Better known to the snowboard world as Danimals, Dan Liedahl is on the verge of blowing right on up. He has been hard at work in the frozen streets of Minnesota, laying waste to every rail in his path. With his surprise cameo in Videograss's "Shoot The Moon" and multiple high quality online edits, Danimals is starting to turn heads. And after joining the same Cal Surf team that spawned the careers of high caliber pro shreds like Joe Sexton, Zac Marben, and Jonas Michilot, Danimals is on the path to claiming heartland glory. See for yourself in this nice little video edit here.
Hello Daniel. What are you up to?
I just got off work and I'm pulling into my garage.
Well turn your car off, if you are going to do this interview in your garage.
[Laughs] It's off!
Where are you living these days?
I'm living in the Signal Snowboards house in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
How's that been?
It's great, super mellow. We just wake up and do whatever we want all day.
What's the wildest thing that's gone down at the house?
[Laughs] Nothing too crazy. The first night we had a party our friend who's like the size of a football player was wrestling a bunch of people and broke all of our chairs. I wasn't really involved in it, though.
When I was growing up in Minnesota you had to move to the mountains to go pro. Are you pumped you can stay in the Midwest and have a snowboard career?
Yeah, I think it's really cool. I mean, I really like it here. It's sweet to be able to stay and have people recognize that maybe you don't have to leave wherever you're from to get things done.
Did it help to have guys like Jake OE, Sexton, and Jonas stay in Minnesota, so you could feed off of what they were doing?
Yeah for sure. I used to see those guys at Hyland and it was so sweet to see them in videos and think: Well they don't live very far away from me, so if they can make it happen in snowboarding maybe I can too.
Do you have aspirations to ride other things other then just rails?
I don't know, I guess that would be cool. I love powder -- it's so fun! Every time we ride powder I'm like, I could do this all day everyday, screw rails. I just really like Minnesota though so I don't really want to move, but if I had the opportunity to film in powder I would for sure.
Were you pumped to have shots in the Videograss movie?
Yeah, I was so pumped. We actually went out to Hood for the premiere and I had no idea that I was going to be in it. We were just sitting there watching the premiere with the campers and my name popped up and I was so surprised. I shared a part with Jake. It was so sweet.
If you could control the future, what would you choose to do with your snowboard career?
That's a tough question. I guess just keep doing what I'm doing right now, just film with my friends and ride how I want to ride. I like just going out and having fun with my friends and filming that experience, so I hope to keep doing that for the foreseeable future.
