Shaun White On His Skateboarding Future, Hanging With Guns N’ Roses & One ‘Painful’ Miley Cyrus Song

Is Shaun White ready to trade in his snowboard for some wheels?

The two-time Olympic gold medalist, who wowed millions with his McTwist 1260 at the 2010 Winter Olympics just weeks ago, told the March 18 issue of Rolling Stone that he may be focusing on another sport at his next Olympics – skateboarding.

“I’ve reached my goal with snowboarding,” Shaun said. “If skating got into the Olympics, I would be tempted to hold off on shredding for a year and just skate, to make that my new goal… In that sport, I’m still the underdog.”

In the meantime, though, Shaun is the snowboarding world’s biggest rock star – and he dresses the part too.

In his Rolling Stone photo shoot, he rocks a leather jacket from Matt Sorum of Guns n’ Roses’ Hollywood clothing store.

“Apparently, Slash only smokes a certain kind of cigarette, but they’re super-long, so he made the pocket on this jacket extra long to fit them. As soon as I hear that, I was like, ‘I’ll take it! I’ll take it!’” Shaun said. “Then, since I was in the presence of rock heroes, I decided that I had to get the pants to match.”

And Shaun doesn’t just dress the part these days – the athlete owns a house just to party in.

“I didn’t know what went into a home, and a big house was just headache after headache,” he said of the seven-bedroom house in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., he bought after his gold medal win at the 2006 Olympics. He’s since purchased a second, smaller home. “I don’t even want to go there anymore. Now I just use it to throw parties, like a big Halloween party.”

But it’s music that Shaun said has changed his life.

“Getting into music has changed my personality and way of doing things,” he explained. “I’m far more open now.”

While many of Shaun’s Vancouver Olympics teammates were reggae fans, the snowboarder told the mag he wanted to listen to one thing – rock ‘n’ roll. He told the mag he’s a fan of the classics – Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and bands such as T. Rex, Rory Erickson and the Kinks.

Not on his playlist? Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.,” which one teammate would torture him with in the van at the Vancouver games.

“He’d play stuff he knew I hated, like… ‘Party in the U.S.A.,’” Shaun said. “Which is just painful. It’s bumming me out even thinking about it.”

He’s a musician himself, and said he loves the camaraderie of playing with a band – a different feeling than his solo approach to the half-pipe.

“I think guitar is the best thing in the world,” he said. “It’s the only thing where no matter what I do, I can’t do it all myself. There’s only so good you can get in your room, and it’s never going to sound as rad as if I play with other people. With guitar, I really can’t win.”