MFM & Fam

Name/Age/Home Mountain:
My name is Spencer Rand Swalberg. A lot of people call me Miami, Miamus, Miams, Myhammy, or sometimes just Thunder. I just turned 26 and my home mountain is Park City.
So you were born and raised in Salt Lake?
Indeed.
How was that? You grew up in a pretty religious family right?
It was and still is the best in Utah. As for my family, they are on point. My Pops was a bishop for a long time, that was pretty wild. I suppose that makes a family pretty religious.

When and how did you get into snowboarding?
Ever since I was a little guy I loved sledding. I would love to bomb hills and hit jumps, it was sick. I got really into skating when I was a little older, and the snow got in the way. I saw all the kids in my neighborhood shredding so i saved my dimes and bought a Peter Line mini board and have loved riding ever since.
Did you have a neighborhood shredding crew back then?
Not really, it was just a bunch of neighborhood kids gettin urban. We didn’t have a legit crew until I started getting passes to PC

How did you meet up with Cole and the rest of the F.O.D.T crew?
All my homies and I were way down with the tech. We’d watch all the movies and go shred every day. All I wanted to do was snowboard. Once Ian (Rigby) and JMills got involved with F.O.D.T. they would hit me up to help setup spots. Then I started to hit spots with them.

You’re part in Cold World was pretty serious, is filming for a video something you always planned on doing, or did it all just come together sporadically?
Snowboarding videos are my favorite man,I always wanted to put together some sick video parts.
Was your family down with you spending all your time snowboarding?
My family was pretty cool about it, even though I wasn’t around much they knew that’s what I loved doin. They weren’t going to lock me in the basement or nothin.
It seemed like you were a pretty wild kid back then. What made you decide to change your path and not go after snowboarding?
Yeah I was wild, and it was a strange strange path. Its hard to explain, I just had to get away from everything. When I toasted my knee, that slowed me down a bit. I took another digger the next year when I was riding all alone in the trees at Brighton, I was peeing blood after. The doctors kept tellin me that I should have died. It was gnarly man. I have a lot of respect for those fools that film hammer parts every year forever and ever. I just decided to chill out a bit and have fun.

After that you went on your mission right? When did you decide to do that?
Yeah, during that time my Lil Bro was on his mission, and my best friend Brian was comin home from his mission. The more I considered it, the better it felt. It was just something that I never thought I could do or would do. I thought that only busters went on missions. I’m sure that me going doesn’t change that for some people.
Where did you end up going?
Brasil!
You pretty fluent in Portuguese?
Falo fluentemente. It was way sick!
Ever plan on going back?
Me and my old lady are savin up to go back for the World Cup, it’ll be insane!
So what are you up to these days?
I’m studying at the U, working at Milo, and Interning at an architecture firm. I’m shredding every day I can, and just gonna go on some vision quests.

Any regrets?
Haha just live and learn.
Wise words. How the hell did you get the name Miami Thunder?
Damian Lanchanca.
Any meaning?
Lanchanca just started to call me that. When I looked it up the only thing that came up was a green monster truck, that got me hyped!

Shreddin photos by E-Stone