A lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes in snowboarding, and Dan MacNamara has been an active force in our industry for a long time. Dan Mac was the go-to-guy for sales at Forum and the rest of the Fourstar brands (Special Blend, Foursquare & Jeenyus back before The Program) from the start, right up through the Forum 8 era and beyond. Recently Dan teamed up with his friend Christian Didrichsen and together they started their own 100% carbon neutral outerwear brand, Bond (which we will profile in an upcoming issue of METHOD Mag this upcoming season). Not content with being at the forefront of planet-friendly outerwear design, messieurs MacNamara and Didrichsen decided to create their own line of decks with its own particular idiosyncrasy: Weekend Snowboards. Are you curious yet? Read on to see what Weekend is all about!
Howdy guys, we talked about Bond back at ISPO and a little bit about Weekend Snowboards, what's the deal on this brand? I remember you mentioned something about a small amount of boards being produced for the 09/10 season, what's the reason behind that decision?
We only produced 450 boards total, across 3 sizes, and they are all hand-numbered, so once they’re gone, they’re gone. One of the philosophies behind Weekend is that snowboards should be coveted rather than commodities. The limited amount of boards makes them a bit more exclusive and sought after, so if a kid gets one, chances are, not a lot of other kids at the mountain will have the same board.
Are you planning to expand the production of Weekend to more than the limited run of boards or will it stay super-exclusive?
We will be adding other models, but the plan is to still keep the boards pretty limited.
Obviously, the older shredders among us know about T&C surf designs Thrilla Gorilla, why did you pick Steve Nazar to design the graphics?
We’re big fans of his artwork for T&C, so when we were coming up with ideas for the graphics his name came up and we decided to give him a call on a whim. As it turns out, he had always wanted to do a snowboard graphic and was excited to work with us. We gave him the general concept of what we wanted, and just let him run with it. We couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out.
And you're starting out with a killer team rider Mark Carter, will he also be on the Bond team and what do you expect of him in terms of a member of the Weekend gang?
Yeah, Mark is a great snowboarder and a perfect fit for Weekend. Without sounding too cliché, Mark is a snowboarder’s snowboarder, meaning that he snowboards because he loves it, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for in a team rider. Someone who is motivated and enjoys themselves on their snowboard, and rides a snowboard first and foremost for the fun and love of it. At the moment he is only on Weekend, but you never know what might happen in the future.
Apart from your outerwear project (Bond), is there anything eco-friendly about the boards or did you create the brand with a whole new & different idea behind it?
Well, the main idea behind Weekend was to create mainly a fun-driven snowboard brand, without sacrificing quality. For us it is an outlet to get creative and develop ideas and turn them into reality and mainly have fun with it, which is what snowboarding is all about, right? The snowboards aren’t 100% eco-friendly, but all of the materials used to make the boards are produced or harvested locally near the factory in Austria.
Alright, well Weekend sounds like an awesome project, good luck with everything and thanks for the interview Dan!
Check out the Weekend Snowboards site here.
Check out The Bluebird Show #3 with Mark Carter here.
Interview by Edgar Lanting
Photos by Edgar Lanting & Dan Macnamara