SURF BY DAY, JAM BY NIGHT ASH GRUNWALD Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 3 12/6/19 5:28 pm CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Going Your Own Way: Amp Building with Big-Wave Pioneer Jim Banks 13 2. Jack Johnson: Benevolent Lord of the Surf Roots Scene 36 3. Surfing Soundwaves and Creating Waves of Change with Dave Rastovich 59 4. Old Boards Are Like Old Guitars: Getting Inspired with Beau Young 93 5. Interviewing Kelly Slater… 112 6. Jamming with Steph Gilmore 138 7. The Inimitable G. Love: Coastal Roots Pioneer 162 8. Getting it Done with Neal Purchase Jnr 181 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 7 12/6/19 5:28 pm 9. The Miracle Healing of Mat McHugh 204 10. Lee-Ann Curren… 226 11. Carving with Conner Coffin 242 12. Savouring Sobriety with Scott Owen 255 13. The Surfing World Could Really Use a Jaleesa Vincent 270 14. From a Beach House in Torquay: Mindset with Pete Murray 284 15. Ozzie Wright and Mylee Grace: Punk Rock Parents of Shred and Love 308 Conclusion 329 Acknowledgements 346 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 8 12/6/19 5:28 pm INTRODUCTION Music and surfing are the peaches and cream of the perfect lifestyle—so good they’re almost a cliché. Cruising down the coast in your beaten-up old van with a surfboard and a guitar, not a care in the world. That was my dream when I was a kid, my plan as soon as I got my licence, and I hope I’ll still be living a variant of it when I’m too old to drive. When I perform ‘Take the Drop’, a song about that expectant big swell coming in the morning, I describe the perfect corduroy lines, stacked to the horizon that steam into the Bells Beach−Winkipop zone on a good day. Fanned to sweeping perfection by the brisk nor’-wester, it really is a sight to behold. Every time I perform the song, I’m transported there; I can literally visualise that perfection. I’ve been living between Byron Bay and Bali for many years, and in these moments a dormant part of my psyche fires and begins to yearn for that soulful down-south feeling once more. Bells is not a high-performance wave and it doesn’t boast a heaving, death-slab tube section either, but it is a soulful wave. It serves as an amazing canvas on which pros sketch out artisan perfection, and even ‘Joe or Jane Punter’ can ‘wet a rail’ and 1 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 1 12/6/19 5:28 pm Surf by Day, Jam by Night feel like they’re ripping. When you’re down on that south coast, in your Ugg boots, woolly jumper and beanie, there’s nothing more thrilling than the moment you get your first glimpse of the welcoming ocean’s ruler-edge perfection, as it fades out to the infinite horizon framed by crisp, optimistic, kangaroo- filled paddocks. The pulse quickens, pedal meets metal against your will as your body attempts to deal with your abnormally high froth levels. The trees beckon you onwards imploring: ‘Come on, get out there, you’re missing out…’ I remember such a time in the early naughties when I leaned my beaten-up Ford Transit into the corners, hooting and hollering to myself and the Universe. The coffee I was spilling everywhere was doing little to ameliorate the biting hangover that gnawed at my temples. This persistent, narky annoyance didn’t stand a chance against the pharmacy housed in my central nervous system, which issued forth a potent mixture of adrenalin, serotonin and ‘froth-a-lot-ian’ (not an official scientific term yet). The neurochemicals associated with the realisation of a dream. I had just played my first couple of festival gigs at Port Fairy Folk Festival. Danni (now my wife) and I stood at the side of stage afterwards and sold hundreds of CDs from a cardboard box, with no merch table or change or anything, just stuffing the money into the pockets of our jeans and handing out CDs as quickly as we could. Afterwards, we threw it all on the bed and laughed as we counted it. I made more money in merch sales than my car was worth—and we had been living out of that! The excitement and raw novelty of your first big experience onstage can never be repeated. No matter the 2 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 2 12/6/19 5:28 pm Introduction size of the crowds in your future, it can never be new again, not like that first time. A sea of faces moving as one at your musical suggestion, looking for you to take them somewhere. Just you and them. In those days I had no band. The purity of the connection you can have with the audience when you’re playing solo makes for unrepeatable and transcendent moments in time. When you’ve worked out the beat and the groove together by a subtle consensus, it creates a bond between you and the crowd; a truly magical thing. That first experience put me on a high from which no amount of whisky could bring me down. Likewise, no raw tonnage of water to the noggin could dampen my spirit as I paddled out and adopted a deep position in six–eight-foot ruler-edged Bells perfection. I’m not sure if there’s a real name for the little spot I like to call ‘Rinbells’: kinda between The Bowl and Rincon. Rincon is pretty much a closeout at that size. The Bowl is the real wave, but there’s the odd one that breaks super deep. I had my piggy little nose in the trough that day, gobbling away while wagging my tail the whole time. I knew that life couldn’t get much better. Those perfect waves, that festival, that feeling. Pure joy. I would kick out at the end of a fast section through The Bowl and just lie in the water looking up at the cliffs and the natural amphitheatre, which seemed to reverberate with as much enthusiasm as the crowd had at the gig. The land and sea, welcoming and encouraging me. I had arrived. I got my fill of those thick, powerful, unhurried but purposeful walls and then snaffled a few more for good measure in an orgiastic full-rail froth-fest. Anytime I can find 3 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 3 12/6/19 5:28 pm Surf by Day, Jam by Night an open face in which to carve those perfect arcs, to feel the force of the wave push against me, propelling me into the next turn, I will most gladly go there. The pure carve is the blues music of surfing. It’s jamming. Floating on a bed of something not directly under your control, be it a wave or music. Something to humble you, something for you to harmonise with, in search of transcendence. It’s a dance. It puts me in my happy place. I’ll chase it till the day I die. But what is that thing? Why do these movements feel so… soulful? I got so excited about this concept once at a gig in Whistler, Canada, after working all day on my carving and then drinking several Jägerbombs, that I tried to start ‘The Church of the Pure Carve’. I almost had a few followers. I would have made a great drunken preacher! My passion for the art of carving pure unbroken lines down snow-capped mountains and on open-faced waves would have seen me enrobed, screaming praise to the almighty Shred Goddess from the pulpit and drenching the front row in spittle. Alas, from the chairlift the next morning, I conceded that my true calling was to be more practitioner then preacher. But the passion for the pure carve remains unfettered. I’m awestruck and bewildered about these movements that are easy to feel but hard to explain. Why does carving the perfect arc feel similar to bending the perfect note in a guitar solo? Do you have to be a blues guitarist and a surfer to even know what the hell I’m talking about? I’m not sure. I guess I’m going to find out. I’m going to ask some of the best surfing musicians and musical surfers in the world their opinion on the matter. What 4 Surf by Day Jam by Night_Finals_1.indd 4 12/6/19 5:28 pm Introduction does Jack Johnson think about the link between surfing and music, and where does making the world a better place fit in with all that? Does world champion and style guru Steph Gilmore sometimes practise guitar until her fingers bleed? G. Love was playing blues and roots music ten years before the term was even invented; what does he think of all this, and how did he go surfing Kelly Slater’s wave pool? And while we’re at it, what does Kelly think about the future of surfing now that his wave ranch has ensured it will pretty much never be the same again? I guess I’ll find out when I fly to LA and have a chat. This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime. And, as fate would have it, maybe at a time when I need it most. This book isn’t going to turn into some kind of AA documentary, but in the interest of full disclosure, yesterday I strapped on my rucksack, laden with tea and soda water, and took my first steps towards the year-sized snow-capped mountain of sobriety.