Unearthed interview of surf star killed in bizarre accident reveals his timeless wisdom

“Shane Herring was the Kelly Slater of Australian surfing. And no one has come close since.”

Shane Herring, who died last Sunday aged fifty-three, had been shaking his fist at the ol grim reaper for thirty years, slipping by multiple hits of pancreatic disease and with a joy for the drink that ate up all his teeth.

His death wasn’t unforeseen, you might say. But the fall down the stairs, get up, raid the fridge, go to bed and never wake up was an oddly characteristic way for the lil red bear to exit this mortal coil.

He was lovely and beautiful and will be missed.

And in this interview from the Kelly Slater-brand VSTR funded Korduroy TV, filmed back in 2013, Shane Herring, at one point one of the most highly paid surfers in the world, is working as a ding-repairer at Jeremy Byles’ surf shop near Byron Bay.

Herring is filmed talking with surfing’s greatest influencer Derek Hynd, iconic surf writer, former pro surfer, creator of Rip Curl’s The Search campaign and fins-free pioneer.

Herring is forty-two in the interview. For what most of us would say is a pretty melancholic fate, dipping out of the big lights to drink piss an fix dings is a fall as steep as they come, Herring reveals a wisdom and base-line happiness that impresses.

Herring: They call me insane. But I’m not insane because actually I used to have lots and lots of money, you know, and now because I’ve got no money they call me insane and they want me on the drugs.
Derek Hynd: In 89, you had a better style than Michael Peterson ever did.
Herring: Young surfers, learn how to fix a surfboard, and then it goes from there. You don’t start surfing until nine or ten or eleven. And this other bullshit about surfing at five and everyone taking ca re of you and you’re getting like ten thousand dollars at ten years old. Stuff that shit.
Herring: It doesn’t matter that I’ve got nothing now, you know, but what matters is that I’m existing and I’m still cruising. I don’t try to be handsome, I don’t try to be cool, I just fucking… just be nice, you know. The secret to living is that you learn nothing. I’m not going to use a telephone, I’m not going to use a computer, I’m not going to use a phone, I’m not going to use anything.
Herring on good surfing: The easiest thing is, is you take off. You’ve got to go down, not up and down like this, you got to go down and bottom turn, down and bottom turn, down and bottom turn. Because we all know what went missing. The bottom turn.
Derek Hynd: That guy with the red beard, 20 years back he was the Kelly Slater of Australian surfing. That guy with the red beard, 20 years back he was the Kelly Slater of Australian surfing. And no Australian has come close to that level since.”

Essential.