Surf music fans left reeling as Skegss creative force and “Rage” founder Toby Cregan flees band for health reasons

"I want a simpler more wholesome life where I can spend more time with family, friends and my dog."

The music world is a little poorer tonight after Toby Cregan, the wildly charismatic bass player and singer with Skegss, the Australian surf-centric act which was co-founded by Noa Deane, played his last-ever gig with the band. 

Toby Cregan, who is the son of Ocean and Earth founder Brian Cregan, said he was throwing the four-stringer in the garage to “live a simpler more wholesome life where I can spend more time with family, friends and my dog.” 

Skegss, if you didn’t know, was founded in Byron Bay in 2014 by Cregan, Deane, lead singer and legit shredder Ben Reed and Jonny Lani. Deane quit soon after ‘cause he wanted to concentrate on his lucrative surf career, back then he was on 650k a year and oowee he wasn’t gonna throw that whale back, but not before the band released their breakout single LSD, an ode to the simplicity of existence, Live, Sleep, Die.  

In 2018, the band poured their cash into self-recording their first long-player, My Own Mess, fifteen bangers that captured Byron living, the boozing, drugs, surf life and so on.

If the name Toby Cregan got a familiar ring to it that’s cause he co-founded Rage and is a surf filmmaker of considerable note, including the edit of your ol pal DR’s trip to Israel years back (Tel Aviv Jumps), his use of the Velvet Underground’s I Found a Reason over the credits still gettin’ eyes moist. 

Toby said goodbye to fans at Byron’s Splendour in the Grass, winding up his nine years on the road with, appropriately, his self-penned and performed classic Road Trip.