Jack Johnson, during the release of Meet the. Moonlight. Photo: Morgan Maassen
“…So to you I shall put an end, and you’ll never hear surf music again…”
-Jimi Hendrix, Third Stone from the Sun
Tom Curren. Anthony Kiedis. Donavon Frankenreiter. Perry Farrell. Steph Gilmore. Ben Howard. Daize Shayne. Ben Harper. Tristan Prettyman. Jackson Browne. The late Jimmy Buffet…
The list of musicians who surf – and surfers who play music – is as extended as a Rush song and just as varied in style and approach. To point out that this overlap exists is as obvious as hearing Jack Johnson playing at the local taco shack, but it’s a tougher paddle to explain why. The question of why some individuals are drawn to both surfing and music is perhaps as indefinable as the reason we love certain artists or songs.
The link between music and surfing is nothing new. The ancient Hawaiians danced hula and chanted to the gods and goddesses of the natural world, as well as their kings and queens – many of whom surfed. For example, Hawaiians chanted to the god of the ocean, Kanaloa, to request waves. This initial form of surf music came well before Dick Dale became the king of surf guitar, The Beach Boys sang “Surfin’ Safari” and The Sandals wrote the iconic soundtrack to the Endless Summer.
As a musician and surfer, I see riding waves and tapping the ride as not only similar, but symbiotic pursuits. Both musicians and surfers must improvise to stay afloat and create their masterpieces. Plus, both groups experience intense emotions associated with their craft, from euphoric release to addiction.
While the phrase “improvisational music” may conjure up endless psychedelic jams by the Grateful Dead or jazz fusion by Miles Davis, every songwriter begins by making something up. A musician sits down at piano with an abstract idea, plays a few chords and strings a new melody from the air. It isn’t always that easy, of course, but the initial process is more dreamlike than cerebral.
When surfers compete, they may study the conditions and draw up a plan of attack, but most surfing is created in the state of continuous flow that musicians attempt to summon when they write and improvise. Tim Cooley, author of the insightful book Surfing About Music, tells Huck magazine that in surfing, “there is no fixed platform on which to try your moves. The fluidity is so extreme that looser, more open jamming — or improvisation — is demanded…” Instead of humming a melody or scratching some lyrics on paper, the surfer’s blank page is the ever-capitulating ocean wave.
Listening is also a crucial part of musical improvisation. I’ve played with many different musicians over the years, and the sensation of riding waves is analogous to the mysterious, moving experience of jamming, as well as the required sense of awareness. If I plug in my guitar and rattle off a mess of notes without first listening to what the other players are doing, the “music” will sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. When a surfer rockets down the line without getting a sense of the wave’s power source, they often outrun the wave.
Good surfing, therefore, demands that its participants remain in tune with their environment. As soon as our sessions begin, we open all five senses, whether that means listening to the cry of the gulls or watching the peak to figure out where to paddle out. When I interviewed him for this piece, Cooley, a professor of ethnomusicology at UC Santa Barbara and a surfer himself, described pulling up to the beach in the morning. “The second you open the car door and listen,” he said, “you learn something about the ocean.” During our best rides, we’re listening to the wave and riding it in harmony with its tempo and rhythm changes.
Our surfing also changes over time, just as the tastes of musicians and listeners do. Watch clips of Rob Machado or Jack Johnson attacking the lip 20 years ago, then watch them surf today. Younger, more aggressive surfers often try to cram as many maneuvers as they can. Older surfers and even young style masters such as Tosh Tudor glide with the eloquence derived from an inherent openness to the wave’s lyrical message.
Consider these stylistic differences in terms of their musical accompaniment as well. In Taylor Steele’s breakthrough 1992 film Momentum, bands like Pennywise and Bad Religion electrified the slashing of then-young guns like Slater, Dorian and Machado. On the other hand, in Johnson’s and Chris Malloy’s 2000 flick Thicker than Water, the wistful, mellow grooves of G. Love, Finley Quaye and Johnson himself translate to more fluid soul surfing. In both surfing and music, style is derived from personality, age, and life experiences. Eddie Vedder, for example, exploded onto the grunge scene with a thunderous wail, forever etched across Pearl Jam’s classic Ten; yet over the last 30 years Vedder has expanded his repertoire to include hushed acoustic songs and ukulele ballads about loss and mortality.
Risk and reward are also key elements of strumming and surfing. Surfers fight fear and pressure for recognition and celebration. Musicians bare their souls to the audience in exchange for a boost of adrenaline and inspiration. I remember my dad’s surprise when I offhandedly compared the feeling of playing a well-received show to scoring a goal in soccer. In this vein, live musicians can also become a channel that connects them to a greater force. Legends like guitarist Carlos Santana often describe becoming a conduit for the crowd’s energy, and Trey Anastasio of Phish suggests, “If you’re lucky enough, or strong enough, to get your ego out of the way, the music comes through you.” Surfers, especially big-wave chargers, must also balance their sense of ego in the face of overwhelming, potentially dangerous surf.
A highly emotive pursuit, surfing provides mental, emotional, and spiritual highs that stick around long after the boards are packed away. Both musical performers and their audiences can be swept away by the experience of hearing live or recorded songs. For surfers and musicians, this white-hot current of emotional rescue can become addictive. Once, our band played a late gig at a club, and then were invited to an impromptu jam at a different club right after the show. There was no debate – of course we wanted to re-up on the joy and adrenaline. Just like a tired surfer at the end of the session, we wanted to get lost in the moment again, to paddle back out for one more song.
Songs also have a way of encapsulating intense emotions and providing context for our experiences, especially when we are younger. My pubescent struggles were offset by the howling of Nirvana and Jane’s addiction. A break-up in college re-introduced the restless spirit of Led Zeppelin, and Beck’s Sea Change helped me though an aimless autumn a few years later. The razor-sharp end of a relationship in graduate school had me using Iron and Wine for therapy, and many of my current friendships are tethered by the ragged chords of Deer Tick and the long, strange trips of Phish shows.
Surfing, too, allows us time to be alone in nature to process emotions, and provides the chance to create memories with friends. In fact, just as so many of us use music to define ourselves as individuals, find a sense of community, and grapple with the complexity of our lives, many surfers use music to process their surfing experiences. As Cooley alludes to in his book, surfers like Johnson and Curren sing about surfing because it is a part of their human experience; just as heartbreak, loss and love are a part of ours. Surfers must “submit to the call of the ocean,” Cooley writes, “and once in the water, submit again to its unbounded power.” When we hand ourselves over to the ocean with nothing but a board in hand, we have a shot at something transcendent. When we give ourselves wholly to music, it offers the chance to heal us.
When surfers are held under by a breaking wave, the key is to surrender to the flow. To become one with the living sea, the cacophony of sounds playing around us in the deep. To find light in the strangest of places if we look at it right. Like the sea, music has incomparable power over us, and is an irrevocable part of our lives. Melodies will play and waves will crash endlessly long after we are gone, but at least we’re enjoying the ride.
