Erik Ellington

Erik Ellington
Born	Anchorage, Alaska
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Other names	Mule
Occupation	Professional skateboarder
Children	Mia (daughter) Julius (son)
Website	http://bakerboysdist.com/

Erik Ellington is an American professional skateboarder and co-owner of skateboard brand, Deathwish, a company that forms part of the Bakerboys Distribution company.

Ellington was born in Anchorage, Alaska, United States (US) and grew up in Tempe, Arizona, US. Ellington explained his early life during the filming of his "Epicly Later'd" episode for Vice Media's internet channel:

We moved around a lot. Like, when we lived in Alaska, my stepdad, you know, like, he had money. He made a decent living; he had a, like a, body shop for cars and stuff. But then, like, you know, move back and forth, shit goes wrong up there, you know, move into a janky apartment, or what, you know, or whatever. But we been up and down ... and, ah, it's a good way, I think it's a good experience, you know? To like, know, both sides of, both sides of the tracks.

In relation to Anchorage, specifically, Ellington has stated, "There wasn’t a whole lot to do up there in winter. But in the summer you’d get between 16 and 22 hours of daylight. So you kind of got a year’s worth of skating in those four months.”

Ellington early skateboard influences were the brands, H Street and 101, and Ellington sent video footage, filmed when he was around fifteen years of age, to the former company; he was sent a Mike Carroll signature model skateboard deck in response.

Ellington's first skateboard video part was during his time as a Zero rider, when he appeared in the video, Thrill of it All; prior to this, he had appeared in the "Friends" section of the Toy Machine video, Welcome to Hell, but the Zero video was his first official part. At the time that Ellington was recruited by professional skateboarder, Jamie Thomas, who is the founder/owner of Zero, Ellington had relocated to San Diego, US, from Tempe. Ellington has explained the initial development of his relationship with Thomas:

Jamie Thomas came out to Arizona. We talked-me and Scott Copalman talked to Jamie quite a bit, and it was, like, we were on Balance at the time, and he was starting Zero clothing. So, like, he wanted us to ride for the clothing-actually, he wanted Scott to ride for the clothing, and then, uh, Scott said he wouldn't do it unless I, unless I was on too. Well he just said, like, "I won't leave Balance unless Erik comes with me.", you know? So, by default, I got on Zero.

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