Chuck Treece applies a punk rock mentality to everything he does, from his illustrious career as a pioneering, Black pro-skater, to playing bass and drums with seminal hardcore pioneers Bad Brains, and forming his own skate rock group, McRad.
1984, USA. VANESSA WILLIAMS BECAME the first African American crowned Miss America. Michael Jackson was the first solo artist to win eight Grammy’s in one night. And Chuck Treece, already the first Black skater from Philly to be sponsored, toasted his birthday month that year by becoming the first African American skateboarder on the cover of Thrasher Magazine. At the same time, his skate rock group McRad dropped their debut EP, Dominant Force — containing some of the most anthemic skate music ever written.
Fast forward to the present, and when we speak, one month away from Chuck’s 65th, he’s in his hotel room, on tour with Philly rockers G Love and fresh from an evening skate. It’s 3am in London and 8pm in Miami, but behind crystalline eyes, Chuck radiates an energy that transcends the late-night Zoom ultraviolets.
“You find energy when you use your body for the right things and do what you love to do,” he beams. “If my energy is running low five minutes before I get on stage and play, or even tonight when I went to skate, as soon as I put the board down or the music kicks in, it feels electric.”
Born in Newark, Delaware, on May 30, 1964, Chuck was raised on a diet of rhythm & blues, rock and roll, jazz and Parliament Funk, among other Black sounds. “I started banging on pots and pans at the age of two. At six, I had a drum kit. My father had a. My dad took me to the side and said, ‘Chuck, you need to sit in tonight on two songs. You’ll get a drum solo’.
