Behind 'The Ender Ender' with Toros El Logos

“Toros El Logos (Thorir Hlynur), where do I start? He is a friend that I wish everyone could have, he is a person that you can trust and count on, and he stands by his words. Me and Toros have been friends for the past 15 years. He came along while we were filming with the Barf Bags crew, and he fit straight into the mayhem. next summer, my dad hooked us up with a job, so Toros and I lived together and became really tight.

We have done so many insane things and got into so much trouble. like when we were at Xgames Aspen, and Toros got us onto the lift without passes by claiming he was competing in Big Air. the cops were waiting for us down at the lift line, and we were busted.

We have always stayed close and in connection, no matter if he or I live in a different country. This winter, after nearly eight years and barely stepping on a snowboard since his full part from RV Juice, he wanted to make a comeback, so we went for it this season, and it was a blast like always. Friends for life.”

- Gunshow

 

A slam is a shot

What’s your actual job? 

Not sure how you would say it in English, but I’m a master painter. I paint houses, interiors and stuff. I have a licence. I finished that licence in 2019 and have been working solo with my own company since then. Getting clients and shit, I love it.

Your RV Juice part is pretty much only slams. Do you also slam a lot outside of snowboarding, like at work?

No. I almost had one once. It could have gone super badly, but it actually went perfectly. I was working in a studio apartment, painting the roof inside. I was on a 5-meter ladder. There were natural tiles on the floor, and they were really greasy. I had a cloth under the ladder so it wouldn’t mark the floor. At one point, the ladder started slipping and fully collapsed to the floor. And I landed on top of the ladder, with the paint still in my hand. All I got was a bruised toe. 

That sounds like something from a cartoon. 

I thought I’d broken my toe for sure, but it was only bruised. That was crazy. So that’s the only thing that’s ever happened at work.

Have you ever had a snowboarding injury that stopped you from working? 

No. I don’t really go into thoughts like that. 

What does go through your head when you’re about to drop in? 

Let’s send this shit. Let’s go. There’s nothing more.

 

“I could finish the rail, but I don't need to get the perfect finish. If I already slammed and it's disgustingly sexy, then it's a make.”

 

How did you first meet Halldór and Gunshow?

I met the guys while they were in the middle of filming the first Barf Bags movie, A2M. Just snowboarding and partying. Then me and Gunshow became really close. We were living together for some time and went filming a bit. Then the next season, we started filming for RV Juice. We went all around Keystone, and we stayed in Big Bear for a month. Me, Gunshow and Akon. We were going heavy at that time, and my full part came out in that movie.

Gunshow: You got a full part from your first season! The only movies we did were A2M and RV Juice. We had a €10k budget to do another one, though.

Where did the budget come from?

Gunshow: Halldór’s casino money! He went full-send one night and won €8k and wanted to use it as the movie budget. He got €500 from Lobster, then the rest from 7/9/13, Hoppipolla and Switchback. 

Toros: We were rewatching RV Juice recently and thinking that it was a masterpiece. 

Gunshow: Looking back, the riding was actually pretty good, but we didn’t own a camera. We just borrowed them from whoever we could. We had no idea. It was before iPhones got good. I didn’t even own an iPhone then. 

 

Toros vs the DIYX Ring of Fire

Toros, what are you aiming for when you strap in, and the camera is rolling? Do you have a plan?

I plan to finish the rail. Either I will or I won’t. 

If you’re not always going for the make, how do you know when to stop riding? 

If it’s a slam and it’s beautiful, then it’s a keeper. If it’s a slam, but it doesn’t look good, then fuck it, I’ll hit it again. 

That’s a genuinely unique approach.

Toros: I could finish the rail, but I don’t need to get the perfect finish. If I already slammed and it’s disgustingly sexy, then it’s a make. 

Gunshow: He usually gets a clip in about five tries. 

Where does this approach to snowboarding come from? 

I was always the last one in the crew at the spot. That didn’t matter, but one guy would get a trick, and I’d say that I wanted to hop on the rail and do a frontboard or something. I wouldn’t make it and thought maybe what I was doing was wack, but then the guys said no, that was actually nice. So I went for that. Wack is nice. 

 

"Everyone can appreciate it if you send it."

 

So you just changed your perspective on what was good and what was bad.

Snowboarding was progressing in such a gnarly way at the time. I thought, why should I try to compete with all of that stuff when I have all of this beauty myself? You watch a videopart, and you see the bails and the makes, and you forget the bails. You forget about them. You see twelve or thirteen tricks in a part, all with smooth landings. Switch frontboard pretzel out, whatever. It’s all so smooth and nice, but what about the real side of it? Frontboard, slipping out, slamming into the rail and opening up your head? Trying to frontlip, and eating shit instead? Why not make that the beauty of snowboarding instead? Snowboarding is fucking gnarly, hardcore trouble all of the time. That’s just my fucking style. I’m just providing a real-life view of snowboarding with no filters. That’s what I’m doing. 

You have literally the complete opposite goal to everyone else out there who’s filming.

It has to be full-send, or it doesn’t count. That’s my type of riding. Even if it’s not a make, make the best out of the footage you’ve got. If you get hurt on the spot, put that clip in the fucking movie. If you get fucking hurt, it fucking counts. 

 

ToroselLogos_Methodmag-2.jpg 1

A slam is a shot. 

That’s my attitude for filming. I could make it through a dfdfd rail or a c-rail or whatever, but if I don’t make it, it’s also going to be a wonderful time. That’s my angle, my speciality. That’s clearly my style. Full send. You want to be a star, but if you’re hitting a gnarly spot, no one is going to fucking argue with that. Fucking appreciate it. Don’t be afraid to send it out there. Everyone can appreciate it if you send it. That’s my flow in snowboarding. If you want to do a fucking gnarly spot and you try it, but you can’t make it, it’s still a fucking make. You tried that shit. That’s your fucking try. 

I back that attitude so much. 

Don’t ever be afraid. Don’t be scared of criticism. Just fucking send it. I got a new board from Halldór this winter too. We were hitting a curved dfd, and I just assumed that the edges were already off, and it was all good to go. I just strapped in and dropped. I got on the rail, and when the first flat came, the board went sideways and just dug in. The edges were razor-sharp. So I went straight in and ate it. It was beautiful.

What’s your favourite type of spot?

Toros: I would say a dfd rail. You just have so many options. 

Gunshow: He 270’d into a rail once. Well, he definitely sent a 270 into the rail. 

Toros: It was a make. 

Gunshow: It was a bail.

Toros: I thought I had that? Wasn’t the rail on fire as well? 

Gunshow: You definitely got a clip.

 

“I must have a god of some kind watching over me.”

 

Where does your name actually come from? 

My full name is Thorir. There’s no way to pronounce it if you’re not Icelandic, and it’s kind of hard to remember. We figured out that Torgeir is kind of the Scandinavian version, then we kind of flipped that and did a Spanish version and ended up with Toros. Toro is a bull, and loco means crazy. So, the crazy bull. [ed, guess they didn’t check the spelling and went with ‘logos’ instead of ‘locos’]. When I would tell people my Icelandic name, they wouldn’t get it, and this version just worked everywhere. So Toros stuck now. 

Do many people know you as Toros? 

The Icelanders know my full name. But in the States or anywhere else they know the Barf Bags, they know me as Toros. 

Are they the same person, or does Toros have a different personality from Thorir? 

They are two different people.

 

 

Who came up with the Barf Bags name?

Gunshow: We knew we were going to name the movie Ass 2 Mouth, but we wanted to make it proper. We wanted to have the movie ‘presented by…’ something. So one of our friends suggested Barf Bags. ‘Ass 2 Mouth, presented by Barf Bags’.

*laughs* That’s definitely way more proper than just calling it Ass 2 Mouth. So Toros, tell me about your ender part.

Halldór approached me and told me that the effort I was putting into my snowboarding comeback was enormous and that the Lobster crew wanted me to do the ender. I wasn’t sure what he meant, though. He told me he loved what I did eight years ago for the RV Juice part, and for my comeback, they want me in the ender ender. He said it was the end of the end of the end. One or two minutes extra at the end of the credits. I always told Gunshow I would film another part one day. After RV juice, we had so many dropouts from the Barf Bags. Everyone got caught up in life and family business, and I told him that sometime, somewhere, I still wanted to film another ender. I was still in the red-light zone, no fucks given. I wanted to send it. But time goes by. Eight years passed, and I have an almost three-year-old child, but now I’m back on a board again.

 

Full commit

 

Why did you start riding again?

The winter hit me so fucking hard. My car only had summer tires, and for the past four years, I could use these tires all year because the snow has been so bad in Reykjavík. Then on December 21st, the snow hit so hard. I couldn’t move my car. It was stuck. So I bought new tyres, and it was on. There hasn’t been this much snow here in about 12 years. The spots just started knocking. I would see them driving to work, they were all covered in snow, and I wanted to hit them. Then Gunshow called and said he was coming back to Iceland, and he wanted to film and do some shit. Fuck it, I’m down to film some fucking gnarly street rails. Then he asked me if I wanted to go for The Ender. He said it. He knew. I said yeah, this is the time. I’m ready to go. 

And so it’s been on since then? 

Yeah. We met Siffi on a spot, a long downrail. I went on it, did a boardslide with a swivel to a perfect out. Halldór heard about it, was pumped to go with us the next day to another rail. He hasn’t really been riding street since 2019. I wanted to frontboard it all the way. He didn’t want to ride it himself, but he was pumped to help make it happen. In the end, he got so hyped by me that he wanted to ride it too. He did a BS 5050 on the ledge next to the rail and gapped to frontboard. So I got him fired up for this filming fest that we’ve been in ever since. I was pumped, and I pumped him up, and he’s been sending it since. My love goes to him. 

Watching you ride, I can really see how your energy pumps people  up.

Things get rough when you have a child, but I’m feeling the same hype that he does. When the child grows past two years old and has the motivation to tell you stuff, no or yes, you can feel that they have a sense of emotion, and you can do your own shit again. We feel the same momentum. My daughter is four months older than his. They chill and play together. They reached a point when you know you can say fuck it, let’s send it. We both feel it. We can send it again.

Did you plan to have kids? Has it been much of a change of lifestyle for you?

A bit of a shock, but kind of planned, yes. But Toros el Logos kind of died when the fullpart came out. He relied on the crew, and the crew grew apart and went in separate directions and to other countries. It was hard to get them together and filming again. I landed in the Barf Bags in the middle of the filming of A2M and RV Juice, and after that, we separated. Family, life, business, study, whatever. We still want to send it, but no one as hard as me. That’s the fucking deal. 

 

You gotta pay to play

Now a lot of the crew aren’t partying anymore, have you just focussed on shredding this winter instead of partying?

For sure. Gunshow is my main fire point for that. He’s my spark, my guidance, my key, my pusher in everything. I love him and Halldór and the motivation they give. Gunshow pushes me to the edge every time. He would ask me, ‘Bro, are you sure you want to do this?’. And I would say, if you’re not sure, then I’m fucking sure. Let’s go! If he says it’s gnarly, then I know it’s on. Thank you bro, but I’m hitting it. I got this. He’s my angel and devil at the same time. 

Have you ever had any serious injuries from snowboarding?

I’ve never even broken a bone, ever. It’s crazy. I must have a god of some kind watching over me. I don’t really know why I’m hitting handrails. I have my own business, and it’s stupid as fuck. I’d not been snowboarding for such a long time, and when the winter came so hard this year, I felt a spark up my spine. I. Wanna. Fucking. Go. I felt it like a kick. I want to hit fucking handrails. In the back of my head, I know I have a business, a child and a family to support. The angel and the devil were fighting in the back of my head, but I’m a rider for life.