To celebrate Huck 45, curated by artist, skateboarder and chronicler of teenage California Ed Templeton, we are having a Huck website summer takeover dedicated to Ed’s longtime muse, suburbia.

In this regular series, the Suburban Youth Pop Quiz, we ask characters from our world what their suburban youth meant to them.

Number eight is photographer and RVCA advocate Andrea Dosouto, whose intimate portraits – featuring skateboarders, musicians, artists and friends – build up a picture of a nomadic youth living life to the full.

Suburban Youth Pop Quiz #8

Where did you grow up and can you describe it in three words?
Suburbs of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia. A beautiful struggle.

Who was your weirdest neighbour?
We had a lot of weird people in the hood, some crazy street histories were going around, there were years of a lot of heroin and drug traffic, and we lived in government supported buildings so…

What was the most important record you owned?
Nevermind, Nirvana and Load, Metallica.

Where did the bad kids hang out?
With me and me with them. The three meeting points were the bank in the park, in front of the local Cyber or at an abandoned convent.

Biggest fashion faux pas as a teenager?
Bell leg tight jeans, low hip, in any colour – purple, green, blue – sometimes a skirt on the top, tie-dye top, leg warmers and some Osiris. A good mix between a raver, punk and a hippy. AWFUL!!

Who was your first celebrity crush?
Johnny Depp.

Describe your first kiss.
I was 11, playing that bottle game.

What happened the first time you got drunk?
I was 12 and I had to arrive home sober so my friends gave me some coffee and salt to puke. I never drunk coffee again in my life.

What is the naughtiest thing you did as a suburban youth?
I was 13 or 14 and we were hanging in front of the Cyber and there was a car that had been parked there for some weeks already. So one day it was cold in winter and we forced the car to get inside, six or seven of us, playing cassettes, smoking pot with the windows closed, drinking, wagging the car. After some hours the police show up and three of us ended up getting arrested.

What was the best party of your teenage years?
When I turned 18, me and my friend were born in the same day so we threw a party at his house in the middle of the village. It was a big house and he had a hip hop group so we set up everything for a jam session and invited everyone, lots of people. We ate mushrooms and adventured around the house and forest, painting graffiti and around 20 of us slept in the house playing music until the next day. It was a really good one.

What’s your most embarrassing suburban youth memory?
I changed to a new high school in the city and a boy in my class had some type of love-hate relationship with me, so he went from asking me to go out with him to bullying me in all types of ways. It was really embarrassing sometimes, and I didn’t have a clique in that high school so I couldn’t do much. Next year some of my homeboys moved there too and he had some of that shit back.

What was the greatest lesson you learnt during that time?
That you are born alone and you die alone, you are the one that’s gonna make the most important decisions of your life.

Who would you most like to see at a reunion?
Guillermina, my history teacher.

What was your first car?
I never drove.

What was your food of choice?
Pasta with tuna.

What was the biggest fight you ever had with your parents?
Just with my mom, every time to stop hanging out with bad company.

What book/film changed your teenage life?
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and ‘La Haine’ (Hate) by Matheiu Kassowitz.

What posters did you have on your bedroom wall?
Trainspotting (Danny Boyle), Scarface and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Any hobbies you didn’t give up?
Boxing and shooting photos.

What smell reminds you most of the suburbs?
The humidity, the eucalyptus tree and some wood burning.

See other interviews in the Suburban Pop Youth Quiz series and buy the Ed Templeton issue at our online store.

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