It's been a while coming, but the Australian Home Grown Maniacs TV series that aims to capture the Aussie action sports culture, including sports freestyle motocross, skate boarding, surfing, and BMX, will officially air down under on Fuel TV, July 4th.
The driving force behind the HGM series is West Oz photo/film/journalist Leith "Holtzy" Holtzman. Holtzy is the man largely responsible for unearthing many of Australia's early FMX riders when the sport took off here more than a decade ago. His road-trips discovering new talent inspired him to produce the first full-blown FMX movie in Oz named Homegrown Maniacs, and he has also contributed feature stories to Freerider MX magazine since its humble beginnings in 2000.
I recently caught up with Holtzy to get the low-down on his latest venture, what inspired him to produce it, and to find out just what Aussie fans can expect when they tune into the new HGM series.
Courtesy Home Grown Maniacs
Main host 'Bushy' and the rest of the crew on the Home Grown Maniacs set.
Holtzy, you've put your heart and soul into the sport of FMX for a long while now — you've photographed and filmed it, wrote about it, and now you're bringing it to TV. How did this deal come about?
Well, after producing five films in 10 years I sort of hit a wall as I wasn't making any money from it and I wondered what direction I could take in the industry after putting so much energy into the sport for so long. The concept for HGM TV had been in the back of my mind for many years, and my main business partner Michael Messenger, who has years of experience running TV shows in Australia, has been pushing me for years to get something up and running after seeing a crossover film I put together involving moto, skate, BMX, and surf. He saw the potential and we got together and developed a concept we thought would work.
Then I've spent the last three or so years filming Whale Sharks in the north of WA to save enough money to fund shooting the pilot, which enabled us to get the TV deal mid last year. Ever since securing the deal with Fuel TV we've been working hard to get the series done and to air.
Courtesy Home Grown Maniacs
Home Grown Honey Kristal on set.
So tell us about the concept, what's HGM all about?
The basic premises of HGM TV was created with FMX mostly in mind, but I don't think the Australian market is quite ready for a full-blown FMX show. There's not really enough going on and preaching to the converted is not what the sport needs. We need to be bringing in new fans and getting them to appreciate what these riders really do. So we decided to make it a crossover action sports show — anything that's crazy, funny, sexy, basically anything that the youth of today enjoys.
We really want to showcase the Aussie culture as a lot of Fuel TV content that's been running in Australia is imported. We want to dig a little deeper into our action sports athletes, like where they came from, how difficult it was to make it to where they're at now. Like Aussie Jacko Strong, who lives in the middle of nowhere where there's high temperatures making it hard to ride, has now made it overseas riding for the Metal Mulisha and competing in comps around the globe. I'd say the show is made up of around 50 percent FMX, with the other 50 being made up of surf, skate, BMX, down-hill mountain biking, and music. We also have a section called 'Homegrown Honeys' showcasing girls who get involved in the sports, not just standing around looking the goods.
One of the shows main hosts 'Bushy' is also an old school underground legend who has been seen in the pages of Freerider MX since its inception doing something crazy, or at the local skate park mixing it up — he loves snowboarding, surfing, racing moto — he really is the perfect guy to be fronting HGM.
Tell us about him.
Bushy's a bloody legend. He's got this amazing personality that I suspected would transfer onto film and it has. He is the main host who walks his talk and rides FMX, skates, surfs, and has shed quite a bit of blood for HGM TV already. I think one thing that separates us from any other TV show like it is our presenters really get involved with the sports they cover.
Courtesy Home Grown Maniacs
The man, the myth, the legend — Leith "Holtzy" Holtzman. Leith is the man responsible for creating Home Grown Maniacs.
Thanks for your time Holtzy and good luck with the HGM series. Anyone you'd like to thank?
Yeah for sure. We've struggled with sponsorship due to the global recession, but fortunately we've had some good company's back us including Roaring Lion energy drink and Valeyside clothing. Thanks to these guys, we're able to push on with it.
Home Grown Maniacs airs on Fuel TV July 4th through Foxtel and Austar networks. You can find out more info at homegrownmaniacs.com
Comments that include profanity, or personal attacks, or antisocial behavior such as "spamming" or "trolling," or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our terms of use. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Contributors
Ryan Leyba
Leyba is a bitter, retired FMX rider that likes to sit in his cubicle and call the professionals of the sport wussies for not pulling 360s and double backflips. He claims he quit riding FMX before flips were even invented... yeah, right.
Cliff Talley
Making FMX videos exciting is easy. Making them look good is not. Cliff Talley does both of these well and still manages to find enough time to piss off his neighbors with his Travis Barker-esque drum skills.
Chris Tedesco
You've seen his photos on the covers of Transworld, Racer X and more. You've also seen his tequila shooting skills at your local dive bar. Ladies, Chris is single and looking to mingle.
Grant "Goba" O'brien
FMX in Australia wouldn't exist if it weren't for Goba. Well, maybe it would, but it wouldn't be nearly as cool. I don't know why, but we can't quit calling him gobalobadingdong — it just rolls off the tongue.
Tes Sewell
Tes is the dude that's always involved in everything that's going on in FMX. How he does it, we don't know, but that's the reason we hired him to share his plethora of FMX wisdom in the form of a monthly column.
