Last year, skate legend Tony Hawk acquired a skateboard that was hand-painted in 1985 by late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who adorned the deck with the artwork from the Iron Maiden album Killers.
Hawk then went through the process of authenticating the “unicorn” skateboard — a SIMS Jeff Phillips model — working with the deck’s prior owner Cameron Ross and Birdhouse Skateboard’s Derek Richardson to properly understand the origins of the deck.
As Ross explained in a new video posted to Hawk’s social pages, when he was in junior high school, he gave Cobain $20 and a “chunk of weed” to paint the Iron Maiden artwork on the skate deck. Kurt’s sister Kim also appears in the new video clip.
With that taken care of, Hawk and Birdhouse have just released replicas of the deck, as well as prints and stickers of the design, with proceeds going toward raising awareness for mental health and toward building skate parks. Extremely limited quantities of “photorealistic” replicas went on sale Monday (February 20th) on what would have been Cobain’s 56th birthday.
In an Instagram post, Hawk also mentioned that he was inspired by Kurt’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, to replicate the deck for charity:
“In order to better understand the provenance of this ‘unicorn’ skateboard that I acquired last year, I went to Seattle to get the story directly from Cameron Ross (the original owner). With inspiration from @thespacewitch [Frances Bean Cobain] and the help of @dupedupe, we are offering a photorealistic version of this deck in the form of actual skateboards, prints and stickers. We kept it real with the original Phillips shape and OG truck-holes, and added KC & JP signatures on the top graphic. All proceeds from these sales will be equally split between the Jed Foundation and The Skatepark Project in order to provide resources for those struggling with mental health, and to create more public skateparks in underserved areas. Kurt and Jeff’s influences still resonate greatly in our worlds, so we hope to honor their legacies with these unique items.”
See Hawk visit Cameron Ross and Kim Cobain in the video clip below. To purchase one of the decks ($420) and various prints/stickers, visit Tony Hawk’s online shop.
