Scroll Call: An End of Season Chat With Zeb Powell
Zeb Powell has always done things his own way.
From redefining style in contests to making community his priority, he’s constantly pushing snowboarding into new territory and having the most fun while doing it.
We hit up Zeb to hear what’s been cooking up — the spots, the gear, the mindset, and what’s next. From sending it on-hill to putting in work off it, Zeb’s got plenty to say. Whether he’s dropping into a stacked contest or building up his community, he’s doing it all with style that can’t be copied and a vision that keeps things real. Let’s get into it.
You always start your season in Trollhaugen, what makes it such a good place to kick off winter?
Well, just repetition rope tow. You can just get as many laps as you want, that place stays open until 12 at night, so you can lap into the night. It's a good time for all the homies to get together before the season starts and just kind of get a little vibe going and get our feet under us. Just start doing tricks, do every trick in the book on every rail in the book. It’s probably the most consistent time in my snowboard season as well, there's no obligations, there's no shots to get, no Team Managers. I don’t get any of that going forward.
You hit up a bunch of snow domes this year. Which one stood out?
I went to that massive snowdome in China, and then Jesse’s Slide in Tour in The Netherlands, that was sick. But China was the most memorable, we had a big crew go out there and Mark McMorris was like ‘by the way this place is huge, youre not gonna believe it when you see it’ and it was like incomprehensible how big this place was, it doesnt even look real. There was a gondola going into the top floor of the hotel—not the base—the actual top. Then you walk inside and it’s like the North Pole. Gondolas, five chair lifts, a train that goes up the mountain, escalators, a huge play zone, and even a full-on waterpark, we were like wtf is going on!? There was no features to hit, but it was a mad fun vibe.
How was Redbull Heavy Metal in Boston? You’ve been involved for a while…
Yeah, I've been part of the last few ones because it’s one of my events for the season that I like to do via Red Bull. I'm down with the streets, down with that type of boarding and the energy that comes with it. So I've always been supporting it and I think the people I like to hang around, we're all kind of with it. Stoked RedBull thought to bring it to Boston, and since that's my region, they were like, yeah, we’ll have you be the homie for this one. I was just excited to do it, I helped kind of look for the zones or scoped the spots out.
I’m not sure we've seen a crowd that big for a city event before..
Dude. It was crazy. I think the craziest part was that the practice crowd that came out, that's kind of what I thought it was going to be. We're talking probably enough to line the front lines, a little snowboard crowd. Completely wrong! They lined the whole courtyard and around and then some, the whole city came to a stop for this event. They had to block off the roads. There was people on parking garages four blocks away, and the energy was insane. I just remember it was literally a sea of people and I had to have people help me get to back to the event space and jump the fence. And I remember it was to the point where I could just raise a hand and the whole crowd would roar and I was like, this is some shit I have never seen before. That event as a whole was just so, so sick and I think definitely one of the greatest things that's happened to snowboarding in the last decade.
How do you feel after an event like that?
I think it's just exciting. People are excited about snowboarding again and it's just inspiring and just pushes me to want to do more of that. It's like, I know we can do that again. So let's figure out the formula for it, keep going with it. Snowboarding should be that fun and we should have that many people wanting to come out and hang and watch because the shit's dope.
Your Super Ultra Blossom came out with Burton a few weeks after that, how did that go down and what did the process mean to you?
So we do a Riders Summit every year at Burton and we have the whole snowboard team come out and get the creative juices flowing. But we do these product contests and it felt kinda crazy pitching my own board. But Niels (Schack)was like ‘yo, lets do your board’ and the design teams were like oh my god, we should do that and I was like holy shit, this might be happening. So yeah, we went to work and figured out what we wanted to do with this board.
For the design I already had a mood board like I have for everything, I wanted to do an MF Doom style board just because my creative, if you like, it's definitely not conventional, but somehow works really, really well and people jive with it, I want to do interactive board, so to have a board where you could put the mask on and get the power was sick, but we ended up never being able to get the reins to do it.
We swiveled and landed where we are now, I explained that board isca, I think it just matches my power and that's why I can ride it. You can only pull out ACA if it's it's meant for you. So the idea was make it the sword board and pretty much just give the power to the people. It's like everyone can have this power and everyone can ride this board. So the graphic is me in the mountains and I see the sword and I am drawn to it and then I pick it up and I get the power and then I put it on my feet and ride it down the mountain. So that's the creative behind it and I was just so excited to see it come out.
What's it been like to see clips of people riding it?
Dude, it's been sick. I think people are so excited about it, whether they could ride it or not, that they give it the time of day and learn how to ride it and I think that's the thing. I think if you're willing to invite that chaos, you can harness it and make it work. I saw an insane clip from Yawgoo Valley, he has a front board on that classic triple barrel rail and lands and there's someone in the landing and it's such a long board, it's hard to turn, he fully should have just swiped this homie, but instead he somehow crab walks over him fully with the big board nose and fully jumps over him and it's so sick.
What stood out to you about this year’s Culture Shifters?
Culture Shifters was great. In the past, it always felt like a one-off — something cool in the moment. But this year felt different. There was a shift. People were recognizing each other, building real connections that went beyond the event itself.
Which Is what we want to build, a community to thrive on its own and of course it's amazing to do with Burton, but I think it's bigger than just doing the event. It's curating and giving space to this energy that knowing you have a space to feel welcomed and everyone's welcome and it builds this energy to take with you when you leave.
There's a Culture Shifters movie coming out right?
Yeah, it's a movie created by Malik the Martian. He’s a rock climber from Memphis. He's just got this vision for creating movies and celebrating blackness and to have him come in and be able to build with it has been amazing. It was so fun to watch with everybody this year and I think it just really helps celebrate and solidify the energy that we bring to the mountain because it's definitely different, but different is good. I'm excited to see it build and see people jive with it.
How did you wrap up the season this year?
Right before the season ended, we did a Pop Out event something my friend Alex and I started. It’s our own thing where we show up at a mountain, let them know we’re there, and just invite anyone to come ride and hang. We did one at Blue Mountain, and even though the weather was terrible, foggy and rainy but so many people still showed up.
It was also A Day For Jake, so we flew the flag insane and so much fun. We did another one in North Carolina, and I definitely want to keep those going. After that, we wrapped things up in Norway for a little project that’s about to drop.
What's next for Zeb?
I’ve been filming in the backcountry the past two years, just learning how to ride powder — which, for the record, is way harder than it looks, even though it’s the softest thing out there. That project’s coming out soon with Burton.
Other than that, more Pop Out events with Alex Cacc — we’re hyped to grow that and keep bringing people together to snowboard and just have fun. I’m also trying to get my YouTube more dialed, make it cleaner, more consistent. And maybe... some clothes? We’ll see…
