Team USA freestyle skier Alex Hall is one of few athletes to split his time between filming for his next video part while pursuing a competitive career. His skillset on skis has certainly paid off, as he took first place in the 2020 Dew Tour streetstyle as well as finished second in slopestyle at Copper Mountain. More recently, Alex released his latest video project, MAGMA II where his creativity has taken center stage, all while pushing his limits, all in the name of having fun. We reached out to Alex to find out what’s been keeping him busy, learn a few of his favorite ski videos, and learn about his custom music playlist all in our latest On Rotation interview.
You just landed in Europe, right?
We got in last afternoon, and today we skied a little bit at a resort. We got practice this evening in a couple of hours.
What competition is it?
It’s a big air event (FIS Big Air World Cup – Kreischberg, Austria). They got lights on, so it’s lit up.
To get right into it, what’s some of your current favorite music to listen to?
I’m all over the place when it comes to my music choice. I really don’t have a specific genre. I’d say one of my favorite artists right now is Lauryn Hill.
Honestly, I listen to whatever sounds good to me. A lot of the new wave kind of rap stuff is what I listen to a lot lately. There are so many artists nowadays, but that [new] type of rap and old school hip hop. Usually, I’ll select a station on Pandora and vibe with that. Lately, I’ve been playing a blues radio, but I’m always flip-flopping.
Ok, would you say you’d throw on a radio channel type stream over playing a specific playlist?
Yeah, and I’ve been doing a lot of driving in the U.S. for a video project I’m working on. So there’s been a lot of random radio stations and listening to random songs at bat. I have a couple of playlists, and sometimes I’ll throw on all the songs I’ve liked on SoundCloud. That’s not a super big playlist, but I like to listen to it sometimes because it has a lot of my favorites that I’ve liked on there.
It’s nice to always listen to something new. Like if it’s the radio or something. I don’t exactly know what’s coming next, which is nice. Then that way I’m always listening to new songs or something fresh. When I hear something that I like, I’ll go ‘like’ or save that song. I then make sure that I remember it if I want to use it for an edit or for Instagram or something along those lines, but I’m always trying to find good songs.
While on road trips and filming missions, who is usually playing music in the car?
Depends, sometimes we meet up, sometimes I’m with the homies. I’m definitely throwing on podcasts a lot, too. When it’s a big long road trip, I can’t handle 10 hours straight of music, so I’ll throw on a couple of podcasts here and there to kind of break it up. But it all depends, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling with my friend who’s a filmer from France, and he’s got a pretty different music taste. So he’s been playing a lot of music too, so I get to listen to some new stuff. We’ve been trying to find as many songs as we can that we might want to potentially use for our video project that we’re working on. So we’ve been vibing out to a bunch of stuff and always on the hunt for new songs.
Touching back on the podcast really quick, what kind of topics or hosts do you find interesting?
Usually, I like to listen to podcasts with athletes. So whether that’s snowboard, ski, or a skateboarding podcast, then sometimes I’ll throw on like a Joe Rogan podcast with someone a little more famous or something that’s not athlete related. I listened to like the one with Kanye West, one with Elon Musk and stuff. So that one I’ll sometimes throw on if I’m not that athlete vibe.
So, you’ve been filming with your homie and briefly mentioned how you’re listening to a handful of songs to find the next one to use. Is that how you usually find and select a song for parts, or do you leave it to the filmer/editor to decide?
For this project, we’ve got to license our song. So we’ve been looking towards more low key artists and trying to find someone that not a ton of people have heard of, so it can be a little easier to license. But I also like to try and do that for edits, too because it’s cool when you can find a song that not a lot of people have heard, and people get hyped on the song, and they don’t exactly know where you got it from.
But yeah, we don’t really have a super strict approach in terms of what we’re looking for. We’ll listen to a large variety of music and then if something sounds sick we’ll remember that song or screenshot it. We’re looking for anything from like independent indie type music to new or older rap. We’ve been trying to get on the low key type of artists and go from there for this one.
Gotcha, so the aim is to try and uncover those hidden gems that are bangers and are a fair price to license. Here’s a scenario; what if you were able to license any song for free, what would be your dream song?
There’s a lot of good ones out there. There’s this one song that’s super dope by Mary J Blige called I’m Going Down. I’ve always said if I could license any song, it would be this one or maybe a Lauryn Hill song. It’s hard. Honestly it also all depends on how you edit or what you’re filming for, the type of skiing like if it’s powder, urban, or park. That can affect what song you want to use a lot, too. It all depends on how you edit it, too, so I’m always open to a lot of different song choices, and my homie who I’m filming this cut with has got a lot of suggestions. Sometimes there’s a lot of dope ones, and sometimes I’ll be pretty honest and say I’m not really that down for that song, so it all depends.
Talking about songs and riding, do you listen to music while you ski?
I don’t use headphones because I just like talking to people and hearing what’s going on around me. I think hearing is a super important part of skiing. I feel like I can sometimes tell if I’m like f-king up or doing something right depending on the sound my skis make on take-off or landing. I will listen to music on a speaker that’s in my pocket to keep it pretty low key. I kind of just like hearing it on the chairlift or at the top and about to drop in, I can faintly hear it, but usually, I’m not bumping anything too heavy. Sometimes when I compete, I’ll play a song on speaker on my phone for like a sec and listen to it for dropping in and put it in my pocket. I’ll let the song run, but I can’t really hear it when I’m going off a jump or anything because it’s too loud.
Is there anything specific that you play to hype you up before dropping in?
I usually pick a song or two, like Young Thug’s song with Travis Scott, called Hop Off a Jet. That one has been getting me pretty hyped. I try to stick to one song for a couple of comps in a row and it’s usually like a newer kind of rap style that gets me hyped.
Any videos you watched growing up that influenced what you listen to or how you like your videos to be edited?
Growing up, I remember many parts that had rap music or, like more of the gangster rap stuff, would always get me super hyped and excited. I always thought the skiing looked so sick with that type of music. In recent years, I’ve realized that it doesn’t always have to be rap to make skiing look super sick, so I’ve branched out more and like listening to other variations of music with skiing. It all depends on how people edit their video to the song whether they do it properly, but pretty much any music style can fit if it’s done well, so it’s nice to listen to it all and try and be open-minded.
Any favorites videos that come to mind that you can recall from growing up or from recent years?
Tough question. I can remember recent ones that I liked a lot that weren’t rap songs. There were some Real Ski edits from X Games in the past couple of years. One of my friends, Jake Mageau, used a sick song in his first Real Ski in 2019 that was like a super mellow vibe that was super sick. My other friend Alex Hackel used one last year that was a really dope song and wasn’t rap, but it worked well for the edit. I think the first group that kind of started doing that super well is a ski group called The Bunch. They’re a bunch of guys from Scandinavia, and they started using a large variety of music in a lot of their movies and stuff that was super sick. A lot of skate video parts like from a couple of years ago like the Supreme movie Blessed had some really sick parts that weren’t rap as well.
How about any all-time favorites from growing up?
A lot of Be Inspired stuff from like Henrik Harlaut and Phil Casabon, who are really inspirational skiers. A lot of their stuff had a ton of Method Man, Redman, and Wu-Tang in it. So that stuff was always super sick.
Closing remarks, are you a fan of karaoke?
I’ve never done it before, actually. I’m not sure, but it sounds lit.
What do you think your first song would be?
I don’t know if I know any songs by heart (laughs). But maybe something like It Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye.
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