorded by the duo themselves;
the rest have been contributed.
“You can send us sounds
you’ve recorded yourself,” says
Derksen. “Just attach them to an
email, or go to the site’s upload
section. There, you’ll find the
information you need on how to
get the right picture of the object
and best record its sound.”
Conserve the sounds dearest
to you and they’ll be available to
our collective memory for all
eternity. Or, at least, for as long
as the website exists…
conservethesound.de
CHUNDERKSEN/CONSERVETHESOUND.DE HANS HAMMER
22 THE RED BULLETIN

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Linda Hamilton
Age against
the machine
At 63 years old, the Terminator star is
back, fighting killer robots from the future
and tired attitudes from the past
Words TOM GUISE Photography JOHN RUSSO
To prepare for the role of Sarah
Connor in 1991 sci-fi thriller
Terminator 2: Judgment Day,
Linda Hamilton enlisted an Israeli
ex-commando to train her in martial
arts and weapons handling. “I learnt
to load clips, change mags, verify kills
– it was vicious stuff,” she said of the
experience. Working out six days
a week, she would run 12km and
bench-press 40kg. Co-star Arnold
Schwarzenegger described her
transformation as “extraordinary” –
more so because her regime began
just two weeks after she gave birth.
In the film, Connor defeats a
killing machine from the future. In
real life, Hamilton was battling an
enduring anachronism: the poor
portrayal of women in action movies.
She’s now returning to the role in
Terminator: Dark Fate to vanquish
another stubborn Hollywood monster:
a lack of action roles for older women.
“It’s nice that I’m seen as someone
who opened possibilities for women
in action films, but until this film
I never thought of myself as badass,”
the 63-year-old tells The Red Bulletin.
“I didn’t want to play me as I was,
I want to play me now. It was a
journey of discovering who I am today
and putting that on screen.” And
naturally, she’s doing it all while
pumping a shotgun with one arm.
the red bulletin: What does the
role of Sarah Connor mean to you,
and why return to her now?
linda hamilton: I can’t pretend it’s
not important to me – Sarah Connor
has been the identifying work in my
career – but back then it was just
another job. It’s only years later that it
became this iconic performance. I was
26 when I shot the first one. A lifetime
later I felt it’d be interesting to see
what time has done, who she is now
– more bitter, no longer significant to
the future in the way she knew she
was before. There were many things
for me to draw from, because I have
life experience mapped on my face.
The new film ignores the
instalments that followed T2.
Word has it you did, too…
They approached me for the third
one. I read it, but there was nothing
new to say. I wanted to like the films,
but they failed to create characters
people could connect with. It was
because Jim [Cameron, writer/
director of the first two films and
producer of this one] was back at
the helm that I even considered it.
There’s a story that you refused
some lines of dialogue in this film…
That was misleading, because it wasn’t
me versus Tim [Miller, the director],
it was just juvenile dialogue. They
created this artificial rivalry between
these two women [Hamilton’s Connor
and Mackenzie Davis’ Grace] and it
sounded like they were in middle
school. I was like, “It diminishes these
characters. I’m not gonna say it.”
I have an investment in not trivialising
Sarah Connor – I’ve had a relationship
with her for 35 years. I care that the
movie is good, and that’s what I spent
every day trying to do.
You proved that in T2. Do women
approach you about your physical
transformation in that film?
Definitely. They’re like, “My mother
wanted your arms. She lost 60lb to
look like you.” So much attention was
paid to how I looked, but that was just
a small part of what I did as an actor.
It might have even got in my way. I’d
meet with directors who’d say, “You’ve
never played a part like this before –
one that’s normal.” I didn’t want to
play the strong woman after that.
But you hit the gym pretty hard
again for this film…
It was more time-consuming than
on T2. You think you’ll work as hard
and get the same result, but that
doesn’t happen at my age – you need
hormones to put muscle on [Hamilton
took hormone supplements to prepare
for this role, suffering mood swings
and blood-pressure spikes]. I worked
out with an amazing trainer, Mackie
Shilstone, to strip the fat from my
muscles. I gave up carbs, just ate meat
and vegetables, did Pilates, weights
– we focused on the body in motion.
The look is different, but still a
warrior at this age.
Did you consider calling Arnie?
At 72, he’s also working out at
a different stage of life…
And at the top of his game. We haven’t
remained in touch much since he
became Governor. You don’t just go,
“Get the Governor on the line.” So,
no, we didn’t consult Arnold. I didn’t
see him until he showed up on set.
Do you think audiences will accept
you as an older action star?
What’s compelling is the authenticity
of the character. I might not look the
same, but I have so much more to say.
We’re obsessed with youth and beauty
but I want to embrace everything I’ve
got going on: wisdom and strength
that doesn’t mean body strength.
A real woman doing amazing things.
What’s next for Sarah Connor and
Linda Hamilton?
I never think about what else I can do.
Even in Judgment Day, creating this
character was an accidental miracle.
Jim wanted me to butch my hair up
while escaping the mental hospital.
I didn’t think we needed that, so
I just threw it in a ponytail. People
embraced that because I didn’t turn
into a guy to play the role; they
embraced Sarah Connor’s feminine
ideal of strength. We don’t have to
look like men to be strong.
Terminator: Dark Fate is in cinemas
from October 25; Twitter: @Terminator
24 THE RED BULLETIN

“I didn’t want
to play me
as I was.
I want to
play me now”
THE RED BULLETIN 25

“I was like,
‘What?
How did he
even hear
one of my
songs?’”
26 THE RED BULLETIN

Michael Kiwanuka
“I’m glad I said
no to Kanye”
How walking out on one of music’s top producers
helped the soulful singer-songwriter keep his feet
on the ground and his career on the right track…
Words BJÖRN SPRINGORUM
It’s safe to say that you’re destined
for greatness when Adele asks you
to support her on tour before you’ve
even released an album. And when
folky London-Ugandan singersongwriter
Michael Kiwanuka’s
debut, Home Again, came out the
year after he joined the awardwinning
singer on her 2011 Adele
Live tour, it reached number four in
the UK album chart and went gold.
His second album, 2016’s Love &
Hate – produced by Danger Mouse –
outperformed its successor, topping
the UK album chart and affirming
Kiwanuka’s reputation as one of the
world’s most sought-after young
soul voices. Another superstar who
discovered Kiwanuka’s talent early
on was Kanye West, who invited him
into the studio to record together.
As he prepares for the release of
his eponymous third album, the
32-year-old reminisces about that
Kanye moment, and reveals why
he still believes that cancelling the
session was the right decision for
his fledgling career…
the red bulletin: Kanye West
is famous for collaborating with
the world’s hottest and most
talented musicians. How did it
feel when he invited you to go into
the studio with him?
michael kiwanuka: The whole
thing was utterly crazy, man.
Photography OLIVIA ROSE
Kanye West, the mightiest figure
in music, invites me to Hawaii…
and I didn’t really understand why.
I didn’t even have my first album out,
and I was only just learning the tricks
of the trade. I was like, “What? How
did he even hear one of my songs?”
I was scared. I couldn’t believe that
he really wanted to work with me.
All I could do was try to second-guess
how he wanted me to be.
His invitation didn’t feel like
a confidence boost?
No, not for me. I arrived at his
studio laden with self-doubt and
disbelief. And perhaps the craziest
thing of all was that he was being
super nice the whole time. He let
me sit in his main room while he
was making music. He was so
quiet and concentrated, and he
worked constantly, almost 24 hours
[a day] – I hardly ever saw him
sleep. He had this confidence
radiating off him, and he always
told me that I could do anything
I wanted to do if I just was being
myself. He actually said that.
So, what happened?
I didn’t believe a single word. I was
positively convinced that I had to
become another person, because
I couldn’t see that he wanted me
the way I was. I went home, even
left my guitar there.
To know that someone that talented
can hear something special in my
music is utterly surreal.
Do you think that in life you
sometimes have to sacrifice
a big opportunity for an even
larger goal?
Well, you never know what would
have happened. But yes, I guess
it can be good to miss out on
something. In the end, everything
got me to the point where I am now,
and I couldn’t be happier. So, in
that sense, yeah, I’m glad I walked
out on Kanye West.
At the time, did it feel like you’d
failed in some way?
Yes, but that’s fine. People who have
always been good at things, and
who have got through life without
any difficulties at all, really struggle
when they fail for the first time,
because they’re just not used to the
feeling. Even Kanye West has failed
a lot of times. Failing early on is
the best way to learn. It’s not exactly
fun, but it’s essential.
Your debut album, Home Again,
was a breakthrough hit, and the
follow-up, Love & Hate, topped
the album chart. With your third,
Kiwanuka, ready for release,
how do you define success?
Ultimately, it’s about personal
satisfaction; a contentment with
what I am doing. I’m able to do what
I love for a living: getting up in the
morning and making music.
And winning a major award –
a Grammy, for instance – isn’t
part of the equation?
Awards are like landmarks: they
keep you on this journey. A Grammy
will never really solve any real issues,
but it can make you keep going.
Kiwanuka is released on October 25;
michaelkiwanuka.com
Why was it so difficult to believe
what he told you?
I think the invitation came too
early in my career. I learnt a lot
from it, though, and I’m glad it
happened that way. Who knows
if it would have got to my head?
Still, it was a great experience.
THE RED BULLETIN 27

Beauden Barrett
Tackling
the myth
The New Zealand rugby star can fend off
tough challenges on the pitch, but how
about misconceptions about his team?
Words TOM GUISE Photography GRAEME MURRAY
The All Blacks have won more Rugby
World Cups than any other national
team and, as reigning champs, were
favourites again as the competition
kicked off in Japan on September 20.
They are a team with a near mythical
reputation for victory. Which makes
player Beauden Barrett a virtual
unicorn. The 28-year-old fly-half and
fullback was core to the Kiwis’ 2015
victory, was voted World Rugby
Player of the Year in 2016 and 2017,
and is fourth on the All Blacks pointscoring
chart in test matches. Now
he’s here to unravel that legend and
dispel a few of the myths surrounding
his own formidable team.
myth 1: To be in the All Blacks, you
need to be the size of the Hulk.
beauden barrett: I weigh 92kg –
size doesn’t matter. Being big doesn’t
mean you’re the boss. Every position
requires a different physique or skill
set: some guys have to be strong to
push in the scrum; others need to
be explosive and jump high to catch
balls in line-outs, or do a lot of
kicking and running. I have to be fast
and powerful. Everyone knows their
role within the team, but there’s no
hierarchy due to size. You learn to
respect the elders and those more
experienced than yourself.
myth 2: All Blacks can only play
for a local club team and not
overseas rivals.
That’s almost entirely true. You
certainly won’t see players in the
UK or Europe also playing for the
All Blacks. There have been a few
exceptions where it’s like a little
sabbatical, playing in Japan for a
short time. But I can’t recall a New
Zealand rugby player returning
from Europe to be an All Black – it
doesn’t happen. Once you’re gone,
you’re gone for good.
myth 3: The All Blacks are just
about unbeatable.
No team is guaranteed a quarterfinal,
because there are so many
variables. There are a number of
teams who can potentially win [the
World Cup]. This shows the growth
of a lot of countries. It’s interesting
watching the Six Nations and seeing
Wales finish the way they did [they
won]. I know the Japanese are
developing very quickly. They’re very
well coached and will be dark horses.
Our focus is on one game at a time,
and then the pool games.
myth 4: Success has made the
All Blacks arrogant.
You don’t just get selected on pure
form or talent; it’s important to have
good values, too. If you’re a good
person, you’ll be a good All Black,
because when it comes to team
culture there is no place in this team
for dickheads.
time. Every opposition will respond
differently: some will smile, some
look scared. I’ve faced the haka
and it is intimidating – it sends a
shiver down your spine. Because
we understand the meaning of it,
it’s quite emotional.
myth 6: No other nation is allowed
to do the haka.
Oh, look, it’s up to the opposition
what they decide to do. We see it as
a sign that they’re up for a challenge.
But when we see them do it and they
don’t understand the meaning, we
find that it can be disrespectful.
myth 7: You practise the haka
every time you train.
At a low intensity we do it once a
week, the new guys maybe a little bit
more. You can’t lose connection with
it or forget its meaning. It’s important
not to take it for granted, because
we’re in front of millions of people
and we’re going out to win, so we
have to do it well.
myth 8: The All Blacks possess
a powerful secret, one that helps
you be the best.
It’s not one thing, it’s a whole lot of
things: hard work, high expectations
and the discipline to live those every
day and enjoy it. If you’re really
enjoying something, you can
challenge yourself. If you’re not
enjoying it, you’re not going to push
yourself to the limits when you’re
training, when you’re playing. You
don’t want to make it fake.
myth 9: The black jersey has
special powers. You once said that
when you first put it on, you felt
like Superman.
I mean, there’s no time like the first.
That was certainly the most powerful
but, yes, every time I put it on I take
a moment to gather my thoughts,
reflect and realise what I’m about to
do, because it’s a special time.
myth 5: The haka is a technique to
gain a read on the opposition.
It’s about us and what we bring.
It’s about how well connected we are
and how powerful we feel at the
28 THE RED BULLETIN

”You don’t
get picked on
pure talent.
You need
good values”
THE RED BULLETIN 29

COLD
COMFORT
Beneath a frozen fjord in eastern Greenland
exists an underwater realm with a sky made
of icebergs. For some it spells terror, but
German freediver ANNA VON BOETTICHER
sees it as therapy
Words
SABRINA LUTTENBERGER
Photography
TOBIAS FRIEDRICH

Von Boetticher gently
touches an iceberg at
a depth of 12m. Down
here, it’s -2°C. Above
the surface, it’s -27°C.
31

Anna von Boetticher can
hold her breath for six
minutes and 12 seconds
– longer than anyone else
in her native Germany.
But when the 49-year-old
isn’t underwater, she can
barely catch her breath
as the words gush out in unbridled
enthusiasm for freediving, a passion she
only discovered 12 years ago. Since then,
she has set an impressive 33 diving
records in her homeland, as well as one
world record, and earned three world
championship bronze medals. But for
Von Boetticher the appeal doesn’t come
from titles or trophies as much as it
does from diving in unusual locations.
That’s what she was doing in Greenland
this year, plunging into a frozen fjord
with diving partner and photographer
Tobias Friedrich.
the red bulletin: You could dive
anywhere and yet you chose an icecold
location. Why?
anna von boetticher: I’d just been
through a turbulent time and needed
peace of mind, and the best place
for me to find that is in the extremes
of nature. It was in the minimal world
of Greenland that I was forced to
expose myself mentally and physically;
everything else stood still.
Your base camp was in Tasiilaq –
a place engulfed in ice for half the
year. What challenges did you face?
The main one was keeping warm when
the outside temperature is -27°C. It’s
better to freedive on an empty stomach,
but I knew that wouldn’t work if I was
standing in the cold for seven hours and
didn’t want to freeze. I had to eat an
extraordinary amount of high-energy food:
peanut butter, porridge, sugar. I wore
layer upon layer of clothing and made
precise estimates of how long I could stay
in the water. It was at the very limit of
the demands you can make on yourself.
condition are you in? What are the
external factors and how do you react
to them? Only then can you make an
objective decision not born from
feelings or ego. Having that sort of
control is one of the secrets to safe and
successful freediving.
How do you push yourself further
from there?
It takes great self-awareness of what’s
happening inside your body. Freediving
requires you to resist the natural urge
to breathe – do I really have to breathe
now or is it a false alarm? You realise
you can override an instinct and do a lot
more than you’d have thought. So the
next time you’ll face a new situation
with greater self-belief.
Do you ever panic when you’re
deep underwater?
I get scared, but I’ve never panicked.
I always react calmly to any problem
and set the fear aside for later. Anyone
can learn this: you just need to expose
yourself to new things. This way, you
learn to deal with the feeling of unease
we all experience, then proceed in spite
of it. Anyone who deliberately exposes
themselves to stressful situations will
eventually acquire greater peace.
Is there any part of your sport that
still surprises you?
Experiencing the underwater world is
intense, beautiful and different every
time. It’s hard to compare it to anything
else. As humans we don’t belong in it,
and yet we can adapt to a sufficient
enough extent to be able to spend time
there. That never ceases to fascinate me.
Instagram: @freediveanna
How do you know when you’ve hit
those limits?
You’ve got to be honest with yourself.
Of course I want to go a metre deeper,
and I do get annoyed when I don’t do
better than last time, but what physical
32

Freediving
“In Greenland, I was
forced to expose
myself mentally and
physically”

WORLD OF THE
ICE GIANTS
On the way down, it isn’t
long before icebergs
and floes block the view
above. This isn’t only
psychologically unpleasant,
it also impedes use of the
usual safety rope
34

Freediving

36 THE RED BULLETIN
GETTY IMAGES

Freediving
Greenland
Nuuk
Tasiilaq
FJORD DIVING
Pictured left: the ice near Tasiilaq, with
a main triangular hole in the centre and
three smaller holes – emergency exits
for the divers – fanned out above it. When
Von Boetticher lost her bearings at one
point, one of these exits saved her life.
A good tip for Greenland: get undressed
at the last possible moment
Von Boetticher defrosts her
frozen feet with hot water
She has to move fast – the ice hole
constantly freezes over
THE RED BULLETIN 37

Freediving
TEST OF NERVES
Von Boetticher lights her way through the
underwater canyon. The gorge in the fjord
near Tasiilaq is about 20m long and far
from the ice hole. It’s a risky move requiring
all her experience and mental strength
39

Herculean
Tasks
With his unorthodox techniques,
Mike McCastle has trained
people to unlock their full
potential, including the first
person to cross Antarctica
solo and unaided… and himself.
His own record-breaking feats,
inspired by the 12 Labours of
Hercules, are mind-boggling
journeys to the outer limits of
mental and physical strength
Words MAUREEN O’HAGAN
Photography CAMERON BAIRD
40

Breathtaking feats: using
his unique training,
McCastle, 32, has set
multiple world records,
including flipping
a 113kg tyre a total
distance of 21km

Gentle giant:
McCastle brings
a philosophical
approach to his
strongman tasks

Mike McCastle
If there’s one thing
that winds up Mike McCastle,
it’s when people say stuff
like, “You’re insane, dude,”
or, “That shit’s crazy!”
don’t see it that
way,” the 32-year-old
strongman says calmly.
He’s responding to the
question of whether
it was crazy to try to
“Ijust
break the record for the
most pull-ups in 24 hours, even though
it put him in hospital. Or whether it was
crazy that he set out to pull a two-tonne
truck for 35km through Death Valley, or
to repeatedly climb a 7m rope until he’d
ascended the height of Mount Everest.
He definitely didn’t think it was crazy
when a skinny-ass stranger named Colin
O’Brady asked for training to trek solo
across Antarctica, dragging a sled stocked
with more than twice his weight in food
and gear. Never mind that this task took
the life of British explorer Henry Worsley
in 2016 and was long thought impossible.
From the get-go, McCastle knew each
of these endeavours would bring extreme
suffering. They’re part of a mission the
1.9m tall, 102kg Las Vegas resident calls
the Twelve Labors Project – a homage to
the 12 Labours of Hercules, the ultimate
hero of Greco-Roman mythology. The
question is: why in the world would
anyone put themselves through all this?
“I’d heard stories about people doing
great things when another person’s life is
on the line,” McCastle says. “I wanted to
test how much I’d be willing to suffer
doing things for others.”
Sacrifice is ingrained in US military
service, and McCastle went into the
Navy after high school, spending the
next 11 years as an air traffic controller.
He also served as a mental and physical
conditioning trainer in a programme
created by the Navy SEALs after 9/11 to
help address a vexing problem: as many
as 80 per cent of trainees drop out before
earning their SEAL Trident. The physical
training is notoriously tough, but these
recruits are the fittest of the fit and they
really want to become SEALs, so why
were so many dropping out?
The reason is biological. In moments
of fear and stress, the area of the brain
called the amygdala takes over. Part of the
function of the amygdala – dubbed the
‘lizard brain’ due to its primitive nature – is
to identify threatening situations and get
you out. Physiologically, your body reacts
similarly whether you’re facing down a
tiger or engaging in high-intensity training:
your heart rate spikes, you get tunnel
vision and hearing loss; your conscious
brain, laser-focused on becoming a Navy
SEAL, shuts down. The lizard brain
doesn’t care about goals, it’s a survival
response. “It happens in a fraction of
a second and gives you no room for
conscious thought,” McCastle says.
43

Moments later, the quitter’s heart rate
slows down and it hits them: they’ve just
tossed away their dreams. The realisation
is devastating enough for the Navy to be
concerned about the individual’s wellbeing.
McCastle’s programme introduces
to potential candidates the mental and
physical tools used by SEALs in high-stress
moments. One of these is to focus not on
pain, but on the reason they wanted to
become a SEAL in the first place: to serve.
Back in 2012, McCastle himself
was accepted into SEAL training.
His chances of success seemed
high. Each year, when the Navy
set physical assessments, he always came
top. He’d already learnt the lessons of the
lizard. He also had years of experience in
air traffic control, where you learn to
manage stress; if you let day-to-day
worries distract you in that control tower,
people could die. McCastle was a master
at compartmentalising, at being laserfocused
on the task at hand. He calls it a
‘flow state’: “Your peripheral vision opens,
Time trials: McCastle’s training
challenges include tests of strength,
endurance and mental focus
your mind becomes clear and your words
become more succinct, because your brain
cuts the fat. And you’re very calm.”
Less than two weeks into the training,
McCastle was part of a formation running
in the sand alongside Lake Michigan.
Ahead there was a divot. “Twenty guys
in front of me jumped into this divot and
kept going,” he recalls. “I jumped down
and both of my knees blew out.” He
continued the exercise. His goal, after all,
was to become a SEAL. That afternoon,
his knees were like cantaloupes. He went
to a pool training session and, for the first
time in his life, his mind could not control
his body. Pain shot through his swollen
Around 1,200
pull-ups into his
challenge, the skin
started ripping
off his hands
legs. “I almost drowned,” he says. “They
had to pull me out.” He had torn his right
meniscus and left ACL, and seemingly, in
one bad leap, destroyed his SEAL career.
McCastle went into a deep depression.
At the time, he saw himself as a highperformance
athlete. “The problem with
attaching yourself to one identity,” he
says, “is the second it gets taken away,
what do you have left? You’re nothing.”
He returned to air traffic control duties
and was able to re-enter that flow state,
but inside he was raw. McCastle gained
20kg and started drinking to selfmedicate.
Without his strength, he was
worthless. He had been the guy in charge
of fitness assessments on the base, and
now what? He realised he needed a goal.
In December 2013, McCastle set out
on a 50K run in aid of children’s cancer
research. He made it harder by wearing an
18kg vest to symbolise the weight of a child
fighting cancer. The run was physically
gruelling, but mentally, McCastle says, “It
felt great. It wasn’t really about me and it
opened the door. I was able to push myself
beyond what I thought I was capable of.”
Later, he learnt a veteran had posted
a record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours,
so he set his sights on breaking it. At the
time, McCastle couldn’t even perform 10
successive pull-ups, but if he had a goal
and a big enough reason, he thought it
was possible. He devoted his effort to an
organisation for wounded veterans.
On a July morning in 2014, he went
to a public park and got to work. Small
crowds came and went; day turned to
night. Around 1,200 pull-ups in, the skin
started ripping off his hands. A buddy
flushed the wounds, packed them with
chalk, and he kept going. His bicep
tendons began to rupture. He kept going.
His urine started to look like “uh, you
know, Irish whiskey”. He kept going.
Seventeen hours in, at rep 3,202, he was
simply unable to grip the bar. He’d missed
the record by around 800 pull-ups.
McCastle was hospitalised with the
life-threatening condition rhabdomyolysis,
caused by muscles that are so taxed they
begin to release toxins. His spectacular
failure made national headlines. McCastle
told himself he was a quitter, a fake. He
was ashamed. How could he tell Navy
sailors they had to do callisthenics when
he’d put his own damn self in the hospital?
“My world was crushed,” he says.
On McCastle’s second day in hospital, a
teenage boy knocked on his door. The boy
was facing life-or-death surgery and used
44 THE RED BULLETIN

Squat goals: each of McCastle’s
tasks is dedicated to raising awareness
of a specific cause, including Parkinson’s
disease and wounded veterans

“Find meaning
in everything you
do,” his father
would say
a wheelchair, but he came in with a huge
smile, wanting to shake the older man’s
hand. “He didn’t care that I didn’t break the
record,” McCastle recalls. “He just wanted
to tell me how inspired he was by the effort
I gave for a cause. Even at my lowest low,
I could still positively impact someone.”
The boy, who held no records, had
inspired him. McCastle re-examined the
pull-up task, why he’d done it and why
he kept going. “I was doing it to raise
awareness for wounded vets,” he says, “but
if you peel away the layers, I was trying to
regain an identity I’d lost. That’s a very
selfish reason to do anything, because it
was dangerous.” It was the wrong ‘why’.
In classical mythology, Hercules is
a demigod who kills his wife and
children after Hera, queen of the gods,
drives him mad. As penance, Hercules
serves King Eurystheus for 12 years,
performing a series of difficult feats –
the 12 Labours. McCastle saw the story
as a journey of self-discovery, pushing
through struggle to get closer to your
core identity. It wasn’t strength that kept
Hercules going, it was resolve.
A handshake from a kid in the hospital
had given McCastle an idea: he would do
his own 12 Labours, each dedicated to a
cause. The point wasn’t to break records,
but to focus on something outside himself
and raise awareness about an issue.
Maybe McCastle could inspire someone
to run a 5K, to keep going in the face of
illness, to overcome self-doubt. “In my
interpretation, Hercules is the story of
every human being on the planet,” he says.
The run and the pull-up challenge
became Labours one and two. For the third,
he decided to flip a 113kg tyre for 21km
to raise money for the Wounded Warrior
Project. The tyre symbolised the physical
and mental burden these men and
women carry. He trained for six months.
The day before the event, he was faced
with another test: his sister called to say
their father had passed away. Raymond
McCastle had suffered from Parkinson’s
disease for years, so his death wasn’t
entirely unexpected, but it was still a blow
to the family. It would have been entirely
reasonable to postpone the event – that’s
how the lizard is sometimes: reasonable –
but McCastle thought about what his dad
would say: “These are your plans, your
aspirations, son.” So, at 4am on a cold, wet
December morning in 2014, McCastle faced
the tyre. Dig under the rubber, deadlift the
tyre, push it over. Dig. Lift. Push.
All-time high: for the
Twelve Labors Project,
he climbed a rope for
27 hours, equivalent
to the height of Everest
If you were standing there watching in
the cold, you might marvel at how a man
could lift 113kg more than 1,000 times
and still keep going. But you would think,
“Well, he is a beast, after all.” What you
wouldn’t see is what’s going on in his head
– the same thing going on in your head
when undertaking a big challenge: fear,
doubt, self-flagellation. Painful memories
started flooding in. Of growing up in a
very challenging household. About being
mercilessly bullied. Dig. Lift. Push.
McCastle thought about his dad: stoic,
robust, a Louisiana-born African-American,
an Air Force veteran who managed a sodacan
factory. He saw how Parkinson’s had
robbed him of his strength, his voice, even
his ravenous mind. Dig. Lift. Push. He
pictured his mum, a Filipino immigrant
who was so driven that she joined the Air
Force in her forties, with two kids.
After his parents separated, a teenage
McCastle helped care for his dad, making
sure he was shaved, fed, bathed. He
remembered finding him on the floor, his
blood sugar dangerously low because he
couldn’t put food to mouth. In a panic,
McCastle quit the basketball team to
prevent a reoccurrence, and afterwards
he felt nothing but shame. He thought
about how he later left his dad to join the
Navy. Quitter, he told himself. Loser.
Dig. Lift. Push. As the physical pain and
mental anguish washed over him, the layers
began to peel back. Raymond McCastle
was a man of few words, interested more
in ideas than in possessions. McCastle
recalls his dad reading to him as a child:
The Dialogues of Plato, Viktor Frankl’s
Man’s Search for Meaning, Nietzsche.
“Find meaning in everything you do,”
his father would say. It’s how, and why,
we are able to push through challenges:
because we’re serving something larger.
As he continued, the tyre got lighter.
The Parkinson’s? Struggles growing up?
There wasn’t a damn thing he could do
about them today. “I was letting go of
things I didn’t need to hold onto,” he says.
Ten hours in, he’d set what is considered
to be his first world record (there was no
certifying body present). He ate a huge
steak, dragged himself home and slept.
From here, McCastle was possessed by
his Twelve Labors Project. In May 2015,
for 27 hours, he climbed enough rope to
reach the height of Everest, to raise money
for Parkinson’s research. In September
2015, he reattempted the pull-up record,
again dedicating it to wounded veterans.
Wearing a 14kg pack, he did 5,804 pull-ups
46 THE RED BULLETIN

Mike McCastle
without major injury. The following May,
he rented a truck, loaded it with 19 gallons
of drinking water and set out for Death
Valley to raise awareness of veteran
suicide. At the time, an estimated 22
veterans were taking their own life each
day; some were his friends. His plan was
to strap a harness to his chest, rig a tether
and pull the vehicle for 22 miles (39km).
“I took it as an opportunity to look
inward,” McCastle says. Hours went by
and the thermometer went up. Every cell
in his body was screaming for him to quit.
Every so often, he would look up and see
a stranger’s taillights in the distance. After
19 hours, he reached his goal.
By 2018, McCastle was physically
drained and ready for a new kind
of challenge. While going to school
to study psychology and working as a
trainer in Portland, Oregon, he received
an email asking for a consultation. Some
guy named Colin O’Brady. You may
recognise the name thanks to his recordsetting
54-day crossing of Antarctica –
Natural talent:
McCastle trains in the
forest for his ascent
of Mount Whitney
“In my view,
Hercules is the
story of every
human being
on the planet”
“The Impossible First” – but back when he
met McCastle, he wasn’t so well-known.
O’Brady knew McCastle was the coach
he needed “within two minutes of looking
into each other’s eyes”, he recalls. The
programme McCastle devised had three
components: strength, endurance and
mental focus. The last turned out to be “the
difference between success and failure”,
says O’Brady. For example, McCastle would
make him hold a plank with his hands
submerged in ice and then do a wall squat
with his feet in buckets of ice. Meanwhile
he’d have to put together a Lego set, or tie
dozens of knots, or solve maths problems.
Then, with frozen feet, came a balance
test, an agility test, and so on. McCastle
would note all of O’Brady’s errors.
“The main focus was just to control his
breathing,” McCastle explains. Controlling
your breath means controlling your mind,
and in moments of high stress it can be the
difference between life and death. Like
when you’re pitching a tent in 130km winds
and -20°C, when your brain is rattled and
your fine motor function is slowed by
frozen hands. If O’Brady practised these
tasks, getting into that flow state, he could
prolong the time it took for the lizard brain
to kick in. “When I got to Antarctica,” says
O’Brady, “I realised this guy was a genius.”
A few times a week, McCastle heads to
Portland’s Forest Park, one of the largest
urban forests in the US. In the cool, misty
air, beneath a canopy of moss-covered
trees that soar more than 60m, he feels
at home. As the trail starts to climb, he
pauses again and again to cinch up the
pack tugging on his shoulders with 40kg
of sand. He’s training for his next labour:
climbing Mount Whitney, the highest
summit on the US mainland, with a 70kg
barbell. Why? Parkinson’s. The barbell
symbolises the weight that sufferers carry
as they struggle through the disease.
McCastle knows the disease well. He
knows that, as time passes, everything
about these people’s lives becomes smaller.
Tremors make hands unsteady, brain
function slows; eventually, patients become
disoriented, confused. He spends every
Tuesday morning teaching a specialised
fitness class that includes stability,
strength and mental challenges. Stand on
one leg with a weight in your hand. Count
out loud as you slam a medicine ball. Row
500m while solving simple maths problems.
Hold a PVC pipe like a sword a metre from
a small plate hanging from a bar. Now aim
that pipe through the hole in the plate.
McCastle has thought a lot about what
it means to pursue your fullest potential.
He’s considered the lessons he learnt, not
only from his labours, but from his dad,
his mum, O’Brady, and now from these
sixtysomethings focusing everything they
have on a PVC pipe and a target. Research
has shown that high-intensity exercise
combined with cognitive tasks helps slow
Parkinson’s symptoms. These things will
also help a man walk across Antarctica.
And so, every Tuesday, as he puts his
Parkinson’s students through their drills,
McCastle is filled with gratitude. “I tell
them, ‘You really are changing the world.’”
twelvelaborsproject.com
THE RED BULLETIN 47

Get up,
Stand
up
DYGL have been dubbed
Tokyo’s hottest new
band, and they count
members of The Strokes
among their fan base.
But it’s more than their
massive melodies and
effervescent guitar riffs
that make them stand
out. The quartet are the
voice of a new generation
in Japan who are tired of
their country’s corrupt
entertainment moguls
and culture of obedience
Words FLORIAN OBKIRCHER
Photography ERIN UEMURA
48 THE RED BULLETIN

Let yourself go: DYGL
guitarist Yosuke
Shimonaka leads by
example during his
band’s gig in Yonago
THE RED BULLETIN 49

DYGL
Top: DYGL fans queue
up to get their CDs
signed after the band
perform in Okayama
What’s different about
the crowds in Japan?”
Nobuki Akiyama thinks
for a moment. The
musician is crouching,
sandwiched between
speakers and instrument
flight cases. “In cities like London, our
fans dance and sing along, but people in
Tokyo are shy and polite; they don’t want
to bother anyone. At our shows, they are
so quiet I can’t even tell if they liked the
gig. I check the reactions on Twitter
afterwards to make sure they enjoyed it,”
he says with a smile. “You’ll see for
yourself.” He points to the wall of the
small green room. The space behind it
is packed with fans waiting for Akiyama
and his bandmates to go on stage.
Akiyama, 27, is the frontman of DYGL
– pronounced Dayglow – lauded to be one
of Japan’s best young bands. Their 2017
debut album, Say Goodbye to Memory
Den, was produced by one of the quartet’s
early supporters, The Strokes’ guitarist
Albert Hammond Jr, and praised by music
magazine NME as a “riotous trip through
indie, rock ’n’ roll and punk”. In July,
DYGL released the follow-up, Songs of
Innocence & Experience, recorded in the
band’s adopted hometown of London and
mastered at every music fan’s pilgrimage
site, Abbey Road Studios.
Back in Tokyo this summer, the band
toured 300-capacity venues to hone the
new songs live in front of small audiences
before taking to one of the main stages
at Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival. The Red
Bulletin met up with them at Okayama’s
Pepperland venue, which opened in
1974 and has played host to a who’s who
of underground music over the decades.
The DYGL gig sold out instantly, fans
packed in like sardines.
Defying Akiyama’s predictions, when
the band start the show it doesn’t take
long for the crowd to come out of their
shell. During the fourth song of the set
(and the new album’s first single), Spit
it Out, fists start pumping the air, and
fans dance and mosh enthusiastically.
Akiyama is visibly delighted. With their
catchy guitar riffs and singalong choruses,
DYGL’s songs defy you to stand still, and
this – encouraging fans to overcome their
inhibitions – is part of a bigger plan that
began almost a decade ago.
Back then, Akiyama was obsessed with
UK guitar music, from early Beatles to
groups such as The Libertines. He wanted
to play this type of music himself, but
there weren’t many indie-rock role
models for a teenager from Tokyo. “There
were so many bands I was into, but almost
all of them were white,” he says, “apart
from Bloc Party and a few other indie
acts that had people of colour.”
It was the success of French rock band
Phoenix that finally encouraged him to
start DYGL with his college friends Kohei
Kamoto (drums), Yotaro Kachi (bass)
and Yosuke Shimonaka (guitar) in 2012.
“Phoenix got really big in the US; people
didn’t seem to mind their accents,” says
Akiyama. Like Phoenix, DYGL decided to
sing in English, something that made them
50 THE RED BULLETIN

The band – (left to right)
Nobuki Akiyama, Yosuke
Shimonaka, Yotaro Kachi
and Kohei Kamoto – met
at university in 2011
“People in Japan
label us as ‘the band
that sings in English’”

DYGL – pictured on
stage at Pepperland in
Okayama – released
their second album in
July to much acclaim
Pepperland boss Iseo
Nose, 72, has advice
for DYGL: “You’re on
the right path, remain
true to yourselves”
52 THE RED BULLETIN

DYGL
“Those in power
don’t care about
the impact of
music. All they
want is control”
outsiders in their own country – “People
label us as ‘the band that sings in English’”
– as well as abroad. Yet the decision was
vindicated. “A cultural paradigm shift
happened around that time: people began
to look over the rim of the teacup and be
more open to minority culture.”
Thanks to the likes of YouTube and
Soundcloud, music lovers now have more
opportunities to discover new sounds
for themselves, and, importantly, have
wider access to music outside the Anglo-
American canon, which explains the
recent success of Korean pop music
in the US charts, a phenomenon that
would have been hard to imagine
15 years ago. People are seeking artists
who feel new and different. And since
being able to gain attention and stand out
are invaluable assets for any musician in
the 21st century, the time seems right for
a Japanese band playing fresher Britpop
than any British act right now.
Akiyama is quick, however, to state
that DYGL’s musical direction is not some
calculated marketing strategy. “Tokyo is
far from the traditional epicentres of
pop culture, like London and New York,
so it feels natural for us to receive foreign
music without bias, and to freely pick
and choose elements from all genres
and countries.” When asked about the
Japanese elements in DYGL’s music, he
replies like a shot: the melodies. “Music
from foreign bands who break through
in Japan is very melodic. The Japanese
don’t speak much English, so they
connect with the melodies, not with the
lyrics,” he says. “I think that’s also why
people here embrace our songs so much.”
Although Akiyama stresses that
DYGL aren’t an explicitly political
band and that many of their songs
are about love and friendship, it’s
their more socially aware material that
has gained them the most attention,
especially abroad, since few Japanese
bands grant Western listeners such an
intriguing insight. Take the song Don’t
You Wanna Dance in This Heaven?,
which tackles Japan’s repressive history,
specifically the country’s archaic fueihō
law. Introduced in 1948 to regulate the
sex industry, the law prohibited people
from dancing after midnight at many
venues, but this went largely unenforced
until 2010, when authorities found a
reason to crack down on nightlife and
revived it. The law was revised in 2016,
but it remains symbolic of politics in
Japan, says Akiyama: if you strip people
of their right to dance, you strip them of
their freedom of expression. “It shows
that the people in power don’t care about
the cultural impact of modern music –
all they want is to control people.”
This tends to be a systemic problem
in Japan, as Akiyama points out. In one
recent scandal, it transpired that several
THE RED BULLETIN 53

DYGL
Classic tracks:
downtime in a toy shop
before a gig in Yonago,
where the dressing room
awaits (below)
prominent TV comedians had performed
at parties held by an organised-crime
syndicate. This led to the comics’ sacking
by their talent agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo,
Japan’s largest entertainment group.
However, the comedians subsequently
claimed the agency grossly underpays
its artists and had also warned them not
to speak to the media about its alleged
ties to organised crime. Another talent
agency has been accused of conspiring
to keep three former members of the
boy band SMAP off the air because they
had left its management.
“The entertainment business is
controlled by these agencies,” Akiyama
says. “As an artist, you’re at their mercy.
The big problem is that nobody
challenges them. People are too polite
“People are too
polite to speak
their mind, which
is dangerous”
to speak their mind, which can be really
dangerous.” As a rock band scoring
international success outside this talentagency
system, DYGL see themselves
as able to address such problems.
“Politeness, which is deeply rooted in
our society, isn’t necessarily a bad thing,”
Akiyama continues, “but in these modern
times, when the world is seeming to go
backwards, it’s the wrong moment to not
want to bother someone.”
In the aftermath of the Fukushima
nuclear disaster, big protests in Japan
seemed like an overdue awakening of
a politically apathetic population. But,
eight years on, this hunger for protest
and change has dwindled again. A few
days prior to our interview, the voter
turnout in Japan’s Upper House election
fell below 50 per cent, the second lowest
since World War II. Akiyama is keen to
bring up the issue at tonight’s gig. “Now
we’ve lived in cities like London and New
York, we see Japan’s politics in a new
light,” he says. “Overseas, it’s normal to
discuss politics and voice opinions. Here,
that doesn’t happen a lot.”
At the concert, just before playing
Don’t You Wanna Dance in This Heaven?,
Akiyama makes a heartfelt, humorous
plea to the fans, encouraging them to
speak their minds. “It’s not about the
country, it’s about individuals, it’s about
you,” he finishes. “So say something
if you have something to say. Let yourself
go!” Three minutes later, guitarist
Shimonaka’s T-shirt is off and he’s diving
into the crowd as Akiyama shouts and
lays into his strings. As a role model,
you should always lead by example.
dayglotheband.com
54 THE RED BULLETIN

GIVES YOU
WIIINGS.
ALSO WITH THE TASTE OF COCONUT & BERRY.
NEW

Danny’s
Decade
In 2009, 23-year-old Scottish cyclist DANNY MACASKILL released Inspired Bicycles
– a five-and-a-half-minute film on YouTube that contained “probably the best
collection of street trials riding [the mountain-bike discipline of manoeuvring across
obstacles without a rider’s feet touching the floor] ever seen”. The film, which has had
more than 39 million views to date, transformed MacAskill into a global superstar.
Here, he looks back at his greatest moments of the decade that followed…
Interviewed by STU KENNY
ADIDAS OUTDOOR/DAVE MACKISON ADIDAS,FRED MURRAY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
56 THE RED BULLETIN

Imaginate (2013)
I’d made a few films outdoors, but for Imaginate
I wanted to try something different: to recreate my
childhood bedroom floor and ride these giant toys.
We had a £4million Formula One car and a real tank.
The loop-the-loop was Hot Wheels-esque and I’d
never attempted one – they’re disorientating, and if
you watch anyone try on the internet, it always ends
badly. I’d been off my bike for a year after my back
operation, so my riding wasn’t where it needed to be.
Each morning, I’d go into the warehouse, do eight
flip step-downs onto a giant Dandy comic and build
up to the loop. Eventually I got it dialled.

“We went all-out
when we filmed
Inspired Bicycles”

Danny MacAskill
Inspired Bicycles (2009)
This [opposite page] is me launching
off the roof of Macdonald Cycles in
Edinburgh, where I worked from 2006
to 2009. Every day, I’d stand across
the road with my lunch and look at the
gap between the bike shop and the
copy shop. When [director] Dave
Sowerby and I started filming Inspired
Bicycles, I set my sights on bigger and
bigger goals. This gap was one of
those. Before I tried it, I gapped the
curb below – that’s the way I eye up
gaps sometimes. The first time I tried,
I overcooked it and landed on my back
on the roof. You can’t overshoot it too
much or you’ll fall onto the rails below.
It was so satisfying when we did it;
one of the standout moments of the
film. Good bang for your buck!
Dave is such a good filmmaker, so
with Inspired Bicycles I felt I had this
big opportunity. We went all-out with
it: the riding was new, and the way he
filmed and edited it to that music [The
Funeral by Band of Horses]… This tree
[above] in The Meadows in Edinburgh
is quite famous among BMXers, and
I dreamt of doing a flare off it for
Inspired Bicycles. In this picture, I’m
actually doing a tap, which is quite
an easy trick. I used to do this in the
dark on my way home.
59

Danny MacAskill
Way Back Home (2010)
I signed with Red Bull at the end of 2009, and the idea
for this film came up during one of our first meetings.
I’m from rural Scotland – the Isle of Skye – so locating
man-made concrete in my homeland appealed to me.
In this shot [above], I’m at the foundations of an old
railroad track on the Isle of Raasay.
I remember being a bit disappointed by Way Back
Home at the time. I had ridiculously high aspirations
because of the bar I’d set for myself with Inspired
Bicycles; I even had a plan to jump 140ft [43m] off the
Skye Bridge and into the sea. Dave and I worked so
hard to film some of the crazier ideas, driving 18,000
miles [29,000km] in six months to get to locations
when the sun was right. Looking back, I’m really pleased
with the film. This shot [below] sums it up: we’ve got
wheelbarrows, and there’s a microwaveable meal in
the oven. That was our life back then.
The Olympic Torch (2012)
This was a slow year for me. I had a back operation on
a disc I’d torn in 2009, so it was more of a planning
year. One of the cool things that came out of it, though,
was getting involved in the Olympic Torch relay. I was
intending to do a big bike part with [film director] Danny
Boyle in the opening ceremony, but sadly it fell through
because of my health. However, getting to carry the torch
outside Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum was cool. It
was me, the actor James McAvoy and the curler Rhona
Martin. I remember it being quite random, riding my bike
in this white suit with a flaming torch. I practised outside
my flat with a pump beforehand to see if I could do any
tricks. I did a couple of manuals in the end.
DAVE SOWERBY, PA, FRED MURRAY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
60 THE RED BULLETIN

Epecuén (2014)
This film has a sad story. There was a town on the
edge of this salt lake in Argentina, and in the late ’70s
it had a long drought. Villa Epecuén was reliant on
the tourism the lake attracted, so a canal was built,
connecting it to other lakes at higher elevations. But
then, when the rains returned years later, the town
was flooded. I wanted to make a film that was sensitive
to the residents. The town was eerie, but so beautiful.
All the walls are covered in a layer of salt, which makes
the landscape quite uniform. You never knew how
good the structures would be – you could stand on a
huge block of concrete and it’d snap in half – so it was
probably one of the most dangerous films I’ve made.
“Epecuén was
probably one
of the most
dangerous films
I’ve made”

d ann y ma c ask ill
SIGNA T U RE s t amp 7
C R A N K B R O T H ERS . C O M

Danny MacAskill
The Ridge (2014)
My friend Stu Thomson, from Cut Media, and
I decided we’d make a little mountain-bike film
on the Cuillin [mountain range] on the Isle of
Skye. I hadn’t spent that much time there,
because it’s so severe you need a proper
guide. The first day was a 23-hour shift. Drone
technology wasn’t what it is today – we had
these massive, heavy batteries. Apart from
burning serious calories, it was one of the
easiest projects I’ve filmed. Compared with
technical trials riding, this was so within my
comfort zone and just a lot of fun: rowing,
chasing seals, a couple of more technical
tricks like the front flip over the fence. The
success of The Ridge was as much of a shock
as Inspired Bicycles was: it got about 20
million views in a month, and half of it is me
bloody rowing a boat!
“The feeling
I had was
that I was
only going
to clear the
rocks by a
tiny fraction”
STU THOMSON & CHRIS PRESCOTT/CUT MEDIA, DAVE MACKISON/GOPRO
Cascadia (2015)
This [above] is me doing a front flip off some scaffolding we built in El Roque in Gran Canaria. I’d wanted to do a rooftop
video for a while. We walked around Las Palmas and El Roque, knocking door to door, asking if we could look at people’s
rooftops. It’s such a chilled country they were like, “Sure, come in!” Next thing we’d be on their roof. This was the final
shot. I was actually overly confident about the set-up, because I’m not really scared of water compared with the risks
you take on concrete. And it was only 60ft [18m] – I could belly-flop and I still wouldn’t die. But when I turned up, the
run-up wasn’t very big and the rocks carried on under the water. The feeling I had was that I was only going to clear the
rocks by a tiny fraction. It was quite a stress, but I sent it and it was maybe the most cushty banger I’ve done. As soon
as I went off the lip, I felt total relief.
THE RED BULLETIN 63

Danny MacAskill
Wee Day Out (2016)
Wee Day Out was a film I’d
wanted to make for a long time.
The Ridge opened up this whole
new world of mountain biking for
me, but this time, rather than
relying on scenery, I really wanted
to up the technical difficulty of
the riding. The cool thing about
riding a mountain bike is that
people’s perceptions of what
you can do on it, compared
with a trials bike, are a lot lower.
I wanted to take my trials-riding
skills and put them on a mountain
bike – like one of my heroes,
Chris Akrigg, had done.
When I worked in Bothy Bikes
[in Aviemore, Scotland, in 2003
– his first job], this steam train
used to go past my house every
day. So this [above] was a trick
where I would gap from the
railway platform onto the line.
I thought the probability of it
working was very, very low, but
I actually landed it in an hour and
a half – about 100 goes – which
is pretty good for me.
The grind on the log [right]
I probably tried 150 times on the
first day and didn’t come close.
We ended up trying that for
another three days. My friend
started rubbing the log down
with Vaseline, because it was
getting so grippy. Skateboarders
have their wax, so we started
lubing up this log. My pedals,
shoes, grips and gloves were
covered in Vaseline. We went
up there on the fourth day,
and then, on the last day, in
the last bit of light, I landed the
trick. Then I ended up doing it
four times in a row.
Jumping on a moving hay
bale and rolling down a field
was yet another ‘real good’ idea
I had – again, it was a four-day
one. We got the local farmer to
combine three hay bales into
one big one so it would be heavy
enough to keep rolling with me
on top. It took about 400 goes.
Two of my friends would have
to push the 450kg hay bale to
get it rolling before I jumped
on, then three friends – to whom
I owe a lot – would have to try
to catch it halfway down the
hill. Every single time. It was
madness, basically.
“I probably tried the grind on
the log 150 times on the first
day and didn’t come close”
FRED MURRAY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
64 THE RED BULLETIN

Photo: Tomás Montes
DANNY MACASKILL
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Danny MacAskill
Kilimanjaro: Mountain of Greatness (2018)
Hans Rey is one of my heroes in
riding, almost a mentor – he’s
been there and done it all. So
when he asked me to join him
in summiting Mount Kenya and
Kilimanjaro in one trip, I jumped
at the chance. I’d had a lot of
bike time that summer, having
just filmed Wee Day Out, but
I wouldn’t say I was particularly
fit. That said, I was about to
climb Kilimanjaro with a 51-yearold
who has a passion for whisky
and beer, so I thought I’d be fine
fitness-wise. It ended up being
a hell of a trip. We made a quick
ascent on Mount Kenya, and I’d
come straight from sea level and
never done anything at altitude
before. I got altitude sickness
and had to be helicoptered off.
The next day, we travelled
through to Tanzania to the foot
of Kilimanjaro and, the day
after, started making our way
up. My body fared a lot better
up there. That final climb with
the bike on my back is one of
the hardest things I’ve ever done
– nobody normally carries that
weight at that altitude. Type-two
fun – I think that’s what people
call it. But the beauty of lugging
your bikes up there is getting
to descend 5,000m back down
to base camp.
“This is me doing
a 180 between
some rails on ‘The
Bridge to Nowhere’”
Seaside Trials (2019)
This is a film I made for one of my new partners, Adidas. We had
quite a short time-frame, so I went to a place near Dunbar in
Scotland that I’d scouted for Way Back Home. It’s known as ‘The
Bridge to Nowhere’ and it crosses a river, taking you to a beach
[and at high tide the bridge is cut off on both sides]. I waded out in
my bare feet and took my bike to get some cool shots. We filmed
between Dunbar Harbour and Glen Coe so that we could have
a contrast between mountain bike and trials. This [right] is me
doing a 180 between some rails. Very easy riding – although it was
very windy – but it made for a cool and unusual shot.
My process hasn’t changed that much in the past 10 years.
Scouting is an important part of making the films – not wasting your
time on things that won’t make it in. But I’m still as ambitious as
ever, trying to come up with tricks that are really out there and that
you’ve never seen anyone else do. Going through the process of
trying to make them work in the way that you hoped is a lot of fun.
It’s been an amazing 10 years and I’ve got enough ideas written
down in my books to last another 50 years.
MARTIN BISSIG, ADIDAS OUTDOOR, DAVE MACKISON
66 THE RED BULLETIN

THE RED BULLETIN 67

guide
Get it. Do it. See it.
BODY MOVIN’
MovNat promotes peak
fitness through natural
movement – we meet
the regime’s creator
PAGE 80
BALLS OF STEEL
How the FIFA videogame
franchise became
as powerful as the
sport it simulates
PAGE 81
ABOUT TIME
Our pick of the most
desirable watches and
wearable gear you can
get your hands on
PAGE 85
EXPLORE HIMALAYA TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
LEGEND OF THE FALL
Record-breaking skydiver
Tom Noonan tells us why
leaping from 7,000m past
the Himalayan mountains
is the true summit of his
freefall experience
PAGE 70
THE RED BULLETIN 69

G U I D E
Do it
Drop kicks: the exhilarating leap from the helicopter marks the pinnacle of the Everest Skydive
EVEREST SKYDIVE
AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN
HIGH ENOUGH
Freefalling is not for the faint of heart. But doing it in
sight of the world’s highest mountain is another adventure
altogether, says record-breaking skydiver Tom Noonan
The instant I jump out of
the chopper at 23,000ft
[7,000m], I’m hurtling
towards the ground at 210kph.
A freefall has a certain frequency
to it – a hum that’s reminiscent of
a hairdryer – but I have a helmet
on, so it’s not loud enough to cause
physical damage. The dive lasts
45 seconds, but perhaps the most
extraordinary aspect of this
particular jump is that I’m actually
in freefall beside the planet’s
highest mountains. The point of
reference is unlike anything else
in the world; as I fall through the
Instructor Tom Noonan has skydived in more than 40 countries
70 THE RED BULLETIN

Nepal
TRAVEL TIPS
NEPALESE
BY NATURE
Nepal is a trekking and hiking paradise, but
the Roof of the World has much more to offer,
including ‘mad honey’ and a tooth fairy
The chopper ferries the jumpers up to a summit-equalling height of 7,000m
Nepal
Kathmandu
Mt Everest
Lukla
The average daytime temperature during November’s
Everest Skydive is around 15°C. Rainfall is low then,
too, making it the best month to visit Nepal.
EXPLORE HIMALAYA TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
Trekkers’ paradise: the village of Namche Bazaar sits at an altitude of 3,440m
sky, the topography of the
Himalaya seems to swallow me.
Once the parachute opens, my
speed slows to about 25kph and
I’m level with Mount Everest for
the next six minutes, not more
than a couple of kilometres away.
A quiet descent near one of the
most awesome forces of nature
on earth is humbling and lifechanging.
It’s an incredible
feeling to be able to experience
something that so few people ever
have the opportunity to try. Yet
it always feels good to land on
the ground safely at Syangboche
Airstrip, 3,780m above sea level,
where the temperature is balmy.
As a tandem-skydive instructor,
I’ve completed roughly 8,000
“As I fall through the
sky, the Himalayan
topography seems
to swallow me”
dives in more than 40 countries in
seven continents. I’ve dived into a
sinkhole in Belize, onto Antarctic
and Arctic ice sheets, and over the
pyramids of Giza – remote locations
are my speciality. But, as the
operational manager, organising
the annual trip to Nepal for Everest
Skydive is a labour of love. For
11 months, I work hard on the
logistics from my office in Florida.
SEE
Several exotic animals inhabit the Himalaya, says Tom
Noonan, but some are more visible than others...
YETI
“There’s a belief the yeti is still out there, but no one has seen
him recently. There are yeti bones in one of the temples.”
SNOW LEOPARD
“Snow leopards are rare. I’m thankful I’ve not seen one, as
I don’t want to bump into one in the middle of the night.”
YAK
“Massive yet beautiful and docile, yaks do the heavy lifting,
carrying all the stuff that people can’t.”
VISIT
There’s plenty to do in Kathmandu
HONOUR THE TOOTHACHE TREE
In a part of town that’s home to many dentists is a chunk of
Bangemudha tree covered in coins. These are offerings from
orthodontically poor locals to Vaishya Dev, god of toothache.
TRY HALLUCINOGENIC HONEY
Procured in the Kathmandu Valley, this rhododendronenhanced
liquid gold is known locally as ‘mad honey’ on
account of its hallucinogenic qualities. It’s also used to relieve
stress and is said to have Viagra-like properties.
EAT YAK CHEESE
Try this surprisingly delicate cheese, which has a mild, milky
flavour and strong herbal notes, at local farmers’ markets.
THE RED BULLETIN 71

G U I D E
Do it
Nepal
THE DIVE
FREE, FREEFALLIN’
The music that forms the soundtrack to
the skydive, and the pointers everyone
needs to understand to safely negotiate
the descent
SIGNALS
Since you can’t hear speech during freefall, your
instructor will communicate through the use of hand
signals. The first is the most important of all.
Permission to land: Syangboche Airstrip is also the drop zone for Everest Skydive
PULL
Immediately deploy
your parachute
ARCH
Push your pelvis towards
the earth
CHECK ARMS
Bring your shoulders
together in a W position
CIRCLE OF AWARENESS
Observe your heading:
read your altimeter
HEAR
Tom Noonan on the music he and his co-divers listen to
as they prepare to jump from a helicopter at 7,000m
1. JAMIROQUAI
“One time, we were listening to Jamiroquai and half our
group started line-dancing. Any time you put something
on that people can jam to, that’s cool.”
2. TRADITIONAL CHANTING
“The mountains are a very spiritual place, full of
awesome energy, so we listen to a lot of local Nepali
music and Buddhist mantras.”
3. SILENCE
“The Western world is full of noise. There’s almost
no noise in the Himalaya. To be around such quiet and
calm is unlike anything in the world for me. The wind is
the loudest thing you hear. It’s incredible.”
The reward is in going back to
Nepal every year to see friends and
live part of my life in the Himalaya.
I’ve been doing it since 2008.
Every November or May,
depending on the weather, my
team and I take between five and
10 travellers on an extraordinary
adventure from Kathmandu to the
Himalaya. We fly to Kathmandu,
explore the city for a couple of
days and then take a short plane
ride to Lukla, the gateway to
Everest. We then spend three days
trekking through valleys and
mountains, climbing higher each
day. We do these treks so we can
acclimatise to the altitude. If we
just flew in and tried to make
a dive, we might get hypoxia –
a lack of oxygen that makes you
feel punch-drunk – so we need
to reduce that possibility.
The first-time divers have
already committed to a week of
adventure and exhaustion on the
ground, so the skydives are the
cherry on top of the experience.
Personally, I’ve made more jumps
than I could ever have hoped for.
In 2009, myself and two
colleagues set the world record
for the highest parachute landing
when we landed sport parachutes
at 17,192ft (5,240m).
You never forget the first time you
see Mount Everest. In my case, it
happened as I turned the corner
of a teahouse above Namche
Bazaar: as I looked unobstructed
across a 10km-long valley, Everest
stared back at me.
The locals on the Nepali side,
the farmers and Sherpas, believe
the mountains are goddesses
who protect them. The area is
very spiritual. I refer to the energy
there as The Force, as in Star
Wars, and there is something that
resonates at a higher frequency.
Before each expedition, we have
a religious ceremony called a
puja, where a lama [priest]
blesses our equipment.
Before I became a full-time
skydiver in 2006, at the age of 32,
I worked in pensions at a bank in
Boston. But my hero was always
Indiana Jones for the way he gets
into trouble in foreign places,
having fun, living life to the full
and then returning home to a
real-world job for a few weeks.
I still have an office I go back to,
and a classroom that I teach in.
But it’s the people of Nepal I’m
most grateful for. Their purity of
thought and mind makes me want
to be a better version of myself.
everest-skydive.com
EXPLORE HIMALAYA TRAVEL & ADVENTURE PIERS MARTIN
72 THE RED BULLETIN

Ski
Austria
One beautiful Alpine town combines the best of both city and slopes. Here’s how to explore it all
MIRJA GEH
PERFECT PISTES
The slopes of Kitzsteinhorn
Kaprun are extremely
popular with freeskiers
THE RED BULLETIN 73

MAGIC MOUNTAINS
Saalbach and its three
neighbouring villages
combine to make
a skier’s paradise
Saalbach
The crowd pleaser
A snowsports mecca that pulls out all the stops
Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm
Leogang Fieberbrunn is – as its
impressive full name suggests
– a whole lot of ski resort; one
that’s frequented by the world’s
best skiers and snowboarders.
To break down that name,
Hinterglemm is in the same
valley as Saalbach, and Leogang
and Fieberbrunn are next door.
Their combined 270km of pisted
ski runs make the Skicircus one
of the biggest resorts in Europe.
As you’d expect, with such
a large piste map comes a
remarkable range of riding.
Beginner or intermediate skiers
have access to a variety of route
options from most of the 70 lifts.
If you’re an expert, there are
long, challenging black runs –
not least the 12er KOGEL, which
spans 3.6km on gradients of up
to 72 per cent and has been used
as an FIS World Cup route.
Knee-deep off-piste is in no
short supply, either. As well as
the Lycra-clad racers, the world’s
best freeriders come to the
Skicircus to compete in the
Freeride World Tour. They’re
next scheduled to drop from the
Wildseeloder in Fieberbrunn in
March 2020.
The Skicircus is worldrenowned
for freeriding, worldclass
for racing, and it has the
tour stops to prove it.
MIRJA GEH (2), DER BRECHER, DANIEL ROOS
74 THE RED BULLETIN

Ski Austria
Resort fact box
Distance to airport:
Salzburg Airport – 90km
Elevation: 1,003m to 2,100m
Total piste distance:
270km
Longest run:
7.5km – Jausernabfahrt slope
(Vorderglemm)
Difficulty: 140km blue (52%),
112km red (41%), 18km (7%)
black runs
Number of lifts: 70
saalbach.com
Ticket alliance
Skicircus Saalbach
Hinterglemm
Leogang Fieberbrunn,
Schmittenhöhe in
Zell am See, and
Kitzsteinhorn Kaprun
THE RED BULLETIN 75

Zell am See-Kaprun
Glacier, mountains and lake
A picturesque winter wonderland that packs a powdery punch
The small urban city of Zell am
See has much to offer, including
great shopping and a beautiful
lake with a lovely promenade.
The lake, which often freezes
in winter, is a picture-perfect
foreground for views of the
mountains behind. But also Zell
– and specifically the nearby
glacier of Kitzsteinhorn – boasts
some of the Alps’ best freeriding.
The pisted skiing in Zell itself
has many tree runs. It’s mostly
an intermediate paradise, but
there are 19km of black runs,
too. A short bus ride to Kaprun
gives you access to the
Kitzsteinhorn glacier, complete
with another 61km and a snowsure
guarantee (the ski season
lasts seven months here).
On a powder day, it’s all
about that glacier. The resort’s
‘Freeride XXL’ signposting
system will point you to the
powder lines, whether it’s fluffy
runs, big cliffs or natural pipes
you’re after. Also, two new
cable cars – the K-ONNECTION
Kaprun Kitzsteinhorn and
zellamseeXpress Schmittenhöhe
– have improved links in the area,
paving the way for one of the
biggest ski resorts in the Alps.
Resort fact box
Distance to airport:
Salzburg Airport – 80km
Elevation: 768m to 3,029m
Total piste distance: 138km
Longest run: 7km –
down Maiskogel mountain
from the top
Difficulty: 56km blue (41%),
54km red (39%), 28km black
runs (20%)
Number of lifts: 51
zellamsee-kaprun.com
Ticket alliance
Skicircus Saalbach
Hinterglemm
Leogang Fieberbrunn,
Schmittenhöhe in
Zell am See, and
Kitzsteinhorn Kaprun
FAISTAUER PHOTOGRAPHY, KITZSTEINHORN
76 THE RED BULLETIN

Ski Austria
GLORIOUS VIEWS
From picture-perfect
vistas to first-class
skiing, Zell am See-
Kaprun has it all
THE RED BULLETIN 77

Carinthia
Sunshine and
powder lines
Bordering Italy and Slovenia, this
resort in southernmost Austria
clocks up around 100 hours more
sun in winter than most resorts
further north. But that doesn’t mean
a lack of snow. There’s almost
350km of pisted ski runs between
these four biggest resorts
Bad Kleinkirchheim
This family-friendly
resort has 103km of
slopes, 75 per cent of
which are intermediate.
That said, hometown
Olympic gold medallist
Franz Klammer also has
a World Cup black slope
on the mountain. It’s a
beast of a piste. And you
can explore it with the
man himself, if you don’t
mind an early start. On
selected dates, Klammer
guides skiers around the
mountain from sunrise
until 9.30am.
Elevation:
1,100m to 2,055m
Total piste distance:
103km
Difficulty:
18km blue (17%),
77km red (75%),
8km black runs (8%),
plus 5km ski routes
Number of lifts: 24
badkleinkirchheim.com
Großglockner Heiligenblut
Not the biggest ski resort in
the world, but it does boast
Austria’s biggest mountain.
The pointed peak of the
3,798m-high Großglockner
dominates the skyline, just
one of the reasons this resort
is so photogenic. Another is
the 1,500 hectare Freeride
Arena in the area. Come for
the stunning photographs,
stay for the excellent skiing.
Elevation: 1,300m to 2,900m
Total piste distance: 55km
Difficulty: 20km blue (36%),
34km red (62%), 1km black runs
(2%), plus 10.4km ski routes
Number of lifts: 12
grossglockner.at;
heiligenbrut.at
KW JOHANNES PUCH, DANIEL ZUPANC
78 THE RED BULLETIN

Ski Austria
Nassfeld
This is a rarity: a ski resort
with its own microclimate.
Channels from the Adriatic
dump powder on the
mountain, giving Nassfeld a
reputation as the “snow hole
of Carinthia”. Since it’s such
a big area and relatively
quiet, you don’t even have to
rise early to guarantee fresh
tracks. At 110km (plus the
off-piste), there’s no lack of
mountain. Ski from Austria
to Italy and back in a day!
Elevation:
600m to 2,000m
Total piste distance:
110km
Difficulty:
30km blue (27%),
69km red (63%),
11km black runs (10%)
Number of lifts: 30
nassfeld.at
Katschberg
Snow-secure at 2,220m, this
resort between Salzburg
and Carinthia offers riding for
every level. There’s 10km for
beginners, 40km of reds, and
also an impressive 20km of
challenging black pistes. It’s
well worth spending a couple of
days off the skis, too – the area
boasts stunning snowshoe
routes and torchlit hiking.
Elevation:
1,640m to 2,220m
Total piste distance: 70km
Difficulty:
10km blue (14%),
40km red (57%),
20 black runs (29%)
Number of lifts: 16
katschberg.at
THE RED BULLETIN 79

Do it
Fitness
Bark to basics: Le Corre
preaches universal
fitness without all the
technical frills
GET FIT
NATURAL
ABILITY
Three signature moves
to help you master the
MovNat concept
MOVNAT FITNESS
GRASSROOTS
MOVEMENT
Your body wasn’t built to sit around all day. Erwan Le Corre
will help you rediscover its full potential – naturally
According to Erwan Le Corre,
the way we humans move
in our everyday lives is
unnatural and even downright
inhumane. “We sit in the office
for hours at a time,” says the
French-born sportsman and
physical trainer, “then we might
go to the gym once in a while
after work. And that’s all we do.”
The human musculoskeletal
system is built for much more
frequent and varied exertion,
however, and if it doesn’t get this,
it becomes sick. So Le Corre has
come up with a fitness regime
comprising all the elements we
couldn’t get enough of as kids:
balancing, jumping, climbing,
crawling, running, throwing,
swimming, diving etc. Performed
either indoors or outdoors, these
play-like exercises help to improve
coordination, balance, strength
and precision skills.
The basis of Le Corre’s MovNat
(Natural Movement) concept is
La Méthode Naturelle, a training
technique developed by French
naval officer Georges Hébert
in the early 19th century and
which also gave rise to parkour.
“The aim of MovNat isn’t to
make you quicker or fitter,” says
Le Corre, 48. “We want you to
rediscover ancient patterns of
movement.” The rest, including
your increased self-confidence,
will take care of itself.
movnat.com
“Increased
natural
movement in
your daily
routine will make
you stronger,
healthier and
happier”
Erwan Le Corre
ELBOW PULL-UP
Instead of hanging from the bar
by your hands, haul yourself up
so your forearms rest on top of
it, hands touching. For one rep,
lift yourself with your elbows
until your chest reaches the
bar. This method limits your
range of motion and increases
the efficiency of the exercise.
POP-UP
Start like an underarm pull-up,
but instead of stopping when
your chin reaches the bar, pull
yourself up until your upper
body is completely above it and
you’re supported by your arms.
HAND SWING-UP
Holding onto the bar with both
hands, lift yourself and hook
one leg over the top. Kick out
your other leg as high and
straight as possible, then swing
it downwards. Push with your
arms at the same time and the
momentum will lift the whole of
your upper body above the bar.
To see the exercises, go to:
youtube.com/user/MovNat
Le Corre’s book, The Practice
of Natural Movement: Reclaim
Power, Health and Freedom,
is out now
Nature boy: Le Corre has been compared to a modern-day Tarzan
JESSIKA LE CORRE FLORIAN STURM
80 THE RED BULLETIN

G U I D E
Do it
Gaming
THE FIFA FACTOR
BIGGER THAN
FOOTBALL
Built to be the ultimate football game,
FIFA now shapes the sport itself
Launched on a shoestring
budget in 1993 with a
licence purchased for a song
from football’s governing body,
FIFA has become the world’s
best-selling sports game, with
more than 280 million copies
sold. The goal has always been
to translate football – in all its
elegance and complexity – into
video-game form, but FIFA has
transcended that ambition by
influencing the beautiful game
itself. It’s now where clubs scout
new signings, brands hustle for
enviable licensing deals, and
pro footballers discover – to their
delight or dismay – how they
rank on the leaderboard. FIFA
expert Simon Parkin explains…
ITS RANKINGS REALLY MATTER
Before each year’s FIFA launch, the
game’s creator EA releases a list
of the top 100 players, as ranked
by 9,000 data reviewers, who distil
the performance of 18,000-odd
pro footballers into 34 personal
attributes. Such is the clout of the
list that scouts have been known to
use these stats to identify emerging
talent. In this year’s iteration of the
game, FIFA 20, Lionel Messi, Cristiano
Ronaldo, Neymar Jr and Eden Hazard
take the top spots with ratings of 94,
93, 92 and 91 respectively. But for
others the results can be painful:
Rio Ferdinand joked he’d “tear down”
EA’s offices after he was only rated
65 for passing in FIFA 17.
the striker’s run-up in FIFA. “It was just
like playing against him on PlayStation,”
Amelia said. “It was very strange.”
YOU NEED TO BE IN IT TO WIN IT
EA aggressively secures licences for
clubs, players, stadia, and commentators’
voice-overs. What the games firm pays
is a secret (it’s rumoured to be in nine
figures), but sometimes it’s not enough.
This year, EA lost the rights to Juventus,
so resorted to calling them ‘Piemonte
Calcio’ in the game. However, the player
likenesses remain: appearing in FIFA is
about more than money for a footballer;
it’s a status symbol. For FIFA: Road to
World Cup ’98, David Beckham’s
appearance on the cover “was a piece in
the puzzle that led him to be the most
marketable footballer on the planet”,
Andy Bell, founder of sports talent
agency Soap Box London, said in 2015.
EXPERT
PROFILE
SIMON
PARKIN
FIFA PUNDIT
The games critic
for The Observer
newspaper has
covered video
games and their
culture for 15
years. His book
A Game of Birds
and Wolves, out
in November,
tells the story of
a group of women
who developed
a game during
WWII to help the
Allies outwit
German U-boats.
IT’S A CHEERLEADER FOR FOOTBALL
Such is FIFA’s cachet, it doesn’t have to
actively seek big-name endorsement.
NBA star LeBron James Instagrammed
a photo of his sons playing it, with the
caption, “Game is fresh to death!” And
Justin Bieber tweeted at rapper Drake,
“I’m getting nice at FIFA. Be prepared.”
Indeed, the game creates interest in
the real sport. In 2014, an ESPN poll
found that 34 per cent of Americans
became soccer fans after playing FIFA.
“Nowadays,” says FIFA’s creative
director Matt Prior, “people come
to football through our game.”
ITS WORK IS NEVER DONE
“Until FIFA is indistinguishable from
football in real life, we’ll always have
more to do,” says Prior. It’s a quest
that generates heated Reddit debates
with every launch. “Some like it simbased,
others want huge scorelines,”
he adds. In FIFA 20, there’s a focus on
‘football intelligence’ with enhanced
natural AI behaviour and ball physics,
plus a street football mode, Volta. Will
people like it? Time will tell. At games
conference E3 in 2013, whoops of
delight greeted the announcement of a
‘never before possible’ feature: players
could now turn their neck to head the
ball at a greater-than-90° angle.
FIFA 20 is out now on PS4, Xbox One,
Nintendo Switch and PC; ea.com
Unplayable but playable:
Borussia Dortmund and
England superstar Jadon
Sancho in FIFA 20 form
ELECTRONIC ARTS SIMON PARKIN
IT HELPS PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS
UP THEIR GAME
Footballing pros have been known
to use FIFA to prepare for real-life
matches. Everton forward Alex Iwobi
said that, when he was starting out,
if a player he’d never played against
was on the other team, he’d “look at
his name and try to remember how
good he was on FIFA”. After saving a
penalty from AC Milan’s Ronaldinho in
2008, Italian goalkeeper Marco Amelia
claimed he’d familiarised himself with
THE RED BULLETIN 81

G U I D E
Do it
October/November
9
to 10 November
EVE WRESTLING: SHE-1 SERIES
Regular readers of The Red Bulletin will know EVE from our November
2018 feature on the all-women, punk-rock, pro-wrestling organisation.
The self-proclaimed ‘Riot Grrrls of Wrestling’ deliver all the action and
theatrics you’d expect from the best in big-league brawling, but with
a feminist message of inclusion – that women of any age can get crazy
in the ring and enjoy themselves. And, you know, guys can spectate.
This two-day, four-event fight series will see combatants from around
the world battle to reach the Sunday final. And if you’re a girl who just
wants to have fun (and dreams of the GLOW life), organisers Emily and
Dann Read run training sessions at the EVE Academy in Bethnal Green.
Resistance Gallery, Bethnal Green, London; evewrestling.com
Thrilling EVE:
riot grrrls just
wanna have fun
15
to 29 October
Roundhouse Rising
Festival
Camden’s Roundhouse has a long history of giving
fresh talent a platform; at its opening concert in
October 1966, two promising bands were on the bill:
Soft Machine and Pink Floyd. For the past nine years,
with partners such as Gilles Peterson’s talent discovery
agency and BBC Music Introducing, the venue has
dedicated an annual festival to the cause. This year,
artists such as grime MC Big Zuu and art-pop act
Æ MAK will follow in the footsteps of former Rising
alumni like Little Simz by playing the intimate Sackler
Space, while hip-hop avant-gardist GAIKA headlines
the main stage with a 10-piece jazz ensemble.
Camden Roundhouse, London; roundhouse.org.uk
Rising stars:
Æ MAK
14 28 31
to 27 October
Rebel Vision
Havana
Moon Tour
Picture the immersive experience
of Secret Cinema, but applied to
recreating iconic concerts. Rebel
Vision (aka former music moguls
Andy Cuthbert and Tom Clarke)
deliver this using theatrics, SFX and
cinematics – here, they present
The Rolling Stones’ 2016 Havana
Moon gig in Cuba. There’s even a
merchandise stand selling actual
tour memorabilia from the day.
Various cities around the UK;
rebel-vision.com
Oct to 23 Nov
Reel Rock
Film Tour
Enjoy a movie with a good
cliffhanger? That’s what you get
at this nationwide film festival:
the best of the year’s climbing
and adventure features, including
four world premieres. One of
these tells the story of two pairs
of freeclimbing titans – Alex
Honnold and Tommy Caldwell,
and Jim Reynolds and Brad
Gobright – going head-to-head to
claim the speed record for scaling
El Capitan’s famous Nose route.
Various UK cities; reelrock.co.uk
Oct to 10 Nov
Sonica Glasgow
Is it art? Music? Audio-visual
mumbo jumbo? Or a higher
sensory experience that
transcends mere categorisation
to challenge our concepts of
reality? You may be none the wiser
after witnessing these incredible
sound-and-image performances
from as far afield as Slovenia
and Argentina. It all kicks off
with Aether, an immersive threedimensional
light matrix sonically
conducted by electronic musician
and scientist Max Cooper.
Across Glasgow; sonic-a.co.uk
DALE BRODIE, ZOE HOLMAN
82 THE RED BULLETIN

See it
October / November
BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SONSTAR/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, MIHAI STETCU/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
IT’S ALL
FOR THE
TAKING
The world’s top freeriders,
breakdancers and enduro
racers all have their eye
on top prizes this month.
Watch the action from
these unmissable events
and more on Red Bull TV…
WATCH
RED BULL TV
ANYWHERE
Red Bull TV is a global digital
entertainment destination
featuring programming that
is beyond the ordinary and is
available anytime, anywhere.
Go online at redbull.tv,
download the app, or
connect via your Smart TV.
To find out more,
visit redbull.tv
25
This will be Virgin’s
second year hosting
Red Bull Rampage
October LIVE
RED BULL
RAMPAGE
Twenty-one members of the freeride mountain-biking elite
will gather in Virgin, Utah, for the 14th edition of the sport’s
biggest and most intense contest. Riders including last
year’s winner, Canada’s Brett Rheeder, will work with their
two-person build crews to shape and perfect their ultimate
lines down the mountain. Their goal: to ride them to victory.
9November LIVE
RED BULL BC ONE
WORLD FINAL
For the first time ever, Mumbai plays host to the
ultimate breakdance challenge. See B-Boys and
B-Girls from across the planet go head-to-head in the
Indian city, competing for the Red Bull BC One crown.
2to 3 November LIVE
GETZENRODEO
The 2019 World Enduro Super Series comes to a
climax with the incredibly popular GetzenRodeo.
Last year, 12,000 spectators travelled to Drebach in
Germany and saw homegrown rider Mani Lettenbichler
take first place. Don’t miss this year’s finale.
THE RED BULLETIN 83

Equipment
Your guide to gear born with purpose, engineered
to achieve, and built with style
SPACE
The right stuff
Hamilton X-01
ELEMENTAL
WATCHES
The best timepieces
for every terrain
The watch you see here is a
vision of the future, but its
creation is steeped in history.
In 1968, American filmmaker
Stanley Kubrick released his
science-fiction epic 2001: A
Space Odyssey. It caused a stir,
and not for all the right reasons.
At the film’s New York premiere,
lead actor Keir Dullea witnessed
around 250 people walking
out, including Hollywood star
Rock Hudson, who apparently
exclaimed, “What is this
bullshit?” But within months
THE RED BULLETIN 85

Equipment
Coated in a molecule-thin film
of condensed vapour (PVD –
physical vapour deposition),
the Khaki BeLOWZERO proves
a perfect choice of watch for
a Martian explorer.
But Scott’s 2015 film The Martian
hews closer, particularly in its
adherence to hard scientific
accuracy. For Matt Damon’s
stranded astronaut, Mark Watney,
a watch capable of surviving the
Red Planet’s harsh environment
was needed. Hamilton’s Khaki
BeLOWZERO, with its black PVDcoated
stainless steel case, is
corrosion-resistant and capable
of withstanding depths of 1,000m
– although the latter feature is
perhaps less important on Mars.
there were other reports – of
people on psychotropic drugs
coming just to watch the ending.
At a San Francisco theatre,
someone ran through the screen
screaming, “It’s God!” More than
50 years later, and almost two
decades past the film’s dateline,
2001 remains an impressively
prescient prediction of the future.
This is due in part to Kubrick’s
meticulous attention to detail.
A perfectionist, the director
personally commissioned every
aspect of the film’s design, from
the first on-screen instance of
office cubicles, to the cutlery for
the deep-space meals, and the
wristwatches the astronauts wore.
For the latter, Kubrick sought
out watchmaker Hamilton and its
in-house designer, John Bergey.
The result was the X-01. However,
the timepiece is barely visible in
the finished film, and prohibitive
costs meant a commercial model
didn’t see the light of day until
2006, when Hamilton released
a commemorative edition –
The seconds hand
has a morse-code
message spelling
out ‘Eureka’
limited to 2001 pieces, of course
– built from titanium and sapphire
crystal glass, with a magnetic
wand hidden in the clasp that
calibrates the three smaller dials.
The watch, like the film,
would inspire others to dream
of the future. It led Bergey to
create the Pulsar Time Computer,
the world’s first all-electronic
digital watch, in 1972. And for
two other science-fiction
filmmakers it would again lead
to collaborations with Hamilton.
British director Ridley Scott is as
profound a futurist as Kubrick,
although the dystopian vision of
1982’s Blade Runner and the
industrial aesthetic of 1979 horror
classic Alien are the antithesis of
2001’s clean, pure minimalism.
The Khaki Field Murph Auto
was designed specifically for
the film Interstellar. The
movie’s prop watch was
modified so the filmmakers
could control the movement of
the seconds hand in-camera.
Christopher Nolan’s love of
Kubrick’s work is well-documented.
Last year, the British writer/
director struck new 70mm prints
of 2001 from its original negative
so the film could be watched in
the same ‘unrestored’ form as
on its debut. But there’s no
better demonstration of Nolan’s
reverence than Interstellar. His
2014 space epic pays homage to
2001 in so many ways – from the
themes of outer space and inner
self, to robot designs referencing
the monolith, to the tripped-out
multidimensional ending.
But the parallels went one step
further when Nolan commissioned
Hamilton to create a unique watch
for the movie; one that Matthew
McConaughey’s character,
Cooper, leaves on Earth with his
daughter, Murph. Like the X-01,
the watch wasn’t commercially
available at the time of the film’s
debut, but this year Hamilton
released the Hamilton Khaki
Field Murph Auto, the first 2,555
pieces of which came in a jewel
box designed by Interstellar’s
production designer, Nathan
Crowley, to resemble the
‘tesseract’ from the film’s
ending. Also, the seconds hand
features a morse-code message
spelling out the word ‘Eureka’.
It’s a detail Kubrick would
doubtless have approved of.
hamiltonwatch.com
DAVID EDWARDS, TIM KENT
86 THE RED BULLETIN

The Super-LumiNova
photoluminescent pigment
on the dial is 10 times
brighter than previous
phosphorescent paints and,
no, it isn't radioactive.
SEA
Finding lumo
Octon Black Watch
Swedish brand Octon donates
10 per cent of all proceeds to
Sea Legacy, an environmental
charity that works to protect
endangered ocean life including
the shortfin mako shark. All
Octon watches are designed
in Stockholm, and this glowing
Aurora Green and black model
– which comes with a choice of
stainless steel bracelet or olivegreen
Zulu fabric strap – has
hands and indexes coated with
black Swiss Super-LumiNova,
which glows 60 per cent longer
than standard lume.
octonwatches.com
THE RED BULLETIN 87

Equipment
LAND
Dust buster
Shinola Runwell Sport
Chrono Black Blizzard
The Detroit-based
Shinola company
takes its name from
the famous and nowdefunct
American
shoe-polish brand.
Built from strong, lightweight
titanium, this durable chronograph
is a homage to the tough people
who survived the harsh Dust Bowl
era of 1930s America, its name a
reference to the ravaging storms
of this dark era. The timepiece also
comes with a leatherbound book
filled with newspaper clippings
and photos detailing brutal events
of the day. shinola.co.uk
88 THE RED BULLETIN

Equipment
LAND
Trailblazer
TAG Heuer Monaco
Fourth Limited Edition
(1999-2009)
Made famous by Steve McQueen
in the 1971 car-racing movie
Le Mans, the Monaco celebrates
its 50th birthday this year. The
watchmaker has really pulled
out all the stops for this golden
anniversary, creating five
special versions of the iconic
square-shaped timepiece, each
one inspired by a different
decade, starting from 1969.
Behold then, the newly
released fourth instalment of this
chaptered tribute: a handsome
black iteration with arresting
red and orange accents inspired
by the early 2000s.
The stainless steel watch is
presented on a perforated
black calfskin strap that has been
designed to resemble a vintage
steering wheel and is punctuated
with crisp white stitching – a
little detail that watch geeks will
surely appreciate, since they
complement the batons on the
watch face. The caseback is
engraved with the Monaco Heuer
logo as well as the inscriptions
‘1999-2009 Special Edition’ and
‘One of 169’.
Inside the case, the sense
of history is kept alive thanks
to TAG Heuer’s famous Calibre 11,
a modern version of the
automatic-winding chronograph
movement that made its debut
in the original 1969 Monaco.
tagheuer.com
McQueen's Monaco gets a
whopping 15 minutes of screen
time in Le Mans. His Heuerlogoed
racesuit was a copy of
one originally worn by his stunt
driver, real-life racer Jo Siffert.
THE RED BULLETIN 89

SKY
Battle ready
Hamilton Khaki Pilot
Pioneer Mechanical
In a further homage to the
’70s (when its predecessor
the Hamilton W10 was
produced), the black dial is
textured to recall camera or
binocular cases of the time.
You may be surprised to learn
that Hamilton, the famous
American watchmaker, supplied
timepieces to the British Armed
Forces in the 1970s. The most
popular was the Hamilton W10
from 1973, which is today
reborn in the hand-wound Khaki
Pilot Pioneer Mechanical with
80-hour power reserve. The
military redux watch – which
comes with a brown leather or
grey NATO strap – stays faithful
to its forerunner with a curved
tonneau case, faded black dial
with beige accents, and cool
mismatched hands: swordshaped
for hours, pencil-shaped
for minutes. hamiltonwatch.com
90 THE RED BULLETIN

Equipment
MATERIAL GAIN
New kit for peak performance
WEAR
Working class
Filson CCF Work Vest
A lot of rugged workwear is designed to look good; Filson’s gear is built for honest-to-God manual labour – it just looks good
because it’s the real deal. The Seattle-based company’s CCF Workwear range is built for construction workers, loggers and
farmers – folks who aren’t afraid to get their hands and clothes dirty. This vest is made from heavy, tightly woven duck canvas,
triple-stitched and reinforced with rivets at the stress points. filson.com
THE RED BULLETIN 91

Equipment
HOIST
Harnessing
power
Arcade Guide Slim belt
Never underestimate the importance of a good belt: when
engaging in high-impact sports such as skateboarding,
snowboarding and climbing, it can mean the difference
between a great session and a bad spill. Arcade makes
belts reimagined for action sports – they’re water-resistant,
heavy-duty, and designed specifically for snow pants, hiking
and hybrid climbing trousers. Keep your kecks and your
head held high. arcadebelts.eu
GROOM
Immaculate
concepts
Compact toiletries
Stay fresh on the fly.
Shower in a Can
(shower-in-a-can.
co.uk) packs 20 body
washes into a flightfriendly
100ml bottle,
absorbing dirt and
grease in a foam that
requires no towel.
Solid Cologne
(solidcologne.co.uk)
is a wax aftershave
that comes in eight
fragrances and was
conceived by the
Ancient Egyptians
(minus the tin).
The Matador Pocket
Blanket (matadorup.
com) can be carried
on your person
and folds out to seat
up to four people.
HIKE
Wild style
Adidas Terrex Free Hiker GTX
A high-end technical off-road
shoe with style that’s made
for the streets. Featuring an
insanely grippy sole for all
terrains and weather conditions,
an energy-returning insole,
a snug sock-like interior and
abrasion-resistant exterior
reinforcements, this lightweight
boot can take on the toughest
of trails and the slickest of cities.
adidas.co.uk/terrex
92 THE RED BULLETIN

WEAR
Strong look
Saint Unbreakable Stretch Jeans
As a motorcycle clothing brand, Saint
has its priorities right: protection is
uppermost, but, damn, it had better look
good, too. The company’s ‘Unbreakable
Stretch Jeans’ are stitched from the
world’s strongest fibre, Dyneema,
a high-molecular-weight material that’s
500 per cent tougher than regular denim
and 15 times more abrasion resistant than
carbon steel; the military has even used
it to armour helicopters and stop bullets.
Spinning this scientific sorcery into its
denim fabric, Saint has created the world’s
first single-layer bike-wear protection
that’s also stretchy and light, and looks
pretty good on a pair of legs. saint.cc
THE RED BULLETIN 93

Equipment
SPORT
Jersey scores
Nike League of Legends kit
Esports is growing in recognition
as a legitimate sport by the day,
and there’s perhaps no greater
measure of this than the world's
biggest sports brand creating
the kits for one of its major
leagues. The shirts you see here
are Nike x LPL team uniforms
– bespoke jerseys created for
the 16 clubs in China's League
of Legends Pro League. Each
has a chevron motif on the chest
referencing the most common
map in the game: Summoner’s Rift.
But within that chevron and
throughout each shirt are details
specific to each team and their ingame
skins, from dragon scales
on the black-and-gold Royal Never
Give Up kit to the Cyber Formula
thruster patterns on the sleeves of
Edward Gaming’s dark red jersey.
And, just like on a pro football kit,
there’s also a small gold star
above the team badge on Invictus
Gaming’s white shirt, signifying
their victory in 2018’s League of
Legends World Championship.
All the kits will feature in the 2020
LoL season. nike.com
94 THE RED BULLETIN

PROTECT
A bit off
the top
Closca Helmet Loop
If you want to stay protected,
wearing a bike helmet is
just a smart idea, and this
collapsible concept makes
the decision smarter.
Spanish studio Closca’s
Helmet Loop is made from
three concentric components
that fold into each other
in a second, reducing its
size by 45 per cent for easy
stowing. It’s aerodynamic,
light and durable when
expanded, and the gap between
the parts delivers air flow
when riding and dissipates
shock via micro-movements
on impact. But perhaps the
most amazing fact about
this ingenious helmet is
that its design is based on
the architecture of the
Guggenheim Museum in
New York. closca.com
CARRY
Best of
both bags
Dakine Wndr Cinch Pack 21L
Ever imagined what a hybrid of a
backpack and tote bag would look
like? No need, you’re looking at it.
The Wndr Cinch Pack features all
the practical functionality of the
former – including side pockets
and a laptop compartment – with
the top-loading accessibility of
the latter. Next stop: breeding
one that also has the features of
a suitcase. dakine.com
THE RED BULLETIN 95

THE RED
BULLETIN
WORLDWIDE
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Bulletin is
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cover of November’s
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Atlanta rapper/singer
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96 THE RED BULLETIN

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Action highlight
Bron free
Freerider Kilian Bron feels totally at home in the French mountain-bike/ski resort
of La Clusaz. It was here on ‘The Trace’, the trail he helped to create, that Bron
shot the film Follow Me with fellow Frenchman and drone pilot Tomz FPV. Here, the
rider pulls off a beautiful road gap, captured by photographer Dom Daher.
Instagram: @redbullfrance
The next
issue of
THE RED BULLETIN
is out on
November 12
DOM DAHER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
98 THE RED BULLETIN

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