Stereo

Stereo is the brand that decided a board company could also be a graphic design project. Jason Lee and Chris “Dune” Pastras started it in 1992 with a very clear idea: jazz record sleeves, clean type, ad photos where the image matters as much as the trick, and tricks popped and caught instead of tech for tech’s sake. At a moment when everyone was chasing pressure flips and cartoon graphics, they did the exact opposite.

History

Lee and Pastras both came out of World Industries and left at the same time. Their first attempt was called Blue, set up with Brad Dorfman at Vision; it lasted a few months. Pastras has been blunt about it: Blue was “an amateur stab at Stereo” — they didn’t have the art direction yet. The Stereo logo already existed as a graphic element back then, and that’s where the name came from.

What made it work was Deluxe. Jim Thiebaud brought them up to San Francisco, where they met Tommy Guerrero and Jeff Klindt, and there the idea finally clicked. Stereo’s first Thrasher ads ran in the February 1993 issue. A Visual Sound (1994) set the template: Super 8, camerawork from Tobin Yelland and Ari Marcopoulos, a jazz soundtrack and parts from Greg Hunt, Mike Daher, Mike Frazier and an Ethan Fowler who filmed his in four or five days. Tincan Folklore followed in 1996, which Pastras wanted to feel like it had been “put together with masking tape.”

By the late 90s it soured: Deluxe wanted to chase a younger demographic and, as Pastras tells it, told him straight that the whole jazz thing wasn’t working. Lee had already moved into acting. The brand stopped around 2000 and came back in 2003, this time through Giant Distribution and with Clint Peterson, Benny Fairfax and Olly Todd on board; Way Out East (2004) came out of that second run. Today Stereo is essentially Pastras, who spent years shipping orders alone out of his basement and told Quartersnacks he keeps it going “for the love of the brand.” In 2022 A Visual Sound got a live-orchestra screening with Lee and Pastras introducing it.

The team

Pastras is the captain. Alongside him are Chris Blake, John Lupfer, Chris Pierre-Jacques, Yoshi Tanenbaum, Bryce Wettstein and Waldo Diaz as “Sound Agents,” Carl Shipman as field agent, and Clint Peterson and Matt Rodriguez in the “Classics Division.” Jason Lee is still attached to the house and has models under his name. Past riders include Ethan Fowler, Greg Hunt, Mike Daher, Mike Frazier, Benny Fairfax and Olly Todd.

The boards

Maple decks in widths from 7.75” to 8.75”, plus older shapes. A good part of the catalog is reissued original artwork — the 1993 Misterioso, the 1994 Inner City Soul, the Way Out East series — next to current pro models and collaborations with Christian Hosoi and Tony Hawk drawn by Pastras. Visual consistency is the strength here: arrows, flat colors and a permanent nod to record sleeves.

Who it’s for

If you like a deck as a graphic object and want a small brand whose identity hasn’t shifted in thirty years, Stereo has few rivals. If you want permanent stock in every shop and five videos a year, this isn’t it: it’s a small operation and it moves at its own pace. Line it up against the rest in the deck catalog.