You spent five years going to X and all that time you were filming on other projects, which I think is pretty rare among riders in contests. It’s like the days of filming a part and competing are gone. Do you think that’s true?
I’ve always been way more stoked on filming and had the contests as a fun bonus thing, but that’s maybe why I’ve been keeping it real and not making the finals lately.

It’s definitely getting harder and harder nowadays, since the level of contests and filming is both really high, so now it’s kind of splitting into two categories, contest riders and film riders, which sucks a little bit. But if you’re going to be really good in either one you’re going to have to spend a lot of time focusing on one, unless your really, really talented and can do both like a few riders are still doing.

Snowboarding is actually splitting into so many categories. There are riders that only ride pow jumps, only street, only big lines or only park. I always get the most stoked when I watch a video part that has a little bit of everything so you see that the rider is a more of an all-around rider. Same with contests, you don’t have many of the same riders being able to compete in halfpipe, slopestyle, big air or boardercross, because its just to hard to keep up with everything.

Will we see a return of the jerk flip?
I’ll always keep that one alive. I’m not sure when I’ll get the idea of trying a triple jerk flip again (like the one at X Games when I got knocked out) but maybe on a good pow jump or something I could get pumped enough and try a bulletproof idea like that.

Who do you think has the best style in snowboarding right now?
It’s hard to say just one, some examples of style that I’m really stoked on are Mr. E-man Anderson, Tommy Gesme, Jake OE, Danimals, Felix Engstrom, Mark Sollors and of course the main man MFM.

Why?
They all have their own natural style, which is sick; they are not trying to copy anyone else. That’s what I really like to see when I watch people snowboard.

Are you going to be at the Air + Style in Los Angeles? What are your thoughts on Shaun White including skiers?
No I unfortunately didn’t get an invite because they only had three invites to give out — the rest are the top ranked guys from Air + Style China and Innsbrooklyn [Innsbruck]. I had to pull out of China after a bruised heel filming the week before and I didn’t really kill it in Innsbruck.

I don’t have anything against the freestyle skiers themselves but I will always have some hate for skiing because they were assholes to us when we were growing up in Iceland. So I was actually pretty disappointed since it is one of the only classic true snowboard contests that’s left. Now it’s a skiing contest as well, thanks to Shaun. I just think it’s a shame because this will be the first time Americans see Air + Style, an event that has over 20 years of cool history, and it’s now a ski/board competition when it gets to mainstream America.

The ‘open section’ you guys do is pretty unique in your snowboarding movies, how did that start?
Thank you thank you. We figured that if there would have been a movie back in the days while we were growing up that had that option, we would have gone ALL IN to try and make it in that movie with one or two bangers. So we just wanted to give everyone an opportunity of getting their shot in our movie. It’s so much fun to go through all the footage the kids send to us because they are really sending it!

What’s the plan for Halldor Helgason?
Keep on doing my thing, have fun, try my best, cruise around,try to help push snowboarding in the right direction, send it and try and survive for a few more years…

Watch also: Sexual Snowboarding and the Helgasons present This Just Happened, Chapter 1 of 4