Shaun White, the US Olympian who is lovingly known as The Flying Tomato, is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine. As you may recall, White graced the RS cover 4 years ago after he won his first Olympic Gold Medal so it is only natural that RS would want to put him back on the cover this month after having won his second Gold Medal. Here is Shaun‘s Rolling Stone coverphoto along with excerpts from his interview:

Shaun White has revolutionized snowboarding, won the big gold in Vancouver and lit his snowboard aflame, Hendrix-style, on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, joining an elite club of athletes to appear on our cover not once, but twice. And as the focused, business savvy White tells it, a lot of his recent success on the half-pipe and off can be attributed to a new addition to his life: “Getting into music has changed my personality and my way of doing things,” he reveals to RS writer Vanessa Grigoriadis. “I”m far more open now.” White, who began snowboarding at six and went pro at 13, has recently returned to one of his early loves — skateboarding — but he does more shredding on one of his three Les Pauls. Jimi Hendrix, Guns n’ Roses and Led Zeppelin are in regular rotation; “Whole Lotta Love” is his favorite-ever song. “I think guitar is the best thing in the world,” he says. “It’s the only thing where no matter what I do, I can’t do it all myself.” The 23-year-old White is a bit of a loner, though. He practices his sport solo on a $500,000 private half-pipe Red Bull built him in Colorado and is known to march to the beat of his own disciplined drummer. While fellow competitors gather to watch snowboard or skate videos in their spare time, he opts out (”I’d rather do it, not watch it,” he explains). Olympic teammate Louie Vito even tried to unnerve him a bit by blasting Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” in the van while White was setting his mental stereo to rock & roll.

This new issue of Rolling Stone should be on newsstands now so all y’all snowboarding fans can rush out and get a copy. I have to say … I like Shaun White. The kid seems so down-to-Earth and there is no question of his talent. I think he does the US proud at the Winter Olympics. After the jump, check out 2 more photos from Shaun White‘s Rolling Stone photoshoot …

It’ll prolly come as no surprise that these photos were shot by the “It” photographer of the moment — Terry Richardson. Not only has he recently photographed Britney Spears, Jared Leto and the Jersey Shore guys but he also shot Shaun White for this issue of RS. Again, I’m not a huge snowboarding fan myself but I really do like Shaun White … and I think he looks great on this magazine cover.

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