It’s Thursday night at the El Rey Theater in central Los Angeles and Tony Hawk is on-stage, addressing a crowd of baggy jeansed, plaid shirted teenagers while veteran Cali-punks the Adolescents wait in the wings. A huge queue snakes its way toward the back of the art-deco venue because iconic graffiti artist Neck Face is tagging clothes for free – and outside, on the red carpet, Jackass daredevil Bam Margera poses for pictures with fans.
No, you have not stepped through a portal to an early noughties skate-punk paradise. This is May 2025 – and NME is at THPS Fest, a live-streamed, one-day music event celebrating the release of new video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4.
“It’s been one of the honours of my life to have my name associated with these games,” says Hawk, to whoops and whistles from the audience. “I honestly cannot believe how much reverence people have for them – and how they brought skateboarding into a different realm of recognition.”
If you didn’t know, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is perhaps the most pop culturally influential game franchise of the 21st century. As well as selling 11million copies across four launch titles from 1999 to 2002, the series’ boxy, boardsliding avatars helped to make skating mainstream. Its innovative trick system set a new standard for sports game design and, most importantly of all, the soundtracks – stuffed with alternative rock, ska and hip-hop bangers from the likes of Rage Against The Machine, Goldfinger and Public Enemy – inspired a generation of millennial outsiders to form bands and get into music.
Sadly, it wasn’t to last, with sales and youth skater numbers nosediving dramatically as the decade waned. But recently, the outlook has improved. In the US, the average age of a skater dropped to 14 (16 in the UK). The value of the skateboarding market is rapidly exploding – and on social media, #SkateTok boasts nearly 50billion views. What’s more, girls are hitting the skatepark too. Female participation grew 25 per cent in the last five years, and among teenagers, every parent’s least favourite pastime currently ranks as the seventh most popular sport. So what’s inspired Gen Z to grab a deck and hit the half-pipe?
“I used to watch my older cousins play Pro Skater 1 and 2,” says singer-songwriter Ashaine White, who was only a small child in the early noughties but remembers “taking in the music and loving being in the room.” White grew up in London and comes from a “working class Black-Caribbean” background. Without the Tony Hawk’s games, she says, “I probably wouldn’t have had access to those types of alt-rock and nu-metal bands, which has then helped me to create music that feels more authentic to myself.”
Another reason young women, like White, have felt able to embrace the scene is its fashion. “I think a lot of girls are opting out of ‘the male gaze’ at the moment,” she explains, referring to the default way society portrays women as objects of male pleasure or desire. “They don’t want everything to be on show all the time [or their clothes] to be tight or uncomfortable. Artists like Billie Eilish, and I like to think myself, are expressing ourselves in clothes that are comfy… the jorts, the baggy jeans, the skate shoes.”
She adds: “When you skate, you need to be able to move, you need to be able to do your tricks… What Tony Hawk’s and skater style gives you, really, is freedom.”
Seeking to take advantage of this gnarliest of renaissances are Activision, the West Coast-based developers behind every THPS instalment. In 2020, they released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, a current-gen remake that combined the first two hits into one cost-effective bundle. They gambled that the perfect time to kickflip a fading classic into its next trick is as a new generation discover it. They were right. The remaster sold a whopping one million units in its first 10 days on shelves, becoming the fastest selling entry yet.
Naturally, the soundtrack was a huge part of that success (17,000 saves on Spotify), including 22 legacy songs from the originals (The Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion and more) alongside 37 additions. These curated tracks incorporated genres previously unknown to the games, namely grime and modern trap. More importantly, the inducted artists – Skepta, Alex Lahey, Machine Gun Kelly and Viagra Boys, to name a few – all strongly embodied the individualist, risk-taking creativity of the community.
“It all goes back to making sure we’re capturing current skate culture,” says design manager Mike Rossi, who helped shape the upcoming sequel, Pro Skater 3 + 4. “You look at the ‘80s and early ‘90s, [skaters were listening to] a lot more punk, then hip-hop… now there’s more genre-bending stuff in there. It’s much broader. It’s awesome that we don’t have to be as conscious about only including certain types of music.”
This evolved approach – obvious to anyone at THPS Fest during chart-bothering rapper Lupe Fiasco’s headline performance – is backed by a band of professional street shredders who were still in nappies when the series debuted. “Generations have different taste in music,” says 26-year-old Filipino pro Margielyn Didal, while cult hero Andy Anderson, 29, says you can hear an eclectic variety of sounds “at any skateboard event ever”. Both Didal and Anderson are playable characters in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 – and were invited to suggest tunes for the soundtrack.
“Everybody’s just super excited to be a part of this, right?” says game director Kurt Tillmans. Under his stewardship, 32 newbies (or groms, to use the correct skater lingo) made their inaugural appearance on a Tony Hawk’s soundtrack. It’s the longest playlist in franchise history. And while the days of asking bands to join for free are gone (thanks, streaming), Tillmans describes an easy negotiation process because Gen Z artists such as KennyHoopla, Steve Lacy, Strawberry Fuzz and others still see their selection as a worthy stamp of approval. “It’s like being a guest star on The Simpsons,” says Tillmans. “It’s a sign of coolness.”
After suffering through the 2010s, when skateboarding seemed destined to endure a permanent plummeting in popularity, no one involved with the sport can quite believe their luck. When you think about it, the resurgence of the music, style, hobbies and creative ideals of a single subculture all at the same time is kind of unprecedented. Sure, the clumpy trainers and pop-punk of Y2K are definitely back in vogue, but no one is firing up slow-social platform MySpace in place of Instagram. And yes, Jenna Ortega’s Siouxsie Sioux-inspired Wednesday dance kickstarted a fresh obsession with all things goth, though the clubbing ethos of that era has done little to inspire Gen Z to campaign against the never-ending venue closures currently ravaging our nightlife. That every aspect of the skate lifestyle has returned simultaneously is surprising.
Back on-stage at the El Rey, Tony Hawk seems to know this – and he isn’t taking it for granted. “I’m super proud,” he says, grinning. “And the idea that we have so many of the legends of the game, old and new, with us here tonight. I feel like this is a celebration not just of the game and the franchise but of skate culture in general… So enjoy, everybody – and thanks again for coming. I’d usually tell you to do a flip, but you can just hit left-square.”
‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4’ is released on July 11 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S