Richard Permin has been under everyone’s radar for the past couple of seasons. With impressive finishes at past Tignes Airwaves, King of Style and Freestyle.ch big airs, it was only a matter of time before we saw him atop the podium, a feat he accomplished merely 10 days ago in Sweden at this year’s King oF Style Big Air. But it’s not all about results and competitions with Richard, he has quite the films segments in this year’s Rage film and he’s featured on the Nike ACG Sweetspots website, with two clips. We managed to get some correspondence with The traveling Frenchman as he globetrotted from Sweden to Austria, getting his season started.

Congratulations on your win last weekend. What’s your favorite part about Sweden?
The best part was the money, blonde girls and parties!

As a Frenchman, do you think it’s hard to get noticed in North America? You don’t hear too much about France other than Candide and Laurent.
For sure, it’s hard to get noticed in America. That is until you got a good result at the X Games or the US Open.

You put up some impressive results in the last couple years, but I hear you are way into backcountry features?
I really want to have good results in the comps because it’s the way to be reconized in the industry and to be involved in ski movie production. And I want to have backcountry footage, and keep improving it, in ski movies because backcountry is the part of skiing that I prefer.

Josh Berman said you were a nerd, is that true?
I’m not the one who spend six months a year in front of my computer for my ski movie!

Do you think that the X Games are still a legitimate competition?
I think X Games are like the Olympics for our sport. But it’s pretty hard to participe as a Euro.

What’s more important, style or technical tricks, since you seem to do both?
The style for SURE.

As a pro you’re traveling a lot, but what do you do in your off-time?
I skate some and surf. I like to chill with my friends.

Rumor is that you are/were sponsored by McDonalds. How does that work?
I’m just sponsored by McDonald’s France. It’s like a traditional sponsor with stickers and stuff like that!

You don’t have a Facebook account. Isn’t it about time to get one along with every other pro skier?
For the moment I don’t care about Facebook.

Super ghetto thug rap, or moody, emo rock?
It depends on my mood.

What’s the best and the worst thing about being a pro skier?
For me, the best is thing is a trip like mine to Japan with Josh [Berman] last year. The worst part is having a bad winter like we had in Europe last year.

Check out Richard’s Nike ACG Sweetspots clips.