[If you haven’t seen LLVL yet be sure to check it on our home page or at the bottom of this interview.]

The first time we watched the new Cartel Boyz movie we kept our eyes closed the whole time. It was quite relaxing, but then we watched it again with our eyes open and it was actually way more entertaining. We can’t get enough of those dudes so we hit up Joel Staub to find out how one of our favorite Swiss-Mexicans handles life in La Vida Loca.

Hey Joel, how are your knees these days?
My knees are feeling good! After two seasons in a row, 5 dislocated kneecaps and 2 operations on both knees, my knees finally worked for me the whole winter without dislocating!!!

That’s great news! I guess hanging with the Cartel isn’t always great for your health, but it does look like a lot of fun. Can you tell us who was in the crew this year?
Yeah it can be pretty dangerous with us. This year we were the usual Cartel members like me, my brother Lou, Dani, Däru, Vini, Luki and for sure our friends like Mike, Cinek, Rosche, Rabio, Jöni, Camillo, and many others.

We’ve come to expect edits from you guys that are more funny than serious, but actually the level is quite high this year. Who was sending it the hardest?
I would say Dario (Burch), because he gets a shot at almost every spot. His bag of tricks on rails and jumps are just unbelievable! He can do almost every trick and has a strong switch game.

Yeah, we’re stoked on Dario too. He’s one of the few young guys who got a shot in every mag we’ve made this season! And the bag of tricks of you younger guys is so impressive. But sometimes it helps to have experience when you’re building new spots. Who in your crew had the worst idea for a spot this season?
Lou, Dani and Vini – They build a kicker a weekend before the Pleasure Spring Session started, at the end of the Curnius-Park (P60-Laax). They had no idea what to do because the lifts where closed and there wasn’t enough snow left in Flims-Laax-Falera to build anything. So they decided to make a kicker near Curnius (which was the only lift that was open due to bad weather conditions), but it had no landing.
So they built something like a corner. Everyone thought, what are those idiots doing there? This kicker has no landing! Unsurprisingly, the kicker didn’t work so well but at the end everyone got some funny shots. And in the end, they had a lot of fun and no one got hurt, which is the  most important part.

I didn’t see many clips of Ricky Martin this year. Or was that him that tried the double backflip to severe concussion at the end?
Ricky was busy doing some concerts and stuff during the winter, he only visited us sometimes in summer to drink some vöde pink and smoke some shisha. Which double backflip? Ricky would stomp it for sure, so it can’t be him.

When are we going to see a full topless part from Lou?
I don’t know, we haven’t planned something like that. But now that I’m thinking about it, we could do for sure a topless part from the shots of lou and me. Our Mexican genes just dislike wearing that much clothing.

Has the NBC fallen under Cartel control? Or do they still make their own movies these days?
Luckily they’re still making movies. They have a premiere soon, I think. We’re really happy that they treated us so well since forever, by showing us how to build proper spots and letting us ride their tube park.

Who in the crew is truly Livin’ La Vida Loca?
I guess we’re all livin’ it in some way. Building jumps in the backcountry and trying to ride stuff in villages when you have a resort nearby with rails and jumps seems a little bit loco to me.

What’s your favorite song on the soundtrack to have sex to?
King Africa – La Bomba Sexy of course! The tropical spanish vibes are perfect for a latino boy like me.

What’s the plan for this season?
I’m still in the B Team of Swiss Snowboard so I’ll ride some competitions and on my free days I’ll go riding or shooting with The Cartel. I got a crib together with Lou and two friends in Laax, so i guess i’ll be riding there mostly. At the end of the year we hope to have some shots that we can use for our 2016 movie.

We got a good start to the winter already. Have you guys already started shooting for next year’s movie?
Some of us are still recovering from a injury so they’re still chilling. I had the opportunity to go shooting on day with Flavio and Matthias from Mindset.

Thanks homie! Anything else you’d like to add before we wrap this up?
Muchas gracias por el interview amigo! Supporten El Cartel!

De nada hermanos…