The Surfer's Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick

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.

Nathan Florence, the middle of the three Florence brothers, was born in Hawaii in 1994. Like his older brother, three-time world champion John, and younger brother, Pipe charger and ace skateboarder Ivan, Nathan grew up in a beachfront house looking out to Pipeline, and made the seamless progression from building sandcastles on the beach to getting spit out of tubes in what was ostensibly his backyard.
Nathan competed in amateur events, but they were never his thing. He preferred big, heavy waves, and he got friendly with Mack truck-sized barrels. Technology conspired in Nathan's favor, specifically YouTube. He started vlogging and his clips connected. 
Today, with more than half-a-million followers, Nathan's on what he's dubbed "the Slab Tour," where he searches the planet far and wide for mutant waves. Nathan's wife, Mahina, shoots many of the clips.
Nathan and Mahina live on the North Shore. Complimenting his heavy-water surfing is his role with Florence, the family brand, for which he and his brothers are hands-on in the R&D, test piloting, and overall vision. 
In this episode of Soundings, Nathan talks with Jamie Brisick about mastering fear, growing up at Pipeline, his brothers, why competition was never a fit, training, close calls, how vlogging changed his life, foiling, and the Slab Tour.
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 and raised in San Diego, Devon Howard came to surfing at age seven. He gravitated to longboarding—both the wave-riding approach and the culture. A graduate of the University of San Diego, he served as managing editor of Longboard magazine from 1999 to 2004. For the next decade or so, he worked as a freelance writer and photographer, and held marketing positions with Patagonia and Spy Optic.
But he never let his surfing slip. He competed in pro longboarding events in the 1990s, then did the short-lived ASP Longboard Tour through the early aughts. He appeared in several surf films—The Seedling, Sprout, One California Day, Single Fin Yellow, and Self Discovery for Social Survival. In 2014, at age 40, he won the Deus 9-Foot & Single contest in Bali.
Today, Howard works as the Global Marketing Director for Channel Islands. He's also known widely as a proponent of the egg, or midlength, design.
In this episode of Soundings, Howard talks with Jamie Brisick about what makes a great surfboard, working in surfing, the allure of eggs, riding for Donald Takayama, and traditional longboarding.
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).