Backlip ❄️ | Feb '26 | Boston, Ma
Photos: Eric Danescu
INtro
We first met Frankie Nash in 2009 during the toebock IN Boston house, and ever since, we have been huge fans. He was the main dude who showed us around and took us to all the spots, and not long after meeting him, it felt like we had known him for years. That month was the first and last time we saw Frankie, but now, over 15 years later, his energy, skating, and creativity still remain very much alive in our hearts.
Frankie is prolific in everything he touches. Since he blasted onto the Boston scene 20 years ago, he has created rooms of paintings, designed several skateboards, filmed at least 8 full parts, and still skates every day, in shine or snow. He is an underground force in skateboarding, especially on the East Coast. So, join us as we sit down with one of Boston's most renowned relics to chat about growing up skating in Mass, his art career, his recent battle with health, how he overcame that battle, and what the future looks like for Frankie Nash. For us, this overdue chat has been an honor for sure.
From Sharon to Boston
When most of us think of Frankie Nash, we immediately think of Boston. However, his legacy actually started just outside of the city, about 30-45 minutes south in the small suburban town of Sharon. This is where the 11-year-old Frankie would get his first board, a Nash “toy storyboard,” as he calls it, that he got because it had his last name on it.
“In my freshman year of high school,” Frankie explains, “I ended up moving to Scituate, MA. When it came time to go to college, I didn't want to go anywhere else but Boston. I had been coming to the city to skate, and I loved it here.”
"I came here for school and then just never left.”
Orchard Stone Soup Full Part (2014)
The Orchard Family
One of the most prominent qualities we think of when we think of Frankie is loyalty. He is loyal to everything and everyone he loves, and nothing speaks more volumes about this than his relationship with Orchard Skateshop, a shop that we, too, hold close to our hearts. We knew that this wouldn’t be a Frankie Nash interview without talking about Orchard. And considering that 2026 marks the 15-year anniversary of his being sponsored by Orchard, there’s just no way we could not delve into the subject.
”So, I was going to Mass Art and would skate around the city, going to spots like Copley and downtown, like Aquarium. I lived in a part of the city called Mission Hill. I started going to school in 2005, and Orchard opened up in 2006, and they were on Mission Hill. So, they were right down the street from where I lived.”
It would not be long before Nash became a regular at Orchard, where he started filming with Chris Fiftal and Elliot Vecchia. Eventually, after going out with Chris and Elliot more and more, Frankie would lock down his first full part.
“So, their first video was Dirty Water. That was my first real part. I mean, if you want to go back, I was filming little hometown videos back when I was like 14 years old. But Dirty Water was my first, like, legit living in the city part. Chris and Elliot made another video after that, which was Sea Level. After my part in that video dropped, I got on Orchard.”
Since he has been riding for Orchard, he has not just put out several parts (including one of our personal favorites, his part in Stone Soup), but he has also collaborated with them on countless other endeavors, including art shows and designing graphics for shop decks and clothing releases. Which takes us to the next chapter of this story.
Frankie Nash the Artist
Those who know Frankie know that he is just as passionate about painting and graphic design as he is about skating. When he isn’t skating, you can catch him painting, designing graphics for boards and clothing brands, or bringing home bread as a UX designer. He’s also done design for several big brands, including Nas’s clothing company, Karmaloop. Although his art career looks much differently than he had imagined it when he graduated, he is stoked to be in the industry he is in today.
“You know, back when I graduated, the job that I have now wasn't a thing because web and app design wasn't a job back then. So, when I went to school, it was all for print design. I wanted to design skateboards and work for skateboard magazines.”
Nash may not have landed a full-time gig designing skateboards, but that didn’t stop him from designing a few anyway. Outside of the Toebock collab he did with Port Orchard’s Unity Skateshop back in August 2017, he has also done graphics for Orchard and Jimmy Lake’s company, Corner Store.
Check out full portfolio
During the entire duration of this conversation, Frankie was painting, putting in work for a huge collection he is currently in the midst of creating.
“I have been painting a lot,” he tells us as he sets down his paintbrush. “I started working on a series of paintings back over the summer, and I have almost 40 paintings now. And it keeps growing and growing because it's getting to be winter now.”
Nash holds up the wooden canvas he is working on, studies it, sighs, and then sets it back down on the table. “I'm trying to do them all in pairs... basically, same size, same shape, and same background on each. So each one is like a pair of paintings. I'm just trying to put together a collection. I don't really know where I'm going to show them. Maybe at Orchard at some point, maybe somewhere else. It’s kind of, like, to be determined.”
From Crutches to Crushing It
In 2021, near tragedy struck Frankie, as he developed a super painful and super serious condition. At one point, he was told that he would likely never skate again. Then the condition got so bad that he couldn’t get around without the use of crutches.
“I slowed down on skating quite a bit once 2020 came around and was basically stuck inside all the time. Started drinking way too much. I started getting these, like, crazy...” He pauses to gather his thoughts.
“It almost felt like I rolled my ankle or broke it. But I didn't get hurt. So, I went to the doctors, and they did X-rays or whatever. It ended up being a two-month ordeal of going to doctors and doing MRIs, CAT scans, blood work, and all this shit. Finally, they were like: ‘Oh, you have gout.’”
""they were like: ‘Oh, you have gout.’”
Alleyoop Wallride | Boston, Ma | photo: Eric Danescu
Even the doctors were puzzled as to how this could have happened to someone at such a young age. One culprit of gout is excessive consumption of red meat, but Frankie has been a vegetarian since 2017, so that went out the window. The pain and confusion of this diagnosis plunged Nash into long bouts of drinking, which is the other major cause of gout. But, like so many of us, booze was the only way he knew how to cope with his deepening depression.
“I basically just kept drinking. I actually probably started drinking even more. It kind of went away at first, and then it came back, like, really bad. It got to the point that I couldn't walk. I had to start using crutches, or I’d have to wear a boot.” Nash pauses for a minute or two, the painful memory stuck in his stare.
“It was fucking so painful. The only thing I can ever compare it to is tooth pain. It's like that.” He sighs. “But way worse. My ankles would swell up. My whole entire leg would swell up. It was insane. The most excruciating pain.”
It would not take long for Frankie to fall into a new kind of low. But he was faced with a decision to either stop drinking or complete hopelessness of ever getting better. So he quit drinking. Shortly after, he was put on medication, which helped, but it presented side effects.
“Over a year ago, I was like, ‘I'm not gonna take this medication anymore. I'm gonna just try and do this the natural way.’ I didn't even tell my doctor that I stopped taking the medication. I went a whole year just doing my own thing, being super healthy and being active. It eventually got to a point when I didn't have a flare-up at all.” Frankie smirks, a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
“I went and saw them about a month ago, and they're like, ‘Yeah, well, you don't need the medication anymore. You're good.’”
It’s been over two and a half years since Frankie had his last drink. Like many of us, drinking was not just a bad habit, but a way of life. He had started drinking at age 13, so, he had spent the majority of his life with alcohol being the norm. He also recently quit smoking weed; another day-to-day essential. In a super short period of time, Frankie knocked out two constant staples in his daily life, and today, he is healthy, happy, and skating more than ever.
“Sobriety was tough at first,” he assures, “but I mean, the more I started doing it, and the more I saw the positive benefits from it, it got way easier.
Shine or Snow
Since Frankie’s health has taken an upturn, he hasn’t skipped a beat. It's hard to not think of the unofficial post office motto: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...” Sure, when the weather is steezy, you can definitely find him gettin’ it on the daily. But what happens when those warm Summer days turn to the brutal Boston winters?
For the past few years, Frankie has been snow-skating. He was first inspired by one of the Sour dudes, Simon Isaksson, who was also putting out clips of skating snow-built DIYs. As he does with anything that meets his interest, Nash immersed himself in this winter-stoked approach.
“I looked into interviews and how these dudes were doing it. That’s kind of how I figured out how to make it work.”
Snow-skating entails an entirely different approach, with specialized setups and DIY spots built from natural elements at hand. Ditching the cement bags means less wrecked backs, but snow-based DIYs definitely require a whole new level of patience. Recently, a clip of Frankie doing a back lip on a little snow quarter went viral. We, like many folks out there, were stoked on the clip. But we never could have guessed what went into getting it.
“That was something I did last winter,” Nash explains. “It probably took a month for me to get that clip. Trying to build it to the point where I could actually skate it was a lot, having to pack down the snow, come back, and pour water on it to ice it over. And it had to be a certain temperature where it was below 20 degrees for a couple of days in a row. I tried it a bunch of times, when I would go there and just run into it or destroy it trying to skate it.” Frankie pauses and chuckles to himself. “Somehow, it finally worked out,” he says, grinning.
When Frankie did get the clip, he incorporated it into a “weird edit,” as he puts it. He figured no one would see it or give a shit. And he was right. The original IG edit didn’t get much love. But when Nike’s "A Mid Summer" dropped in 2025, Frankie found inspiration in Isaksson’s fifty down that double set rail in the snow and figured he’d repost the back lip as a solo clip.
“I was like, ‘I'm just gonna repost that clip on its own, and I put a couple of the bales in there.’ All of a sudden, it started fucking blowing up. It's still getting lots of likes and views.”
When it comes to snow-DIY skating, it’s not just about the dedication, patience, and numb fingertips that go into building these things. One must face the challenge of dialing in the right setup, too, with a special foam grip tape that has to be cut to fit and proper cruiser wheels correct for the job. Honestly, to us, the whole thing sounds exhausting. But Frankie seems to dig it.
“Yeah. It's interesting. I definitely want to try and do more of it this winter. It's just, like, a lot of work.” He laughs.
Switch Nosegrind | Bostoin, Ma | photo: Eric Danescu
The Future & Frankie Nash
It’s no secret that Frankie is super motivated to keep skating, filming, and constantly putting new stuff out there. He’s got one full part coming out soon, a curb video backed by Orchard, for which he’ll also be contributing graphics. When he isn’t building snow DIYs and posting IG edits, you can catch him filming for another VX project with Sean Macmillan. He also just recently had a photo ran in the Skate Jawn 2025 Photo Album.
Our relationship with Frankie crosses both worlds, touching down in both Toebock and Firexside families. He has been getting FIREXSIDE flow for quite some time now, and there is talk circulating about a potential Frankie Nash graphic collab in the works.
“I’m definitely open to doing something,” he says, “It's just a matter of when.”
As we closed the curtains on our conversation with Frankie Nash, one word remained center stage: prolific. Between a full-time relationship, constantly staying on top of his health, painting collections, putting together art shows, doing graphics for boards, garments, or videos, and living that 9 to 5 life as a UX designer, it’s hard to imagine that this dude has any time for skating at all. But who are we kidding?
This is Frankie Nash we’re talking about.
About Travis Knight - Travis is an American author who has spent most of his life immersed in reading and writing stories. As a teenager, he started writing poetry and skateboard blogs while traveling across the US. Later in his adulthood, he began publishing stories through toebock.com and through his own literary collection, knight-writes.com. He has written two books of poetry: "PorchSide Poems" and "character."
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