The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick

Born in 1944 in Queensland, Australia, Bob McTavish started surfing at age 12 on a 16-foot plywood paddle board. Best known as a surfboard shaper, he started working with Sydney's biggest board builders at age 17, then became a major player in the shortboard revolution. He worked closely with George Greenough and Nat Young, helping Young design “Magic Sam,” the thinner, lighter, shorter longboard that would win Young the 1966 World Championships in San Diego, California. In 1967, McTavish produced the first vee bottom, nicknamed the “Plastic Machine.” Shortly thereafter, he and Young were seen tearing it up at Honolua Bay in Paul Witzig's The Hot Generation. In the late '70s, McTavish wrote several essays for surf magazines talking up the long- and mid-range boards he was shaping. In 2009, Bob penned Stoked!, his memoir. Now in his eighties, a father of five and a grandfather, McTavish is still actively shaping and surfing. In this episode of Soundings, McTavish sits down with Jamie Brisick inside his factory to talk about his prolific shaping career, stowing away to Oahu, Magic Sam, The Hot Generation, Dick Brewer, and his most memorable moments in the water. 

Born in 1981 on Oahu, Mark Healey started surfing at age three, turned pro by the time he was 17, and made his name in heavy, scary waves, first in Hawaii, then around the world. But big-wave surfing was only part of it. An avid diver, Healey won the World Cup of Spearfishing in La Paz, Mexico, in 2008. And then there were sharks. In 2011, he traveled to Mexico's Guadalupe Island to dive with great whites for a Nat Geo TV shoot. Outside magazine called him “the greatest athlete you've never heard of.” Recently, he founded Healey Water Operations, synthesizing all his singular skills into a personal brand. In this episode of Soundings, Healey sits down with Jamie Brisick on the North Shore to talk about his first Pipe session, the nuances of discerning the personalities of sharks, weaving together experiential and scientific knowledge, chasing after big surf, the ins and outs of spearfishing, and staying composed in heavy situations.

Kylie Manning is a painter, surfer, and fisher based in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were both art teachers, and, while she was growing up, the family moved between their home in Juneau, Alaska, to various regions in Mexico, which would inform her artwork—and her surfing. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts with a double major in philosophy and visual arts. While she was getting her MFA at the New York Academy of Art, she had a captain's license to operate 500-ton commercial fishing boats on international waters, and spent her summers catching salmon on the Pacific coast. Manning has gained global respect for her abstract figurative paintings, which embody powerful yet delicate compositions with brushstrokes that seem to be in motion. Her work is held in numerous collections worldwide, including the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; and the X and Yuz Museums in China. In this episode of Soundings, Manning talks with Jamie Brisick about weather and wonderment, beauty and brawls aboard commercial fishing vessels, atmospheric fascination, style, her proudest artworks, the nuances between grit and growth, and her collaboration with the New York City Ballet.  

Born in 1950 in San Diego, California, Jeff Divine is one of surfing's preeminent photographers and photo editors. Divine began photographing anything and everything around his hometown of La Jolla, California, as a teenager. Surfer magazine first published his photos in 1968, and by the early 1970s his work was all over the surf sphere. He shot everything—water and action, portraiture, lifestyle, landscapes, travel. He was the photo editor for Surfer from 1981 to 1998, then occupied the same position at The Surfer's Journal until 2016. He's published several books, among them Masters of Surf Photography: Jeff Divine, Surfing Photographs From the Seventies Taken by Jeff Divine, and Surfing Photographs From the Eighties Taken by Jeff Divine. His work has been featured in many gallery and museum exhibitions. In this episode of Soundings, Divine talks with Jamie Brisick swimming at Sunset Beach, the legacy of Ron Stoner, the beauty of the North Shore, art and artifact, Windansea, photographing Andy Irons, color palettes, the evolution of lens technology, and the transition from film to digital.   

Lee-Ann Curren is a freesurfer, musician, and artist. She grew up and lives in Biarritz, in the southwest of France. Her father is three-time world champion Tom Curren. Her mother is Marie-Pascale, a top-ranked European surfer in the 1980s. Her grandfather is the late Pat Curren, one of the pioneers of Waimea Bay and shaper of big-wave elephant guns. Her aunt Marie-Paul is the 1967 French national champ, and her aunt Marie-Christine is a six-time French national champ. Though she's won a couple of French national championships herself, Lee-Ann is primarily known as a freesurfer who has woven traveling, music-making, and art into that moniker. In this episode of Soundings, host Jamie Brisick meets with Lee-Ann in the Basque Country to talk about her family's influence, touring with her band, finding her place, maintaining artistic purity, criticality, and the poetics of movement in sound and water.  

Thomas Victor Carroll is a surfing godhead from Newport Beach, Australia, known for his radicality, focus, and power. He competed on the world tour from 1979 to 1993, winning the world title in 1983 and 1984, and taking home a total of 26 event victories, including the Pipeline Masters in 1987, 1990, and 1991. In 1988, he made history by signing surfing's first million-dollar contract. He won the 1984 Surfer Poll and was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 1990. In the aughts, he teamed up with Ross Clarke-Jones to chase big waves around Australia. In his 2013 autobiography, TC: Tom Carroll, written with his brother, surf journalist Nick Carroll, Tom was very forthcoming about his drug use. Now 62, he's been sober for many years. A calmer, quieter presence, Carroll meditates daily, but still surfs voraciously. In this episode, Carroll talks with Jamie Brisick about the evolution of performance at Pipeline, his first Pipe Masters win, competing in the face of tragedy, helmets, battling addiction, the complexities of a hunger for attention, and his favorite surfers to watch. 

Ed Templeton is a professional skateboarder, contemporary artist, and photographer. A teen skate prodigy from Orange County, California, Ed turned pro in 1990, just before graduating high school. He did a lot of touring for skate demos, along the way picking up a camera and documenting the scene around him. He painted and drew, and later incorporated his artwork and graphics for Toy Machine, the skateboard company he founded in 1994, which he continues to own and manage. Templeton's visual artwork first gained recognition in the late 1990s as part of the Beautiful Losers collective loosely gathered around Aaron Rose's Alleged Gallery on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He and his wife Deanna—also a photographer—are the subjects of the 2000 Mike Mills film, Deformer. Templeton's subject matter focuses on the ethos of suburban and street life, which sometimes includes beach culture, surfers, and surfing. He has published over thirty books and zines of his photographs and artwork, including one of his most famous titles, “Teenage Smokers.” His work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world, most recently at the Long Beach Museum of Art, in an exhibition titled: Wires Crossed: The Culture of Skateboarding, 1995-2012. In this episode of Soundings, Templeton and Jamie Brisick talk about crafting a sustainable career as a skateboarder, capitalism, skateboarding's DIY ethos, documenting skate culture, becoming a painter, identity, individualism, and Mark Gonzalez. 

Leah Dawson grew up in Florida, and moved to Oahu to attend University of Hawaii, where she earned a BA in Creative Media in 2008. Soon after, she started work as a production assistant for the Vans Triple Crown, launching her into a career behind the camera. As a surfer, Dawson's approach is grounded in freedom of expression and dance, on all manner of crafts, with nods to the surfers who have informed her wave-riding odyssey—Rell Sunn, Margo Oberg, Jericho Poppler, and Lynne Boyer, to name but a few. She is the cofounder of Salty Sensations, in which she and her partners, Kassia Meador and Makala Smith, host surf retreats at select spots worldwide. She's also a co-founder of Changing Tides Foundation, a women-led organization that celebrates diversity and inclusivity. In this episode of Soundings, Dawson talks with Jamie Brisick about the importance of believing in something, attaining longevity as a surfer, the Blue Crush generation, the freedom of the glide, lineup dynamics, the power of uplifting others, and the most memorable moments she's captured through the viewfinder. 

Matt Warshaw grew up surfing in Los Angeles at a time when surf and skate culture were beginning to meet in Venice Beach and Santa Monica. After a stint as a pro surfer in the 1980s, Warshaw became the editor of Surfer magazine. In 1990, he left his editor's post at Surfer to attend UC Berkeley, where he got his BA in History in 1993. He remained in the Bay Area, parking himself in an apartment in the Sunset District and in countless Ocean Beach barrels. As if personally expanded by all those tubes, Warshaw's writing expanded into lengthy essays, profiles, and books—many books—among them Maverick's: The Story of Big-Wave Surfing, Above The Roar: 50 Surfer Interviews, Photo/Stoner, Surfriders: In Search of the Perfect Wave, Surf Movie Tonite! Surf Movie Poster Art, 1957-2005, and more. His Encyclopedia of Surfing, first released in 2003, is the most comprehensive tome of surf culture in existence, and he followed it up with 2010's The History of Surfing, a beast of a book that makes music of Warshaw's encyclopedic knowledge. His most recent venture is the EOS dot surf, which is an invaluable online resource for surf obsessives, and features the “Sunday Joint,” a reflective op-ed style email that Matt shoots out to subscribers every Sunday. In this episode of Soundings, Warshaw talks with Jamie Brisick about the golden days of Los Angeles, establishing a career as a historian, the value of exploring someone else's world, the importance of preserving history, the challenge of creating a database, his first Jeff Ho board, the Encyclopedia of Surfing, and the art of writing economically.

Born in 1990 in Bangalow, Australia, not far from Byron Bay, Torren Martyn is hailed as one of the great stylists of our time, riding all manner of surfcraft, and with a special penchant for twin-fins. He's also one of surfing's great explorers. In 2016, he and his filmmaker pal Ishka Folkwell spent three months circumnavigating Australia in a Land Rover, riding A-grade waves and documenting their trip in the first installment of the film series Lost Track. In 2018, the duo did a similar trip around New Zealand, this time on motorcycles. In 2019, they bought a Ford Transit and drove it from Europe down to the west coast of Africa on a surf hunt. In 2022, Martyn and his partner, Aiyana Powell, bought a sailboat in Thailand and spent an entire year exploring surf breaks in and around Indonesia, culminating in the film Calypte. In this episode of Soundings, Martyn and Jamie Brisick talk about surfing in the middle of nowhere, forging a free-surfer's path, finding clarity and direction, cultivating a cartographic mindset, gaining confidence as a sailor, his quiver, and the logistics, preparation, and knowledge that went into planning for a year at sea.

Carolyn Murphy is a supermodel, actress, and environmental advocate. Her Vogue shoot with Steven Meisel in the late 1990s launched her into a fruitful, three-decade long career. In 1998 she was named VH1/Vogue's Model of the Year. She played Dubbie in the 1999 feature film Liberty Heights, directed by Barry Levinson. She was also one of the “Modern Muses” on the November 1999 millennium cover of American Vogue. She's also a surfer, and moved from NYC in the late 1990s to be closer to the waves in LA. Today, Murphy is an ambassador for Surfrider, The Wellness Foundation, Animal Haven, Edible Schoolyard NY, Ocean Unite, and No More Plastic. Along with being a mom, activism is a key component in her life. In this episode, Murphy talks with Jamie Brisick about the shock of New York as a young model, the shoots that changed her career, splitting time between Costa Rica and New York, the fashion industry, performativity, the challenges of introversion, surfing, and going against the grain. 

Darrick Doerner is a big-wave surfer, tow-surfing pioneer, Hollywood stuntman, and former North Shore lifeguard. He grew up surfing in the LA area in the 1960s and '70s, moved to Hawaii his senior year of high school, and discovered himself joyous and at peace in heavy water. Hungry for waves too big to catch manually, Doerner and his pals Laird Hamilton and Buzzy Kerbox started experimenting with personal watercraft assists in the early 1990s. Not long after, they began towing into Peahi, aka Jaws. In Hollywood, Doerner stunt-doubled for Bodhi, Patrick Swayze's character, in 1991's Point Break, and appeared as a stunt surfer in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day. In this episode of Soundings, Doerner and Jamie Brisick talk about the allure of Sunset Beach, his memorable ride at Waimea on Super Bowl Sunday in 1988, friendship, the importance of being attuned to your environment, drawing lines on giant waves, and working with Eddie Aikau.

A writer and editor from San Diego, California, Scott's known throughout the surf sphere for his work with The Surfer's Journal, which he edited from 1999 to 2019, and where he remains as its creative director. Hulet was drawn to words from a young age. At six, Hulet was experimenting with making his own hardbound, nail-stapled books. As a college student, Hulet became well-acquainted with the world of print publications, serving as editor for student-led literary journals and writing for magazines like Revolt In Style and Kema. In the early 1990s, before working at TSJ, he was the editor for Longboard Quarterly. He's recently released a new book, Flow Violento, a collection of more than 30 years of his published works, focused on his lifetime spent traveling, surfing, and fishing throughout Latin America. In this episode of Soundings, Hulet talks with Jamie Brisick about lessons learned from Craig Stecyk, the virtues of reading and writing, getting to know his heroes, facing adversity, health scares, his Baja roots, and his new book.

Hailing from Encinitas, California, Ryan Burch is a goofyfoot, a shaper, a husband, a new father, a free surfer, and a free thinker. His approach to wave-riding might be described as experimental, both in the lines he draws and the surfcraft that he rides—everything from asyms to gliders to old-school twin-keeled fishes to sawed-off chunks of raw foam. Burch shaped his first board at age 20, loved it, shaped more, and soon became a leading figure in the backyard, DIY board building scene. He's appeared in a number of surf films, among them 2010's Stoked and Broke and 2019's Self Discovery for Social Survival. His part in 2015's Psychic Migrations earned him a “Best Performance” nomination in the Surfer Poll Awards. In this episode of Soundings, Burch sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about the virtues of working with your hands, receiving feedback from the ocean, getting comfortable in hollow surf, G-Land, fatherhood, living with intention, entrepreneurship, and his influences.

Robert Trujillo grew up on the westside of Los Angeles, where he found music, skateboarding, and surfing at a young age. He first rose to prominence as the bassist for Suicidal Tendencies, which he played in from 1989 to 1995. He was a member of Ozzy Osbourne's band for a number of years starting in the late '90s. Since 2003, he's been the bassist for Metallica. He played—and still plays—with the funk metal supergroup Infectious Grooves. A goofyfoot, he gets in the water regularly, weaving wave riding into his heavy touring schedule. In this episode of Soundings, Trujillo talks with Jamie Brisick about the moment his life as a musician changed forever, the ebbs and flows of a passion-driven career, the importance of establishing a work ethic, Metallica world tours, Ozzy Osbourne, surfing, finding inspiration, playing in front of massive crowds, and staying grounded. 

Five-time world champion Carissa Moore started surfing at age 5 with her dad in the hallowed waters of Waikiki. As an amateur, she won 11 national titles. In 2008, at the age of 16, Moore became the youngest winner of the Triple Crown of Surfing. She qualified for the WCT in 2010, and won world titles in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2019, and 2021, with dozens of event wins along the way. She was the first-ever winner of the Olympic Gold Medal in women's shortboard surfing. More recently, Moore has announced that she will be walking away from competition to devote time to family, making films, and investing energy into her charitable foundation, Moore Aloha. In this episode of Soundings, Moore talks with Jamie Brisick about her decision to step away from the tour, representing Hawaii, friendship, finding community, her proudest moments, the values (and dangers) of mimicry, and overcoming self-doubt. 

Mark Cunningham, aka The Human Fish, is hailed as one of the greatest bodysurfers of all time. He grew up in Hawaii, became a lifeguard in the mid-'70s, and for nearly 30 years guarded primarily at Ehukai Beach Park, with a view straight into Pipeline's barrel. Through the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Cunningham won nearly every bodysurfing event he entered. But, as Cunningham would be the first to tell you, bodysurfing is not about winning or losing. Cunningham retired from lifeguarding in 2005, at age 49. In recent years, he's become an obsessive reefcomber, finding fins, sunglasses, watches, and other valuables on the ocean floor. He's also become a visual artist, using his findings in sculptures and assemblages. In this episode of Soundings, Cunningham talks with Jamie Brisick about the multifarious duties of a lifeguard, scanning the impact zone, brushes with fate at Backdoor, playing in the shorebreak, the joys of retirement, Puerto Escondido, and the virtue of leading a simple life.

Award-winning author and The New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan came to surfing early while growing up between Hawaii and Southern California. He helped bring surf writing, as a genre, to the literary fore in 1992 with the publication of his two-part essay “Playing Doc's Games” in The New Yorker, which chronicled both his and “Doc” Renneker's pursuits at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. His 2015 memoir, Barbarian Days, which documented his surfing life, won the Pulitzer Prize. Beyond the surf, Finnegan has devoted much of his career to conflict reporting in regions ranging from Mexico to parts of Asia. In this episode, Finnegan talks with show host Jamie Brisick about the modern marriage of surfing and intellectualism, the importance of asking questions, writing, curiosity, outing himself as a surfer in the context of his career, Bali's dystopian reality, the dissemination of surf culture, and how his experience as a teacher in South Africa during apartheid shaped him as a writer.

A core member of the Momentum Generation and an 11-year veteran of the world tour, Shane Dorian is best known for his big-wave accomplishments over the past 20 years. Born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, Dorian received his big-wave education under Brock Little, Todd Chesser, and others after relocating to the North Shore as a teenager. Today, with multiple XXL Awards under his belt and a bag full of some of the most defining rides in history, Dorian has proven a trailblazer in the big-wave realm, helping to consistently redefine what's possible via one's own paddle power. In this episode, Dorian sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about swell tracking, risk assessment, the surfing time warp, decision making in critical moments, family, bowhunting, overcoming self-doubt, and the virtue of patience.

Hailing from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, freesurfer Jaleesa Vincent leads a life deeply immersed in explorative practices of self-expression and connection with nature. If she isn't hunting for waves, she's playing music, painting, cooking, writing poetry, and experimenting with taxidermy. Over the past few years, her output has helped define a new generation of paradigmatic Renaissance surfers in Australia through unbending fidelity to play, creativity, and staying true to oneself—in the water and out of it. In this episode, Vincent talks with show host Jamie Brisick about her robust creative sentiment, the importance of losing yourself in the things you love, rediscovering her inner child, tap dancing, her recent injury, rustic living, Indonesia, touring with her band, and cultivating her sense of what it means to be a woman.

Born and raised in Central California, Nate Tyler eschewed the world of competitive surfing in favor of pursuing the path less trodden as a teenager, building a free surfing career defined by a steadfast dedication to filming, traveling, and artistic exploration. His profile rose through the aughts and 2010's, due in no small part to his performances in some of the most cult-classic surf films of the era: Creepy Fingers (2006), BS! (2009), Year Zero (2011), Strange Rumblings in Shangri La (2014), and Psychic Migrations (2015), among others. Alongside surfing, Tyler has cultivated an art practice, producing kinetic sculptures that interrogate the relationship between materiality and movement. In this episode, Tyler sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about life and love off-the-grid, the California crowd factor, surfing in the elements, the Central Coast, how fatherhood has changed him, and the importance of stepping away from the world you know.

A preeminent figure in surf filmmaking, Jack McCoy started surfing when his family moved from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 1954. In the 1970s, he began experimenting with film and photography and, in 1976, released his first film, Tubular Swells, produced and directed with Australian photographer Dick Hoole. What followed was a four-decade run filming, directing, and producing classics of the surf genre—including Storm Riders (1982), Kong's Island (1983), Bunyip Dreaming (1990), The Green Iguana (1992), Sabotaj (1998), The Occumentary (1999), Blue Horizon (2004), Free as a Dog (2006), and A Deeper Shade of Blue (2012)—defined via McCoy's unparalleled water cinematography. In this episode, host Jamie Brisick talks to McCoy about the evolution of surf filmmaking, capturing emotion, mindsurfing his way through hepatitis, traveling, music, and working with a Beatle.

A three-time Maverick's champion and a central figure in Santa Cruz's explosion onto surfing's main stage in the late '90s and early '00s, Darryl Virostko learned to ride big, heavy surf as a kid at Steamer Lane. His introduction to Maverick's, the wave that defined his career, came when it was still considered a myth in surfing circles. His fast success and notoriety within surfing, and the big-wave community especially, engendered a degree of risk-taking, adrenaline-chasing behavior that eventually pushed Virostko into addiction. Clean since 2008, Virostko is now an advocate for the sober community, providing support for people with addiction through his rehabilitation program, FleaHab. In this episode, show host Jamie Brisick travels to Virostko's home in Santa Cruz to talk about how Maverick's changed the big-wave landscape, the power of commitment, lessons learned from his youth, getting clean, death and love, and surfing with range.

Born in Japan to a mother with a profound passion for classical music and a father whose singing and guitar resounded throughout her early childhood, Aska Matsumiya was playing music before she could talk. Allured by her family's player piano as a child, she became a proficient classical pianist by age 3. But after a move to Orange County, California, at 12, Matsuyima was introduced to the haywire world of punk rock. Matsumiya played in punk bands until her early twenties, when she began experimenting with writing her own songs and scoring clips for friends in the fashion industry. Since then, she's composed over 20 films and television soundtracks for directors like Julia Hart and Spike Jonze, networks like HBO, major brands like Audi, as well as collaborated with prolific composers such as Ryuichi Sakamoto. In this episode, Matsumiya and show host Jamie Brisick discuss her creative process, composing for film and television versus the self, her proudest pieces, working with others, her musical inspirations, and the similarities between surfing and making music.

The mastermind behind large-scale production of the surfboard blank, Gordon “Grubby” Clark's pioneering of polyurethane foam in constructing the modern surfboard enabled the progression of surfing as a culture. Enthralled by materials from a young age, Clark received a combined degree in math and physics from Pomona College before working as a glasser at Hobie Surfboards and as an apprentice to Tom Blake, inventor of the surfboard fin, while splitting time between Hawaii and California. When demand for foam boards proliferated across Southern California in the late 1950s, Clark was quick to employ his background toward industrializing and streamlining the production of polyurethane foam blanks, becoming the defining blank maker from the early '60s until Clark Foam's sudden and shocking closure in 2005. Since then, “Grubby” has lived and worked on a sprawling cattle ranch in Oregon, which is where host Jamie Brisick sat down and talked with Clark about the adaptation of modern surfboard design, the intricacies of foam and fiberglass, the value of an education in science, the emergence of computer programming, the shortboard revolution, and why he closed shop.

A molecular scientist with a PhD in marine conservation and sustainability from UC San Diego, Cliff Kapono devotes himself to putting his two greatest passions—science and surfing—into productive conversation. For Kapono, a Native Hawaiian from the Big Island, surfing necessitates meaningful, intimate care for one's environment and is a practice deeply embedded in the familial and social histories that informed his upbringing. Kapono currently serves as an ambassador for the Save the Waves Coalition, a nonprofit that protects surf ecosystems globally, and his environmental activism and study range from microbiome dynamics to coral health. In this episode, Kapono talks with show host Jamie Brisick about surfing as a means of combating trauma, finding one's identity, sublime connection, high-performance surf zones, commodification of the sacred, the nuances of inclusivity, and growing up in Hawaii.

Steve Olson honed his skateboarding expertise sneaking into swimming pools across Southern California while growing up in the 1970s. His skating was wedded to a surf-centric childhood at a time when the crossover between the two was at its height. Olson earned a sponsorship by Santa Cruz Skateboards in 1979 and quickly became notorious for introducing a punk rock aesthetic and cool defiance to the skate scene. He's also lived outside of surf-skate norms as an actor, artist, musician, and father, blending all those interests into a singular personality. In this episode, Olson sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about their first encounters, his contemporary art practice, the art of trespassing, the surf-skate connection, cat-and-mouse thrills, his greatest moments on a skateboard, extreme individualism, and the memories that have stuck with him.

From one of surfing's most accomplished and recognizable families, Coco Ho  was raised in the thick of the surf universe on the North Shore of Oahu. As a kid, she quickly gained notoriety as a high-performance surfer in her own right, winning multiple junior titles before eventually joining the Championship Tour while still a teenager, where she posted solid results and year-end rankings for over a decade. Since letting go of competition, she's gone on to design women's wear collections, put on twin-fin clinics, and started her female-centric board brand, while continuing to chase waves. In this episode, Ho and show host Jamie Brisick sit down to talk about her serendipitous thrust into competitive surfing, competing against her brother, friendship, winter on the North Shore, the inevitable overlap between passion and selfishness, functionality, confidence, and her biggest inspirations. 

Dubbed “The Animal,” Nat Young has spent nearly 60 years as one of surfing's most influential and esteemed figures. At the forefront of surfing's stylistic evolution during the 1960s, Young's victory at the 1966 World Championships in San Diego on his self-shaped “Magic Sam” helped cement Australia's place as a budding progenitor of high-performance surfing. In the decades since, he's maintained iconic status both in surf culture and in his native country, while writing numerous books, making films documenting the era of transformation he helped usher in, traveling the globe to both surfing and non-surfing locales, and continuing to surf—at a masterful level on all manner of craft—at the world-class points near his home. In this episode, Young talks with show host Jamie Brisick about his long and celebrated career, his biggest influences, and the translation of style across generations. 

Two-time world champion John John Florence looms large in surfing's landscape. The eldest of three brothers, Florence grew up on the North Shore, where his mom took the family to the beach every day after school. He quickly made a name for himself as a kid, inching his way from bodyboarding the shorebreak to sitting center peak in the lineup at Pipe. His knowledge, talent, and skillset extends beyond the jersey—even beyond the surf, marked recently by his extended trips sailing the open ocean. A paradigm of the waterman's tradition, Florence sits down with show host Jamie Brisick in this episode to talk about the trajectory of his career, staying wholesome, his biggest inspirations, self-optimization, his proudest moments, his complicated relationship to competition, family, synchronicity, and what the future holds. 

Keala Kennelly grew up on Kauai in a geodesic dome built by her parents and began surfing at the age of five, a contemporary of the Irons brothers. Through the 1990s and early aughts, she was consistently ranked top ten on the World Tour and was the first woman to tow Teahupoo. She has since pursued successful careers in both acting and music. Kennelly's life has been also defined by her pushing both physical and social limitations, from her fighting for women's representation in heavy surf to her coming out during a time when that meant detrimental ramifications to her surfing career. In this episode, Kennelly talks with show host Jamie Brisick about being an early advocate for the LGBTQ+ surfing community, what it meant to be one of the few women in the lineup, how the attitudes have changed, losing her sponsors, giving up her spot on tour to work as an actress for David Milch, fighting for equal pay, and her invite to the Eddie, and her DJ career.

His father an olympic diver from Hungary, his mother a professional water skier, Brad Gerlach drew inspiration and drive from his parents' athletic accomplishments and competitive mentality. He gripped professional surfing by the horns in 1985, when, as a rookie on the tour, he took out the tour's major players to emerge victorious at that year's Stubby's Pro. Victories continued to color Gerlach's early career, culminating in his finishing second in the world in 1991. He eventually grew disillusioned with competitive surfing and focused his efforts on big-wave surfing and chasing swells around the globe, where he saw more fruitful possibilities for personal growth, self-expression, and freedom. He's also worked as an actor, teacher, founder, and coach. In this episode, Gerlach sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about the road to realizing one's dreams, unlocking potential, his proudest year, Wave Ki and his fitness philosophy, and fame.

Surfer, artist, and filmmaker Thomas Campbell's unique perspective was informed by upbringing in Dana Point, California, his background as a skateboarder, and his experience serving as editor of Skateboarder magazine in the 1990s. His films The Seedling (1999), Sprout (2004), and The Present (2009), which function loosely as a trilogy, aestheticize surfing on the basis of its inherent capacity for playfulness, beauty, and style, standing in contrast to a society increasingly dominated by industry and consumption. Today, Campbell continues to work as a practicing filmmaker, artist, and producer, and is currently preparing for an upcoming solo exhibition at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. In this episode, Campbell sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about the divergent cultural possibilities between surfing and skating, the importance of having a strong work ethic, being driven by curiosity, the surfing industrial complex, and finding creativity in quietude.

One of the shortboard revolution's seminal figures and a Pipeline pioneer, Jock Sutherland hails from a family of watermen: His mother swam the northern coast of the island of Molokai, a journey which she later detailed in her 1978 book, Paddling My Own. His father, a World War II navy officer, was a seasoned kayaker, fisherman, and surfer. Sutherland and his family moved to Hawaii from Long Beach, California in 1952, where he learned to surf on one of his father's old planks. He began riding for Greg Noll as a teenager, and went on to place second at both the 1965 Makaha International Junior Surfing Championships and the Ocean Beach World Contest in 1966. In 1967, he won the Duke Invitational. In 1969, he won Surfer magazine's Surfer of the Year award. In 1970, he left surfing to join the US Army at the height of Vietnam. At 74, surfing remains an integral part of Sutherland's day to day life. In this episode of Soundings, Sutherland sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about turning points in surfing's evolution, living with Jeff Hakman in Maui, the psychedelic resurgence, why he enlisted in the Army, being incarcerated for drug smuggling, myth-busting, and Waimea's mechanics. 

Journalist and author Michael Scott Moore's interest in piracy emerged from research conducted for his first novel, 2010's Sweetness and Blood, which traces the history and spread of surfing from pre-colonial Hawaii to the rest of the world. His interest in the issue spiked when a trial of ten Somali pirates began in Germany in 2010—the first time in 400 years that pirates had appeared in a European court. As the trial ran on, Moore became set on researching piracy outside the confines of a western judicial system, leading him to travel to Somalia in 2011, funded by a crisis reporting grant provided by the Pulitzer Foundation. In January of 2012, he was taken hostage by a local pirate group in Galkayo, and remained captive for more than two years. In this episode, Moore talks with show host Jamie Brisick about the devolution of hope into fatalism, the importance of remembering trauma, stoicism, his memoir The Desert and the Sea (2018), and learning to live with what you have. 

From Kamakura, Japan, Takuji Masuda has been a progenitor of surf culture since the 1980s. After traveling the surfing world and competing professionally with the Oxbow Longboard team, whose members included Joel Tudor, Duane Desoto, and others, Masuda pursued an interest in storytelling and cultural production. In the 1990s, through his reverence of surf and skate magazines and inspiration from the booming technological innovations of the era, he established his own magazine, Super X Media, published in English, Japanese, and French, influential as a cross-cultural hub for the surf-skate industry. Masuda more recently pursued filmmaking, including his documentary 2016 film Bunker77. In this episode, he sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about how surfing allows you to design a lifestyle that reflects who you are, the fashion industry, art and culture in Los Angeles, Pipeline, what drew him to the Bunker Spreckels story, and the joy of making friends through surfing. 

The oldest of three brothers, all with prodigious surfing talent, Chris Malloy grew up riding waves between Point Conception and Point Mugu, where he learned how to navigate its competitive lineups. By the early 1990s, he was a core member of the Momentum Generation. An injury, however, forced him into the role of observer and ignited a career in filmmaking, resulting in projects like Thicker Than Water (2000), The September Sessions (2002), A Brokedown Melody (2004), One Track Mind (2008), 180 Degrees South (2010), and The Fisherman's Son (2015). He's also done work for brands like Ford and Chevy and Dodge, currently serves as a Patagonia Ambassador, and operates a working ranch not far from where he grew up. In this episode, Malloy sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about his surf odyssey and the highlights of his career, California, the dichotomy between being a bubble-gum pro and traveling missionary, longevity, the importance of immersing oneself in one's environment, Indo trips with Tom Carroll and Kelly Slater, and maintaining a sense of play in life. 

Born in Barbados and raised between Hawaii and California, the late Ashley Bickerton was a surfer, thinker, and artist whose mixed-media practice explored themes of identity and meaning, often critiquing consumerism, modernity, and social communication. He achieved early success in New York in the 1980s, alongside the likes of Jeff Koons and Peter Halley. In 1993, Bickerton abandoned the New York scene to return to surfing in Bali, where exercised a devotion to left-handed barrels. He also found in Bali expression for his work, through an increasingly characteristic use of bright colors. In the wake of what would come to be a fatal ALS diagnosis, Bickerton, prior to his passing in November 2022, spoke with show host Jamie Brisick about love, his recent New York exhibitions, the value of resolution, the evolution of the art world's relationship to surfing, his art-making philosophy, and his biggest inspirations.

When Selema Masekela, storyteller and son of South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela, moved to Carlsbad in high school, surfing became his doctrine. He spent years working odd-jobs to fund his habit until he began producing and commentating for Transworld Skate, before he found his calling as an action-sports commentator and storyteller, using his voice to broaden the scope of representation in sport on an international scale. In this episode, Masekela talks with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about the crossover between surf, skate, and snowboard culture, recounting his exploration of Africa's rich surfing history in his book AFROSURF, finding common ground through music and surfing alike, visiting South Africa after Mandela's release in 1990, fitness, and his father's legacy.

Lisa Andersen's surf story began in the mid 1980s, at age fifteen, in her Florida hometown, where surfing—especially women's surfing—was an underground endeavor. She soon ran away from home and wound up in Huntington Beach, California. By the turn of the decade, she was a professional surfer, turning heads with an elegant and aggressive style that stood out among the ranks of both genders, and changed the way women's surfing was perceived. By the turn of the next, she was an icon: a four-time world champion and the face of a multi-million dollar brand and industry. In this episode, Andersen sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about self-worth, how motherhood has informed the way she carries herself as an athlete, marketability and it's challenges, fear of the unknown, her role in the creation of an industry, reinventing surfing for herself, and what the future of women's surfing holds.

Hawaiian stylist Gerry Lopez couldn't make a takeoff during his first time surfing Pipe in 1963 at age 13. Today, at 74, he is still widely known as Mr. Pipeline, after having devoted most of his life to the infamous patch of reef. His approach is the expression of a life lived in pursuit of stillness, mindfulness, and regard for the natural world. Sixty years after that inaugural and fateful session at “The Pipeline,” Lopez sits down to talk with show host Jamie Brisick about the importance of having a meditative state of mind in and out of the water, the moment Pipeline clicked for him, why he doesn't remember many of his waves, the relationship between yoga and surfing, and pathways to a higher consciousness.   

Listen to a roll call of and reflection on some of the most interesting people in surfing—including Gerry Lopez, Lisa Andersen, Selema Masakela, the late Ashley Bickerton, Chris Malloy, Takuji Masuda, Michael Scott Moore, Jock Sutherland, Thomas Campbell, Brad Gerlach, Keala Kennelly, and John John Florence—as host Jamie Brisick previews his guests ahead of the launch of Season 04 of Soundings, presented by The Surfer's Journal. 

On stepping off the world tour, grief, finding solace in competitive surfing, and dealing with the aftermath of his near-shark attack at J-Bay.

On purism and art making, punk, surf culture, misheard song lyrics, art world disenchantment, what keeps him going as an artist, and Black Flag. 

On the Gidget enterprise, surfing Malibu in the 1950s, feminism, Malibu's cachet among the Hollywood intelligentsia, the beach, and boys.

The South African on Cape Town's surf landscape, stepping away from competition, his film endeavors, and finding the freedom to be oneself.

The '88 world champ on anarchy, his childhood at Whale Beach, hitch-hiking, method-acting as an athlete, and being disciplined in the pursuit of your dreams.

The California native on the Malibu parking lot scene, the Noosa wave that changed her life, harmonic resonance, walking away from her fifteen-year Roxy sponsorship, Malibu's perfect wave, her surfing influences, and the lessons she learned from Donald Takayama.

Outdoorsman, self-taught blacksmith, and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard never wanted to be a businessman. Rather, it was from his desire to innovate, change the status quo, and protect the environment that Patagonia was born. A craftsman to the core, Chouinard started applying industrial design principles to making outdoor-clothing as a blacksmith shortly after high school. His recent decision to transfer all of Patagonia's voting stock to the Patagonia Purpose Trust and all of the company's excess profits to the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit devoted to addressing climate change, sets a precedent for a new form of capitalism in America—one that considers quality and social impact over excess and consumption. Chouinard sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about the value of problem solving using principles of industrial science, environmentalism, what inspired his game-changing business decision, invention versus innovation, what marketing means to him, and his heroes.

For loggers, jiu-jitsu practitioners, and the international surfing community at large, the name Tudor rings loudly. The youngest surfer to ever win an ASP event, Joel Tudor has gone on to win world titles in 1998, 2004, and 2021. His foray into jiu-jitsu began during a hiatus from competitive surfing after the birth of his son, Tosh. He quickly progressed in the sport with a characteristically nimble athleticism and began winning competitions world-wide. A father, surfer, and fighter, the San Diego native sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about the nature of performance in competitive surfing and jiu-jitsu alike, why he first gravitated toward logs instead of thrusters, making a name for himself in Hawaii, and his new surfboard factory.

The stylist on his foray into professional surfing, his proudest moments, commercialism, The Search, the California waves that shaped him, surfboard design, and his biggest inspirations.   Santa Barbara-native Tom Curren championed athleticism in surfing with his emergence on the ASP World Tour in 1983. Highly regarded for his humility and integrity, Curren has served as one of the most inspirational figures in the surfing community. On the 25th anniversary year of his film Searching for Tom Curren, Tom sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about his infamous double-pump bottom turn, music, and releasing himself from the confines of competition after winning back-to-back world titles.