Be sure to check out Keith Hufnagel's new interview on the Acclaim site. In this interview Hufnagel discusses skating for Real Skateboards for over twenty years, going against the grain, and the future opening of the new HUF store in Los Angeles.

Well HUF started its life as a retail store. You were doing really well as a professional skateboarder, so why did you decide to branch out and open up a shop?

I think I was a little bit bored. I was doing the same thing every single day. All I did was skate, try to find new tricks and try to do all these things. It wasn’t that skating wasn’t fun or interesting anymore, but I just needed a new challenge in my life. I was living in LA and my best friend passed away so I was like, “Let’s just get the hell out of this place,” and I moved to San Francisco. Travelling I would see all these things: I saw Supreme start, I was riding for Stussy and I saw all the culture in New York and LA, Tokyo, Osaka and I thought I should try carry these brands and start something. And that’s where the roots came from: skateboarding and streetwear mixing together.

Yeah, because HUF was never exclusively a skate shop or a skate brand. Why was it important for you to not restrict yourself to just skateboarding?

You don’t want to just be one thing. I am more than that personally. Yeah, I skateboard, but I’m into streetwear, I love music, I love art… I love the culture. And that’s what HUF is all about – everything in that circle. Yes, skateboarding is our core, and we support it, but we also love everything that goes beyond it.