The best athletes in the world have a secret weapon that never makes the highlight reel. It's the playlist that locks them in before a run, the podcast that quiets the noise on a competition day, the music that makes a two-hour session feel like twenty minutes. Sound is part of the performance, and for the riders on the Skullcandy team, it's essential as the board under their feet. 

From the halfpipes of Aspen to the waves at Lower Trestles to the streets of every city they roll through, here's how seven of Skullcandy's finest athletes use sound to elevate everything they do. 

SKATERS 

TONY HAWK: THE LEGEND STILL LEARNING 

Tony Hawk has been the most recognizable figure in skateboarding for more than four decades. He landed the first 900 in competition history at the 1999 X Games, built a video game franchise that sold nearly two billion dollars' worth of copies, and turned skateboarding from a subculture into a global sport. At 57, he is still actively skating and still learning new tricks. 

In 2025, Hawk shared a new maneuver on Instagram that he described as harder and more dangerous than he anticipated, proving that the drive to progress never leaves a true skater. He was also at the center of one of the biggest cultural moments in skateboarding this year, with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 launching on July 11, 2025, to strong critical reception, bringing a new generation of skaters into the culture he helped build. 

For someone who has spent a lifetime performing in arenas and parking lots and halfpipes and Olympic venues around the world, sound has always been part of the atmosphere. Skating has always had a soundtrack, and no one has shaped that relationship between music and skateboarding longer than Birdman. 

NORA VASCONCELLOS: TRAILBLAZER ON AND OFF THE BOARD 

Nora Vasconcellos was the first female skateboarder signed to Adidas, won the 2017 Vans Park Series World Championship, and has been one of the most influential figures in skateboarding ever since. She is a skater, an artist, a muralist, a graphic designer, and now a Skullcandy collaborator, having designed her own limited-edition Skullcandy headphones. 

Nora  was announced as a playable character in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 in April 2025, a milestone that cements her place in skate history. Nora's relationship with music runs as deep as her skating. Her creative process ties art, sound, and movement together in a way that's entirely her own. From designing board graphics to giant murals, filming video parts, she's always blending creative worlds and the music in her ears is always part of the equation. 

GEORGIA MARTIN: THE NEW ERA OF TOY MACHINE 

Georgia Martin is 22 years old and already one of the most talked-about names in professional street skating. In May 2024, Toy Machine surprised Georgia with her pro announcement the night before the premiere of their video "Real Life Sucks" with her friends, family, and teammates in attendance. The video part that followed made everyone in skateboarding stop and ask the same question: who is that? 

Since turning pro, Georgia has appeared in Nike SB's "Quick Strike," Slappy Trucks' team video "Never Heard Of Em," and continued building one of the most compelling street skating resumes of anyone her age. Jenkem described her skating with the line: "She kickflips like Cyrus Bennett, stacks footage like Jamie Foy, and does it all with the belief that solid street footage still reigns supreme." 

From Charlotte, North Carolina to Long Beach, California, Georgia has carved her own lane in skateboarding with a style, trick selection, and attitude that's entirely her own. She listens to music the way she skates, with purpose and authenticity. 

SURFERS 

GRIFFIN COLAPINTO: CALIFORNIA'S BEST SHOT AT A WORLD TITLE 

Griffin Colapinto has been one of the most consistently elite surfers on the World Surf League Championship Tour for years. He has finished in the top three of the WSL Championship three times: placing third in both 2023 and 2024, and finishing as runner-up in 2025. The 2025 WSL Finals at Cloudbreak in Fiji were the best surfing of his career by almost any measure, his backhand surfing was described as "the talk of the finals" that showcased classic power surfing at the highest level. He was paddling into some of the biggest waves of the session, proving to the surf world that he can hang with the big wave surfers too. 

During the 2024 season, Colapinto won the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal and the Corona Fiji Pro. He also competed in his first Olympic Games at Paris 2024. California hasn't had a men's world surfing champion since Tom Curren in 1990, and Colapinto is the closest anyone has come to changing that in a generation. 

Between heats and training sessions, sound is how Griffin resets and recharges. On a tour that takes him across the globe from Portugal to Fiji to Pipeline, having the right music in your ears is how you stay grounded when you're thousands of miles from home. 

CAITY SIMMERS: THE YOUNGEST WORLD CHAMPION IN HISTORY 

At just 18 years old, Caity Simmers became the youngest woman in history to win a WSL World Surfing title when she claimed the 2024 championship at Lower Trestles in San Clemente. Her final heat total of 18.37 out of 20 was the highest score in WSL Finals history, and her win marked California's first women's world title in 40 years. 

The story of how she won is as remarkable as the win itself. Down one heat to defending champion and Olympic gold medalist Caroline Marks, Caity cried for 20 minutes before her second heat. Then she wiped the tears away, won the next two heats, and took the world title. The rivalry between Oceanside and San Clemente,Caroline's home break,  added an electric energy to the event, with Team Caity and Team Caroline showing up in a way that felt completely authentic and real 

The energy was electric, with crisp hooks and timeless roundhouse cutbacks. 

In 2025, Caity returned to Cloudbreak for the WSL Finals and continued pushing the boundaries of women's surfing alongside the best athletes in the world. She is already one of the most exciting surfers of her generation, and she's only just getting started. For someone who surfs with that much emotional intensity, the music that fuels her matters. 

SNOWBOARDERS 

RED GERARD: BACK-TO-BACK X GAMES CHAMPION, OLYMPIC BOUND 

Red Gerard's story is one of the great redemption arcs in action sports. He won the Olympic gold medal in slopestyle at the 2018 PyeongChang Games at just 17 years old. He became the first Winter Olympics medalist born in the 2000s. 

After a disappointing fourth place at Beijing 2022, Red stepped back from competition, filmed backcountry content, and found himself again. It worked. He won back-to-back X Games slopestyle gold medals in 2024 and 2025, an event he described as "the one that always got away" and enters the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in arguably the best form of his career. 

His approach to competing is different from most: instead of chasing the hardest tricks, his goal is to put together the most consistent, perfectly executed run possible. That same mindset applies to his music — it's not about what's loudest, it's about what locks him in. Sound is part of how Red gets into that zone of perfect execution before every run. 

IRIS PHAM: THE RISING FORCE IN STREET SNOWBOARDING 

Iris Pham is one of the most exciting new names in snowboarding. From Bozeman, Montana, she grew up riding Bridger Bowl and Big Sky, quit high school basketball to snowboard more, and turned her van into both her home and her vehicle for chasing her dream across North America. 

In January 2025, Iris won the first-ever gold medal in women's snowboard Street Style at X Games Aspen,  the first time the event was held as a medal competition. After winning her semifinal heat, she stood on the podium and said: "That's insane. I just wanted to come out here and have fun and shred with my homies and we did that, but this is unbelievable." 

Before that, she had already been named Slush Magazine's 2024 Rookie of the Year and earned her first X Games qualifier win at the Street Style Pro event at Copper Mountain in December 2024. She films video parts and approaches snowboarding with the kind of pure creative energy that only comes from someone who's doing it entirely for love of the craft. 

Music is a constant for Iris, whether she's driving between spots or getting ready to drop into a competition heat, it's always there in the background. 

SAME AS IT EVER WAS 

Skullcandy has always been a board sports brand. Born from that world, shaped by the people in it — the skaters, surfers, and snowboarders who don't wait for permission to go all in. Our athletes carry that same energy. They push the culture forward, keep it real, and remind us every day why we do this. We're endlessly stoked on the whole crew. 

Meet the full Skullcandy team at www.skullcandy.com/pages/team-roster