Cultural Construction: War Party with Troy Charlesworth

Intro + Words by Mike V, photos by Mitch Morison

One of the reasons why BMX is uniquely positioned is through its web of social networks - in other words, a community. You can see this in brand teams, skatepark cliques, shop crews, trail crews, those involved in working together on a project, the coming together for a jam or competition, plus many others. 

It may even be a finer grain example, a bunch of dudes lurking the neighbourhood after school, bombing hills and exchanging pocket money for milk bottles at the local store. Or maybe that was just me and is a stark reminder of a previous generation. 

Either way, through a variety of experiences and purposes, BMX brings people together and encourages them to be many things, including productive and creative. An alternative way to understand this is through the theme of creating culture. BMX is a means to create your own culture, to not simply borrow someone else's, but to forge a way of being, a tradition, a ritual (whatever you want to call it) and to revel in your own creation and more significantly, share it with those around you. 

It's incredible!

I'd suggest there are various levels to creating your own culture, perhaps a marker of devotion and input. From the above (more simple) example, down to a person who might build their own bikes, organise a series of jams, build their own DIY skatepark or create their own brand. Each warrant a great big high five in their own way.

One such figure deadset on creating culture is videographer Troy Charlesworth. Ya boy Big Salad! Having recently moved on from the LUXBMX crew in pursuing his own endeavour with a soon approaching launch date of 27 July, I got in touch with Troy to discuss his exciting new project - 'War Party'. The following is a conversation we shared touching on the motivation behind it, what to expect with the launch and why this is such a life-affirming mission for Troy. 

Hopefully you can share in the visceral hype that is practically dripping from the dudes words. Go get 'em Bigs!

Having been a freelance videographer for 20 years now, producing full-length videos for companies such as BMX Mafia, 2020 BMX Magazine, Vans, CULT, Fitbikeco and Premium (to name but a few), a new phase in the Troy Charlesworth tour is upon us - under his own brand, 'War Party'.

While this isn't a secret and has been a thing for a year or so (via a Youtube channel and Instagram), the 'official' release is less than a week away, heralding the start of more and more momentum in this space.

To get into the mind of Troy, I firstly wanted to understand what 'War Party' is all about from his perspective - the gist from my point of view being a play on words around the party like atmosphere when you go to war with a spot, or perhaps the celebratory culture of a night out partying after a day battling in the streets with the boys.

"Being a filmer and someone that’s gone through it mentally and still in the game, it’s a constant war in your head, trying a trick over and over, trying to battle your demons what ever it is. The party is definitely celebrating the win, landing the trick, getting the video done having a premiere. We go to war with our selves everyday and we need to celebrate each win no matter what, no matter how small, we are all on this planet for a little while, sounds cringe but it’s true."

Moreover, we touch on the genesis of 'War Party' and what to expect from the release this coming Saturday.

"I’ve had an idea of starting a brand for a while now, I think the first bit of movement with it all was when Covid hit back in 2019, when I happened to talk to Nick Gascoine about it all and we started to just launch it but quickly worked out that we didn’t actually even know what we were trying to create. So we shut it down, and I just had the name sitting there which I loved and then slowly started building a vision in my head of what to do with this name. 

It actually only just came to life in my head in the last year or so when I started the Youtube. Basically the idea is to create what I’ve always wanted to do with my videos and that’s film everyone and make a different style of videos with the Aus scene, and posting everything to the War Party channel. 

On the 27th I’ve got a couple videos coming and a bunch of merch to help fund it. I feel like there’s a lot of cool things we can do, a lot of things I grew up on which made me absolutely love BMX (Shook, Standpoint, Props, Metro Jam, Etnies back yard jams). It's like, fuck it, why can’t I just start something for the reason of getting everyone together? I love premieres, I basically live for them now, I live to create, I live to create something and getting everyone together for what ever reason because it’s important to me."

There it is, the creative spirit bursting forth, stretching the belt buckle to it's last legs! Let's not gloss over how important it is to have this kind of energy, it is ultimately what keeps the spirit of BMX alive.

After 20 years of documenting BMX, it would seem that Troy has not lost the fire to keep pushing and keep creating, despite the various challenges of pursuing a somewhat uncertain and chaotic path.

"For me right now, I’m in what feels like a do or die period. I’ve lived the BMX life for so long now, I genuinely fucking love it! I think everyone knows that cause I can’t stop. I’ve got on waves and then they crash, jump back on another wave and it crashes too. I even remember saying to Boyd in November last year that I think the LUX wave is going to crash, it feels too good to be true, and sure enough in January they couldn’t afford me and that wave crashed. 

I love BMX! I love filming BMX so much that I want to do it 24/7, and I do, do it 24/7 or 'til I burn out and need a rest. The do or die part, I feel like I need to really work out how to do this every fucking day while I still can with out going homeless. I’m sitting here trying to build my own wave, a wave that doesn’t crash, I have to build my own fucking wave, I’ve been on too many that have burned. 

This BMX life is just built in me, so I have to keep going. I'm in the streets, at the park, dirt what ever, documenting the Aus scene the way I do. I just have to make it all work somehow. 

When I say the wave crashed, I'm talking about times like 2016 up until 2018 where I was crazy, I was so depressed. There were weeks where I didn’t leave the couch and eventually I had to get help. With that help I started telling my therapist at the time what I thought was wrong with me, which he basically said no to after listening for a while. He pointed out that I had stopped filming and doing everything I loved. I took what he said very seriously, it’s exactly why TDCU was made. I now just know it’s what I’m meant to do, it gives me a feeling that I can’t explain and it keeps me mentally balanced, I really don’t know how to explain it. I do know that I just love this shit so much, and ideas come into my head for videos and that’s why I just feel like I have to go so hard, I never want to go back to that person I once was and this helps me achieve that. 

Also if I don’t do it who else is going to do it? Someone has to do it for the Aus scene and I feel like it’s me. I think with how I went a little off the rails years back, I’ve just tapped into this passion more then ever now and it’s just exciting to create something and treat it all like ART."

I suppose I'm uniquely positioned to have a good chance at understanding what Troy means, having been caught up in the same sense of passion about making videos. All I can say is that I genuinely appreciate his determination and I love so much, to hear him follow this path and to do it with so much urgency and purpose.

Beyond all the content sitting up on the Youtube channel, I've heard whispers about a video project in the works,  as well as some merch available this Saturday the 27 July. 

"The video is nothing too crazy right now, it is just an idea that I've started and will work it out as I go. I know how to make videos, that’s it, but I’m determined to learn more and build it into a proper media channel that hosts my work and just see what it grows into! At the moment it’s a bunch of videos, a website with a blog and some merch. But like I said, I just had to start something and go from there. I will also have a podcast coming a little later with the champion Yonny Wakefield. There’s a lot of work to build it to exactly what I want but I’m not scared.

The merch is just another reason to create something cool. I’m posting everything onto Youtube, and it’s just there to help fund it all. I think the stuff I’ve made so far is pretty cool, it was expensive to make but I wanted to do it right, that’s just how I am, I just want to build something sick. I got a little range to start it off and I’m working on the second drop right now, I think people will really get into it. For the first drop I got two hats, two hoodies, two tees and some socks."

To me, that there is someone getting serious about this thing is a huge hype. There really ain't many dudes documenting the scene in Australia anymore. Not on a platform that isn't focussed around social media anyway.

I then wondered what Troy saw in the Australian BMX scene, to make it worthy of his devotion and time. Was it our architectural form, the colours of our southern, burnt seasons or the accent and attitude of our bikers? 

"We have something fucking special down here, go to an ACT jam and the buzz of Aus BMX is beautiful. I also feel that we are all so spread out but at the same time, very tight! I love how we are down here, we are on our own little BMX lifestyle. I just turned 37 last week and I couldn’t think of anything better then to go out and film Aus BMX and make ART bruvaaaaaaas!"

Get up in dis bitch and support the scene that supports you. Head to the War Party dot TV website, cop some merch, keep up to date on socials and make your way down to LUXBMX on Saturday 27 July to take part in the premiere evening.