Meet the pro surfers who deliver such esoteric verbal husks!
Long ago, I lusted to talk to the pro surfers. What a thrill it would be to penetrate their secretive little world and liberate those solid kernels of truths. What secrets would unfurl before me?
The truth, as I would later discover, is that interviewing professional surfers is a frustrating exercise. I still dine on the story of interviewing one of the best in the game and after a handful of futile questions, I retreated to a standard to at least get some keystrokes happening.
I asked, “What boards are you riding?”
He replied, “Whoa, these questions are heavy.”
I vowed never to interview the surfer again and never have. Finding truth and insight while interviewing what we call “athletes” is a rare and infrequent experience.
But, sometimes, a surfer will come along and reveal the most volatile elements of his soul. Below I list my five favourite surfers to interview.
1. Andy Irons
Oh, he was the most dynamic of motherfuckers. The expression “wear your heart on your sleeve” was constructed to explain the glory of Andy Irons. If he was bummed, he’d tell you; maybe he’d wanna fight you. But, mostly, if you called, if you shoved a recorder near his mouth, he lit up. No one was more accessible or more honest. Paradoxically, Andy’s insecurity about his surfing and an obsession with money, fuelled his interview energy. I interviewed Andy from age 17, when we both went on our first big magazine trip together, until a couple of weeks before he died in 2010. The tension between love and hate, between success and failure, between life and death was forever apparent.
Notable quote:
What childhood dreams have stuck with you?
“It’s usually, I’m on top of a mountain and I’m trying to stand on the pinnacle without falling off. The wind gets really strong and it turns into this radical Wizard of Oz trip with the wind coming up and with lightning bolts appearing around. It starts to rain and the mountain starts getting real slippery. What does it mean? Probably, that I’m trying to hold on.”
2. Mason Ho
Where did this kid come from? Sunset Beach, North Shore? Son of Michael Ho? Bro of Coco? Nephew of the world champ Dez Ho? I always clear the decks for a least an hour when I get Mason on the line. Everything from his accent to his vision on surfing, life, girls, sex, is an audacious madness that leaves me spellbound. Mason was never shackled with a serious sponsor that’d ever demand he retract his more startling comments. Mason is alive, he’s with us and, right now, he reigns supreme.
Notable quote:
“I’ve had a few good fights. I’ve never really gotten too beaten up, though. I like to talk it out and do it nicely, like what just happened recently at Deserts (Desert Point, Lombok, Indonesia). I don’t want no problems after. I like to be respectful. I’ll say, “I’m sorry you’re pissed, and I respect you big time, but you look down to fight and I’m down to fight, so let’s go in, fight, then shake hands and have a beer afterwards.” That’s my theory. If you’re going to fight, respect ’em and they’ll respect you back and maybe not tag you so bad if they catch you good. If they call me a bitch, at least I tried. I’ll come in and… bang… dynamite! When I was a kid, an Aussie guy cracked me really good. We made friends ’cause I elbowed him in the face and he was all stoked. That was on the Gold Coast.”
3. Noa Deane
Another surfer with a superb touch when it comes to interviews. The almost-20-year-old from Coolangatta on the Gold Coast might’ve floundered on stage at the Surfer Poll but, for Noa, surfing is not just a dumb jock sport but the sacred vehicle of life. He takes it more seriously than you’d think. Dane Reynolds recognises his uniqueness, as he does Craig Anderson’s. And talk? Noa embraces interviews and he hits the spot.
Notable quote:
“Hey, I’ve got a good story for ya! We went to this place called Ifrane, an alpine snow town in the Atlas mountains. The day before we were online picking a house to stay out. There was this one that was real sweet but it was 200 euros and I was, like, fuck that, that sounds too expensive for one night. It would’ve been sweet once we’d split it up but, then, fuck, we went to this other joint. It looked sick. Old school. It fucking had a garden. Snow out the front. We turned the fireplace on and everything started going downhill from there. Why are the window’s boarded up? Jay goes to the toilet downstairs and sees all these lipstick kisses on the back of the door. On the terrace there was graffiti that said, you died tonight! And in the backyard there was this creepy dude cutting up wood. All the mirrors were smashed. One bed had all these weird stains. It was so sketchy. The lady who rented us the house kept asking us if we wanted hookers. Are you sure you don’t want hookers? And the lady pointed at one door and said, don’t go in this door. It was wigging me out that we were obviously staying at a haunted hookers house. I slept with my fucking shoes on and shit and tried to green out but I totally kooked it. But I got to sleep for one second and felt this thing poke me in the back. Are you fucking kidding me? I started stressing out for hours, trying to put alarm clocks on to wake everybody up. By the time we got out, it was, fuck yeah, we survived that. Fucking hell, that was the heaviest thing that’s ever happened to me. I was so tripped out the next day but psyched that it happened, just cause you got that story to tell.”
4. Mitch Crews
I had no idea that the recently de-boned rookie could string a sharp sentence together. And, then, on a winter’s night on a rooftop at a mutual pal I found myself enthralled by how well he harnessed his meagre education into a whirlwind sweep of life. “I have to interview you!” I winked. And I haven’t stopped!
Notable quote:
“I felt very awkward in the competition area because I’m really social and felt like I had to go through the charade of putting my headphones on and then staring at the camera all strong. I lost interest during the year because, straight up, I’m not ready to sacrifice all the cool things in life to go for those big competitive goals. I’ve gotta wait until that kicks in. I’m only 24. I like being 24 and a normal dude and getting to have fun and meet people and drink coffees and go out in clubs and do that sorta shit. And, truthfully, I’m not good enough at surfing yet. I need to put in a hard year of getting better.”
5. Jeremy Flores
Very much like Andy. Sometimes eggy, often ready to blow his chains. The time of the sham is over for Jeremy and, although he risks turning into a serial complainer, when he’s on, he’s on.
Notable quote:
“I’ve always been honest, always said it like it is. A lot of people respect that. A lot of people don’t. So there’s always going to be people talking shit. I’ve always been true to myself and the people in my entourage and the people that believe in me. The rest, to tell you the truth, I don’t give a… I don’t really care. As long as I’m not fake. In surfing, nowadays, there’s a lot of fake-ness. So much fake. People are so fake. Most of the guys are so fake. I know it because I know all of ‘em and they’re all such legends and such cool guys but then through the media you see a different person. That’s something that scares me and something I never want to do. I want to stay true. People like me and people don’t. But people see the real me.”
…there’s a reverse parabola of mouthiness too. New to the game, the kid comes in throwing quotes. As his profile increases, as more money funnels into his account via often conservative co’s, the quotes diminish in honesty. On the other side of the curve, as famous disappears, as the big sponsors evaporate, the quotes improve, often too late…
That is very interesting. It makes sense, and I think that it happens in other sports as well, but for drastically different reasons. Let’s take someone like Tom Brady for example. If you ever have the chance to see some of his old interviews while he was a backup, he was hilarious with his absolute verbal destruction of any team they beat, and this continued after he replaced Bledsoe until he won that first Super Bowl. After that, when he brought in all the sponsors and Giselle, he turned into a robot and didn’t say anything interesting for about 10 years. Then, 2-3 years ago, he started opening up again and you’ve got the f-bomb throwing, opposing coach shit talking, Belichick impersonating, all around entertaining guy that we’re watching today.
Now in surfing, as you said, this would be because he’s an old guy, the conservative core co’s no longer want to sponsor him, and he’s hoping by suddenly becoming edgy he can attract a youthful new sponsor that needs legitimacy and thinks an old school dude will give them that.
But for Brady, it’s the exact opposite reasoning. He is utterly secure in his position. He knows that Ugg, Audi, etc, are going to keep him no matter what he says, just like he knows the Patriots aren’t going to do a damn thing about mere words. He’s earned his place, he’s earned the right to speak up, and he knows that the fans will crucify the team or his sponsors if they were to penalize him for exercising said right.
In surfing, however, this is not the case at all. Professional surfing (and I include sponsored guys who don’t compete as part of pro surfing) is an industry where partings we all refuse to believe will ever happen, such as Bruce and Volcom, or Kelly and Quiksilver, happen all the time. Even at the top level of the sport the security to truly speak out doesn’t exists, and won’t exist, unless you’re just speaking of the fact that the pros who receive top end money have the same freedom to speak their mind as any wealthy person because they know they can live the rest of their lives on the wealth they have accumlated already. This gives them to ability to say “fuck sponsors” and speak as they please.
In short, you have one case where this freedom of speech comes about due to desperation and a fierce need to reimagine oneself, and in the other case it comes from utter confidence in the security of one’s position, but the “reverse parabola” looks the same from the outside.
Very, very, interesting.
I wonder why it is that, with the exception of AI, it seems like the guys who can actually string a few compelling words together are the guys that aren’t really pounding on the door to hit top 5. I’m sure there are exceptions, but even guys who you expect to be mouthy, like JOB, come across as fairly restrained in interviews.
So basically you have to be so fucking
good that a sponsor cant cut you regardless of what you say, like the aforementioned Mr Irons, or you have to know that you’re not going to grab a top tier sponsor anyway so you make your fame by being honest and legit.
Interesting.