Tony Hawk has finally revealed his favorite band of all time and they never even made it onto the soundtrack of one of his video games.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Soundtracks
The music from a series of video games bearing the name of the legendary skateboarder also served as sort of a daily soundtrack for those who spent countless hours trying to land complicated tricks.
No matter how many times they tried to land a 900, players never seemed to get tired of hearing songs from bands such as Goldfinger, Primus and the Dead Kennedys.
The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series would stretch across four games. There also were spinoff versions including Tony Hawk’s Underground and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland that all had their own unique (and memorable) soundtracks.
Tony Hawk’s Favorite Band
Somehow after all those releases, the video game version of Tony Hawk was never able to skate to his favorite band.
These days, Hawk can be found hosting a Hawk vs. Wolf podcast with fellow skateboarder Jason Ellis. The duo were recently joined by members of the band Dogstar including actor Keanu Reeves.
About a quarter of the way into the interview, Reeves turned the tables on the hosts and started asking his own questions.
“Favorite band in the beginning, who would you put on?” Reeves asked Hawk.
The skater immediately went toward an iconic English post-punk act.
“Favorite band that everything follows is Gang of Four,” Hawk said.
He continued explaining how important music was to skateboarding culture and why it was important for that to be part of his video games.
“I was just throwing in bands from when I was growing up,” Hawk said. “They were easy to get.”
While Gang of Four never appeared on an official Tony Hawk video game release, the band did make it onto the soundtrack from one of the series’ spinoffs, Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX 2.
Pro BMX rider Mat Hoffman had previously appeared in a Tony Hawk game as a non-playable character before he was given his own signature release. Gang of Four’s “Damaged Goods” appears on the second installment’s soundtrack.
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Hawk explained that he would offer up older acts for the video games while Activision, the company behind the release, would secure newer names to include on the soundtracks.
“Music was just a huge part of skating, especially in the formative years in the ’70s and ’80s,” Hawk said.
