Henrik Harlaut is a gift to freeskiing that keeps on giving. The man has done it all and won it all but he's still out in the streets grinding. His latest movie, Brushino, in which he crushes the streets from Buffalo, NY to Stockholm has just dropped on rapper Benny The Butcher's YouTube channel and you can check it out below. We caught up with Henrik to figure out how the collaboration with the Griselda artist came about and also how things are going in the world of Harlaut generally...
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Congrats on Brushino Henrik. So, you’re launching it on Benny the Butcher’s YouTube channel. How did that come about?
I’ve built a relationship with him. I’ve listened to him and the whole Griselda crew, for a bunch of years and been a super big fan. I finally had the chance to meet him this winter and we’ve been talking a bunch ever since. Then I just started editing the movie and edited it to their music. It was kind of just a random idea, to ask him ‘what if we put this movie out on your channel?’
It was almost giving it to him as a gift, just of gratitude. Of how much his music has influenced and inspired my skiing, throughout my career.
I wanted to give him almost a present.
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Everyone knows how huge hip hop is for you, we’ve seen you with rappers and now the music and artists are an even bigger part of this project. Would you like to get even more involved in that world, maybe even after your ski career?
I don’t really know. I am so, so inspired by music and always have been my whole career, and I’ve drawn a lot of my inspiration and my style from it. It would be fun to work more in this direction, collaborating more with music artists. For me, this latest project is the coolest opportunity ever to have an artist recognize my skiing and be stoked on it enough to throw it on his channel. It’s one of the coolest and biggest accomplishments in my career.
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Have you ever managed to persuade any of the rappers to get on a pair of skis?
I guess Dillon Cooper’s done a bunch of stuff with Armada now. He came to Kläppen, to Kimbo Sessions, last year. He’s the only one that I’ve got to ski with, which has been so awesome.
We met Dillon in 2015 at a Raekwon and Ghostface concert where he was the opener. Me and Phil [Casabon] went there with Eric Iberg. We were super impressed by him and got to meet him after the show. We found out that he was really into rollerblading, so he had full understanding of skiing, action sports, and how we are all so inspired by music. The connection was super easy and now he skis, he loves skiing and he’s become such a good friend of ours.
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Did you spend a lot of time in New York City and Buffalo last winter?
First, we just went there to film for Brushino. It’s been a dream of mine to ski in New York City/Manhattan. I’ve never had that opportunity or time in the schedule, whenever they’ve had snowstorm.
About five years ago I became a fan of Griselda’s music and they’re from Buffalo. Then the dream was to go to Buffalo. Noah is also a super big fan and we saw they had a huge snowstorm, right around Christmas. So, we just booked tickets for six or seven days.
We’d already seen on the forecast that it was supposed to start raining. The whole time we were in Buffalo it was just pouring rain, luckily they had gotten so much snow before that it lasted for the whole trip.
It was cool because that was before I’d had the chance to meet those guys, so when I met them, I could say how I’d been skiing there for a movie with Noah.
They thought that was so wicked because they’d never heard about anyone doing any street skiing there. Definitely, no professional skiers going to Buffalo.
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What do they think of what you do? Had they even heard of street skiing or the type of skiing that you do?
I don’t think they were aware of it before they knew about me. Ever since I did a trick during Knucklehuck, in X Games 2020, I called the Griselda Flip, because I was listening to their music as I did it. It was live on ESPN and Tom Wallisch was the interviewer. He asked me what the trip was called and said ‘the Griselda Flip’, ever since then they’ve been aware of me.
That was their introduction to skiing in general, now over time they’ve learned more about it. With this movie, I think they’re really starting to understand.
It’s so cool because they’re so supportive and they love to see us ski with their music. They always thank me for supporting their music, doing the style of skiing that we do, and representing their music with it.
"I’m super, super happy with this movie. I know it’s maybe not for everybody, but for me and Noah, this is basically our dream project."
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The whole movie wasn’t shot there though?
No. It’s in Buffalo, Salt Lake City, Quebec, Stockholm, and Pas de la Casa in Andorra.
I’m super proud of how the movie, just being two-man team, and how much we worked. The whole movie is kind of a reflection of the super raw Buffalo-hip hop style. That’s what we really, really love. We basically made a movie that we wanted to do. A lot of times I’ve made movies to please a bigger crowd, with a bit more variety in the music and the style of skiing. This year we wanted to take one year where we just fully go and do super-grimy skiing.
It was also the perfect year for it, my first year without competing as much.
Originally my plan was to do some backcountry skiing as well, but I broke my scaphoid and couldn’t ski with poles.
It kind of worked perfectly, because I like to ski with poles and use my hands more, when I ski in the backcountry or even just for safety. I like to be able to use my hands.
I’m super, super happy with this movie. I know it may not for everybody, but for me and Noah, this is basically our dream project.
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Brushino is just you and Noah. Was that a deliberate choice and is there anything coming from the Harlaut Apparel team?
Basically, me and Noah were together the whole season and everybody else was kind of on their own program. Unfortunately, we weren’t spending too much time together. Everybody was skiing a lot and doing it really good!
We’ve definitely talked a lot this summer about getting the whole crew back together next year.
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So Harlaut Apparel’s still going strong?
Definitely! We’re all super excited and super stoked. I feel like the group dynasty is possibly better than it’s ever been. It was just that we were all so busy. Valentin Morel was competing a lot, Isaac [EZ Panda] did a bit more a park skiing year and enjoying his skiing, Krypto was filming for the ON3P movie and Bella was injured. Everybody’s schedule just didn’t really work.
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You told me you’ve done no skiing since Crans Montana in May. Has it been good to have a break?
Both! I miss it a lot, but it feels good to have had a little bit bigger break. Just to fully recover the body and I’ve had a lot of time to train and get prepared for the coming season.
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That’s got to be the longest you’ve been off skis, pretty much ever!
Haha pretty much! Especially without having an injury or anything. Being healthy, it’s definitely the longest I’ve been without skiing.
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Are you going to compete more this year then?
Still not too much, but right now my plan is only X Games, hopefully, if I get invited to do Big Air, Slopestyle and probably Knuckle Huck. Then I’ll just do a bunch of filming and maybe do the last two World Cups, in Tignes and Silvaplana.
I still love competing, so much. I’ve just never had a season where I wasn’t competing as much. I definitely missed the feeling of pushing myself and just seeing if I’m able to put down a run when it really counts. That really excites me and I want to do it more. So, I’ll do that this season and see how I feel about it, if I still really love it, I might start doing it more again. If I don’t, then I know I still love the filming so no worries!
"I’ve just never had a season where I wasn’t competing as much. I definitely missed the feeling of pushing myself and just seeing if I’m able to put down a run when it really counts."
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Do you already have a movie project planned this year?
I’m definitely going to do a big Harlaut Apparel project. Armada are making a team movie this year, so I’d love to try shoot for that as well.
My girlfriend will be traveling with me as well and we plan to do some stuff on the side as well.
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