The Surfer's Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick

Born in 1952, Jack Shipley moved from Maryland to Oahu by way of Ohio when he was nine years old. Soon after, he took a surf lesson from a Waikiki beach boy and knew right away where his life was headed. Shipley worked at surf shops in his teens, first Hobie, then Surf Line Hawaii. In 1970, he and fellow Surf Line employee Gerry Lopez founded Lightning Bolt Surfboards, which would soon become the most recognized surfboard label in the world. Lightning Bolt had the best shapers of the period: Bill Barnfield, Tom Parrish, Reno Abellira, Barry Kanaiapuni, Tom Nellis, and Tom Eberly. They also had the best surfers: Mark Richards, Rabbit Bartholomew, Shaun Tomson, Margo Oberg, Jeff Hakman, Rory Russell, and, of course, Lopez himself, who was pushing the boundaries in barrel riding at Pipeline. Starting in 1978 and continuing for over 40 years, Jack was one of competitive surfing's most revered judges, traveling on the pro tour around the world, paying witness and making the call on some of surfing's most memorable performances. In short, he's seen it all. Today, Shipley lives near Diamond Head, where he spoke with Jamie Brisick about Lightning Bolt's early days, the legacy of Gerry Lopez, watching surf history unfold in real time, and the qualities that define the greats. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals Produced by Jonathan Shifflett Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin) Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

Born in 1953, raised in Hawaii, Keone Downing started surfing at age five at Waikiki. He's won many surf contests, but his crowning achievement, undoubtedly, is winning the 1990 Eddie, on a board shaped by his father, the late George Downing, one of the founders of modern surfing, a big-wave pioneer, a design innovator, and a Waikiki beach boy. Keone inherited his father's waterman ethos. A devoted outrigger canoe paddler, he and his team won five Molokai to Oahu races in the 1980s, and Keone was the 1988 World Canoe Surfing Champion. Today, Keone and his sister, Kaiulu, run Downing Hawaii, the shop their father launched in 1968. Keone shapes, surfs, fathers, grandfathers. He's attuned to the ocean and conscious of surfing's roots, history, and spiritual leanings in a way that's palpable. In this episode of Soundings, Keone talks with Jamie Brisick about his father, the birth of modern surfboard design and the influence of wartime innovations in aerodynamics, the values of teamwork, and surfing Waimea Bay. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals Produced by Jonathan Shifflett Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin) Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

Born in 1950, raised on the west side of LA, Craig R. Stecyk III is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans film, fine art, commercial design, writing, and photography. He's widely known for the "Dogtown Chronicles," which featured in Skateboarder magazine in the 1970s. In fact, Stecyk co-founded Zephyr, which spawned the hugely influential Z-Boys. During that time, in addition to documenting the scene through his writing and photography, he applied his singular graphic design sensibility to create the Rat Bones and the Dogtown Cross. Later, he co-wrote the award-winning 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys with Stacy Peralta, which further chronicled the Dog Town scene and its characters. Since the 1970s Stecyk's written many pieces about surfing, most notably "The Curse of the Chumash," which appeared in Surfer in 1976. Focused on Malibu, it blended local history, surf-skate mythology, and a heap of counterculture irony. His art installations include Road Rash, in which he scraped up roadkill, bronzed it, and returned it to the exact spot where he'd found it. In 1989 he made Papa Moana, featuring Hawaiian objects and artifacts. He helped curate Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing, a 2002 exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. He's written essays for several surf-related books, among them 1936-1942: San Onofre to Point Dume. A surfboard shaped and painted by Stecyk resides in the permanent archive of the Smithsonian. As filmmaker and artist Thomas Campbell puts it, "Craig's our patron saint of outsiderness, of being creative without bounds. His influence is so omnipresent you don't even see it." In this episode of Soundings, Stecyk sits down with host Jamie Brisick to talk about growing up in coastal Los Angeles, the Dogtown era, the strange artifacts that find their way into an artist's life, the challenge of making something that withstands time, and getting checked out of school by Miki Dora to go surf. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals Produced by Jonathan Shifflett Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin) Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

Jack Johnson is a multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter, surfer, and environmentalist. Before turning to playing music professionally, Johnson had designs on a career as a pro surfer. Having grown up on the North Shore of Oahu, and, in particular, having made his way toward the center of the peak at Pipe, he was well on his way by his early twenties. However, he headbutted the reef out there, got more than 100 stitches in his forehead, and lost teeth. Johnson subsequently went to UCSB to study film. He and his friend Chris Malloy cooked up the idea for what would become the seminal surf flick Thicker Than Water. A couple years later, they followed up with The September Sessions. Johnson had been playing guitar and writing songs since childhood, and on one of the trips for his movies, he wrote a song called "Rodeo Clowns," which related to a trick his buddy Kelly Slater was working on. Johnson recorded the song with his friend G. Love of G. Love & Special Sauce. "Rodeo Clowns" became a hit. His music career took off. One day he was a shy kid playing to a small crowd at the Belly Up in Solana Beach. The next he was on every radio station. Nine records, many hits, and a laundry list of awards followed. In 2008, he and his wife, Kim, created the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation, a non-profit public charity supporting environmental, art, and music education worldwide. They have three kids and live on the North Shore. Johnson still surfs regularly. In fact, his life is not terribly dissimilar to the one he knew growing up—though he's now a household name, sells out major venues, and sometimes hears his own music playing in the supermarket. In this episode of Soundings, Johnson sits down with host Jamie Brisick to talk about growing up in Hawaii, his early dreams of pro surfing, the art of the soundtrack, connecting with nature, the making of Thicker Than Water and The September Sessions, penning lyrics, and the accident that changed the course of his life. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals Produced by Jonathan Shifflett Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin) Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

Paige Alms was born in British Columbia, moved to Maui when she was nine, found surfing, found surf contests, and, around the age of 15, found big waves. They would become her forte, specifically Jaws, located not far from her home in Haiku. She spent a lot of time out there, riding waves of course, but also learning the lineup. It paid off. In 2015, she knifed her way into a bomb, angled high, and got terrifically barreled. That year she won the Women's Best Overall Performance at the WSL Big Wave Awards. In 2016 and 2017 she was named big-wave world champion. Alms is a three-time winner of the Peahi Challenge—in 2016, 2017, and 2019. She's the subject of The Wave I Ride, a feature-length documentary about her surfing life. In 2023, she became one of the first women to compete in The Eddie. Alms lives in Maui with her longtime partner/shaper, Sean Ordonez. She continues to push the boundaries of the riding giant surf while also helping to teach ocean safety through Big Wave Risk Assessment Group courses. In this episode of Soundings, Alms sits down with host Jamie Brisick to talk about paddling out to Jaws for the first time, training, the evolution of big-wave surfing, ocean safety, and competing in The Eddie. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin). Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

Hailing from Noosa, Australia, Harry Bryant is a frothing, underground charger who'll drive halfway across Australia to hunt for remote slabs. He's also a bonafide surf star—his blond bowl-cutted head recognizable in lineups worldwide. One window into his full throttle operation and persona is 2024's Motel Hell, a full-length surf feature that he made with director Dave Fox. It contains a storyline, scenes shot in Outback pubs, a mysterious psychedelic milk, and a glut of meaty tubes. Bryant experiments with all manner of surfboard design, takes a healthy interest in surf history, and throws himself into his travels, which is to say he goes slow, gets down with the locals, and often rides boards from area shapers. His most recent offering is Roasted, also directed by Fox. The title describes what happens to the skin after a marathon session in warm climes. There are, of course, many barrels and many rail carves and vicious hacks. In this episode of Soundings, Bryant talks with Jamie Brisick about road tripping through Australia, finding balance, the chaotic making of Motel Hell, his introduction to Hawaii, and his fascination with surf craft. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin). Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com

The daughter of an American father and a Japanese mother, Shirley Rogers was born in Japan in 1953. She spent her first nine years there, then a few years in Texas. At 16, she moved with her parents to Oahu. At Campbell High School on the Westside, she took photography classes and found a passion for it. She also found surfing—the act of riding waves, the culture, and the community. In 1971, her parents moved back to Texas. Having freshly graduated, Rogers chose to stay in Hawaii. She moved to the then rural and untapped North Shore and fell in with the surf luminaries of the era—Jeff Hakman, Gerry Lopez, Rory Russell, Eddie Rothman, Shaun Tomson, and Peter Townend, among many others. One day at Waimea Bay, filmmakers Jack McCoy and Dick Hoole handed Shirley a 650 Century lens and a tripod and told her to, essentially, "have at it." She was amazed by what she saw through that telephoto lens. These were the days before auto-focus, and it was a true challenge to follow the surfer and nail the shot, but Rogers was a quick study. She submitted her photos to Surfer, Surfing, and Tracks magazines. They ran them. Soon she was getting paid for her work. There were few female surf photographers on the 1970s and '80s North Shore. Rogers gained a reputation for her tight, sharp, well-composed images, typically shot from the beach. Her portraiture emitted a candid and all-access quality—she was merely shooting her pals, who also happened to be the most sought-after surf stars of the time. She traveled—to Indonesia, Australia, Tahiti. She photographed the nascent women's pro events. She moonlighted as a bartender at the Kuilima, today known as the Turtle Bay Resort. In her spare time, she rode dirt bikes. In the late 1980s, Shirley gave up surf photography, got a sales job, and moved from the North Shore to Honolulu. Now 72, Rogers lives in Huntington Beach. In this episode of Soundings, Rogers talks with Jamie Brisick about changes on the North Shore, capturing waves less trodden, surfing's commercialization, her favorite spots to shoot, and tiger tracks in Indonesia. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin). Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com.

Born in 1954, hailing from Victoria, Australia, Maurice Cole started surfing at age 12. He got good fast, and won Victorian State Titles in 1973 and 1976. However, he got busted for possession of hash oil, which, after trial, led to a little over two years in jail. That obviously stalled his competitive ascent, but also proved to be formative. He got out in 1978 and surfed vigorously around the Bells region, where he lived. He got third in the National Titles in 1979. That qualified him for the 1980 World Surfing Championships, held in the southwest of France. He traveled there, finaled, and fell in love with the place and its abundance of untapped, A-grade beachbreak. Maurice was also a prolific shaper. He had a good life at home—R&Ding his designs at mysto spots and pushing the envelope in big waves with his sparring partner, Wayne Lynch. But France beckoned. In 1982, he and his wife, Anne, moved to Hossegor. Maurice shaped under his own label, helped establish Quiksilver and Rip Curl, and played a key role in the foundation of the European surf industry, notably the Surfrider Foundation. But perhaps most memorably to Maurice himself, and to readers of the early '80s surf mags, he got terrifically barreled. A few years later Maurice came up with the reverse vee design. Tom Curren picked one up and surfed incredibly well on it, which led to a period where seemingly every top pro had ordered a reverse vee from Maurice. In the mid-1990s, Maurice moved to the Margaret River area of Western Australia. He continued shaping boards for the world's best, among them Taj Burrow. In the late '90s, Maurice and cohorts Ross Clarke-Jones and Brendan "Margo" Margieson brought tow-surfing to the West Oz scene. A raconteur, an environmentalist, an outspoken critic of what he refers to as "vanilla," Maurice is the quintessential designer/surfer, who's still devoted to the craft of shaping and test piloting surfboards. In this episode of Soundings, Maurice talks with Jamie Brisick about his biggest shaping influences, learning from the Hawaiians, intrinsic joy, outgrowing introversion, his time in prison, falling in love with Hossegor, developing the reverse vee, and working with Tom Curren. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin). Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com.

Born in 1937, Mickey Muñoz moved from New York to Los Angeles at age six, started surfing at age 10, and swiftly found Malibu's First Point. He became one of the top surfers out there, and made friends with the regulars—Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Miki Dora. Muñoz eventually moved to Hawaii, where he rode Waikiki and worked restaurant jobs to get by. He soon found his way out to the North Shore, which was a new frontier at the time, becoming part of the pioneering crew at Waimea Bay. Muñoz appeared in the new Surfer magazine in 1960, riding at Malibu with Dora and Mike Doyle, all three on the same board, as well as doing the first ever "Quasimoto," a head dip with the front arm aimed forward. Muñoz competed in and won contests, among them the Tom Morey Invitational noseriding event, in 1965, for which the prize was a whopping $750. He shaped surfboards for Hobie, got deep into sailing and catamarans, and brought what he'd learned on the open seas to wave-riding and board design. He wrote a memoir, No Bad Waves: Talking Story with Mickey Muñoz, published in 2011. But Muñoz's legacy is as much about simply living and perpetuating the joy of the surfing life as it is about benchmarks or achievements. And he's still doing it, at age 87. In this episode of Soundings, Muñoz talks with Jamie Brisick about Malibu's golden age, experimenting with shorter boards, early days on the North Shore, riding Waimea, modern performance surfing, riding waves into his eighties, and Miki Dora. Presented by Rainbow® Sandals. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin). Become a TSJ member at surfersjournal.com.

Born in Hawaii in 1983 and raised in a beachfront home on the North Shore, with a view out to Pipeline, Jamie O'Brien started surfing at age three. As an amateur, he went on a contest trajectory—making the finals of the menehune division of the 1995 and '96 US Surfing Championships, and the finals in the 1999 and 2000 World Junior Championships. Most impressive, though, was his close relationship with Pipeline. He seemed to toy with the world's deadliest wave. In 2003, he won the Hansen's Energy Pipeline Pro. In 2004, he won the Pipe Masters. In the aughts, O'Brien revealed his defiant side when he burned an ASP rulebook in a Red Bull-sponsored video. He took his career into his own hands, starring in the videos Freak Show, Freak Side, and Who is JOB?, the latter of which led to a web series. In it, he was self-effacing, absurdist, and refreshingly not serious. The videos resonated with viewers, and soon O'Brien became his own brand, making YouTube clips that would shoot into the million-views realm. He rode soft tops at big Pipe. He pulled wild stunts, including famously bringing pyrotechnics to Teahupoo. Now 42, O'Brien lives just down the beach from the house he grew up in. He's recently founded a surf school, The Jamie O'Brien Experience. And he's still charging, playing, and documenting it all. In this episode of Soundings, O'Brien talks with Jamie Brisick about growing up on the North Shore, the hierarchy at Pipeline, his relationship to competition, getting creative in the lineup, and documenting his day-to-day life on camera. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).

Born in 1955, hailing from Durban, South Africa, Shaun Tomson won the IPS world title in 1977. He did 14 seasons on the world tour, and won 12 events, including the 1975 Pipeline Masters, in which he made giant leaps for backside tube riding. He starred in many '70s and '80s surf films, among them Free Ride, where he's seen pumping through the barrel at Backdoor and Off the Wall—an entirely new thing at the time. But Tomson's surfing was only part of the equation. He was business minded, and in the late '70s launched a clothing label, Instinct, and in 1985 a surf shop, Surfbeat, in Santa Monica. He holds a BA in Business Finance. In 1991, Australia's Surfing Life mag named him as the world's all-time best tube rider. Tomson co-produced Bustin' Down the Door, a 2008 documentary film chronicling the rise of pro surfing in the early '70s. He's the author of the best-selling Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life. In this episode of Soundings, Tomson sits down with host Jamie Brisick to talk about transformative experiences in the tube, growing up in South Africa, the influence of his father, the highs and lows of his professional career, writing his book, and the passing of his son. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).

Born in Hawaii in 1961, Danny Kwock rode his first waves at Waikiki when he was ten. Surfing took a brief hiatus when he moved with his family to the San Fernando Valley, but picked up soon thereafter when they moved to Newport Beach, right at Wedge, which is where Kwock made his mark, charging big waves and becoming one of the brightest, flashiest surfers of the Echo Beach scene, wearing pink boardshorts and riding polka dot twin-fins when most Californians followed a far more understated ethos. Kwock was featured on the cover of Surfer and Surfing magazines in the early 1980s, did a short stint on the world pro tour, but soon became a forerunner to what we now know of as a professional "freesurfer." But he also saw the virtues of the long game. When the opportunity arose to work in a behind-the-scenes role at Quiksilver, he jumped at it, and he hit his straps as the marketing director, a position he held from the early 1980s up until the mid-aughts. (It should be noted that Kwock's relationship with Quiksilver began a few years earlier, when he and his Echo Beach buddy Preston Murray got caught stealing boardshorts from the warehouse.) Kwock's early team captain/marketing position started in what were wild days. The industry grew fast, and he played an instrumental role in that growth. In this episode of Soundings, Kwock talks with Jamie Brisick about meeting Duke Kahanamoku, surfing Wedge, the Echo Beach era, fashion, negotiating contracts, Andy Warhol, the wild days of the surf industry, and signing Kelly Slater to Quiksilver. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1949, Randy Rarick moved with his family to Hawaii when he was five. He started surfing at age 10, under the tutelage of the Waikiki Beach Boys. He was a Hawaiian state junior champ, and made the semifinals of the 1970 World Championships in Australia. In 1976, at age 26, Randy and 1968 world champion Fred Hemmings founded International Professional Surfing, aka the IPS, which linked together what at the time were fragmented pro events around the world. They established a ratings system and a world tour, which ended with the crowning of a world champion. In 1983, Randy spearheaded the Triple Crown of Surfing, which linked together the three North Shore events, and also crowned a champion. Randy would helm the Triple Crown for the next 30 years. Randy is also a surfboard shaper. He was taught how to shape by Dick Brewer and George Downing, and went on to make boards for Surf Line Hawaii, Dewey Weber, and Lightning Bolt. While Randy might be one of the most widely traveled surfers of all time, having ridden waves in over 70 countries, he's called the North Shore home since 1969, and has lived in the same house at Sunset Beach for more than 50 years. He surfs out front, i.e., his backyard, regularly. In this episode of Soundings, Rarick sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about about the birth of the IPS and the Triple Crown, learning to shape from the masters, rating systems and standardization, surf purism, the importance of Hawaii, and spending a year traveling up the west coast of Africa. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).