The Visitor

By: Editor | Written by Jesse Faen Photography by Keegan Gibbs | December 21, 2011 |

*Point Dume, Malibu, Nov. 19, 2011
This interview and photo shoot almost didn’t happen. The night before Slater suggested he was available, Brazilian jujitsu legend Rikson Gracie almost derailed the plan by inviting Slater to train with him, an offer made to a privileged few. Thankfully, he stuck with Malibu Magazine and generously shared a few candid hours before boarding another red-eye to Orlando, Fla., with girlfriend, Kalani, and his younger brother, Stephen. An understated rental property welcomed us this crisp fall afternoon. One would expect signs of affluence on display, accumulated from unrivaled success, fame and fortune achieved over an incredible career that spans two decades of constant travel and complete domination of his chosen passion. The greatest surfer of all time, however, is far more concerned with ocean swells moving around the world and being in the right place to ride their waves in those fleeting moments of the sport he’s addicted to. Slater does own a place in his hometown of Cocoa Beach, Fla., an apartment on Australia’s Gold Coast, multiple pieces of land in Hawaii, plus a recently purchased beachfront house steps away from the waters where he’s won six Pipeline Masters, but none of these places enjoy his presence often, nor has wealth dramatically altered his nomadic lifestyle or outlook. He’s intensely interested in the world around him, and he’s learned to feel at home wherever he lays his head. Slater was watching The President’s Cup golf tournament on a flat-screen as we entered. The kitchen and connected living room were clean and uncluttered, with sliding glass doors opening to an expansive green lawn owned by his neighbor and landlord. The 39-year-old was on the couch, Missoni mug in hand, dividing attention between the slow, calculated movements playing out on his TV and the intense UFC fight energy streaming live on his MacBook. Also within view was his iPhone, used sporadically throughout our visit for surf updates in Hawaii, his Twitter feed, emails and text messages. His Chihuahua, Action, got plenty of attention, too. The few personal touches visible to the house were significant: an Association of Surfing Professionals world title trophy — his 11th — secured less than two weeks prior in San Francisco; a carved wood trophy from the U.S. Open at Huntington Beach won earlier this year; plus an oversized stage check for $106,000 from the Hurley Pro at Trestles. In the garage was a finely tuned quiver of Channel Island surfboards ready for competition, one or two in alternative shapes — just for fun — plus a pingpong table, an arcade game, a signature Arbor skateboard deck and all the wetsuits, board bags and gear any surfer or surf shop would want. A clear sky and setting sun created perfect lighting for the shoot, and when it was over, we had the following conversation.

Let’s start with how you ended up living here in Malibu?
I’d been living in Santa Barbara for a while, when I wasn’t traveling, and then started doing some work with a friend who lives here at Dume. It’s also really central for me. I do a lot of work here in L.A., and my manager actually lives about a mile away. I have quite a few friends here, and it’s a mellow lifestyle. So, yeah, I’m sort of a Malibu resident now, but I kind of feel at home anywhere and have lived in L.A. almost as much as anywhere the past 15 or even 20 years. When I was young, I actually told myself I would never live in California (laughs). I like it around here though. Malibu, as far as surf, is not too far [from] Rincon in the winter or, say, Lowers or somewhere down there in the summer for the south swells. Now and then, Malibu gets good, but there are always a million people. If nothing else, it’s good for your reflexes, dodging humans in the water (laughs). For me, that’s probably what it’s been best for — dodging people and getting my reflexes secured between heats.

You just won your 11th world title, which is incredible, so obviously things are working out.
Thanks. It feels great to have won. I actually started off the year thinking I would be looking for an exit strategy [to get off the tour] for myself, and then I won the first event (on the Gold Coast, Australia). I thought, well that’s kind of cool since I’m still in first place. … It’s kind of weird on our tour, because even if you win the world title but then get last in the first event, you’re in last place on the ratings, which is really a strange thing. So, it felt nice to win that and see myself at the top again for the new year, which was cool. But then I didn’t do well in the second event and didn’t feel well for the third event in Brazil and then skipped the fourth event, so I fell to seventh on the ratings. Plus, all the guys you’d expect to do well had the top positions by the time the tour went to J-Bay (South Africa), so I knew I’d fallen behind the eight ball. But then I got on a roll for the rest of the year — got a couple wins, made a couple other finals. I was pretty surprised I was able to put it away before Pipeline (the last event in Hawaii), to be honest.

Happily.
Happily (laughs).

You’ve been traveling constantly for 20 or 30 years. I’m wondering what besides competition motivates you to keep it up. Where do you get the energy, and what do you feel you’ve learned from your experience?
I struggle with that a lot, and I definitely don’t want to be living out of a suitcase forever going around and around chasing contests. You never get to really soak up where you are and enjoy it fully, especially if you’re doing the contests, as you’re focusing on when your heats are going to be, your boards, what bank to surf. … There’s a lot of mental stuff going into it, too. I’m stoked where I’m at, for sure, but the idea of spending maybe the next couple of years just chasing surf, and trying to get the best waves in the world all year sounds pretty good to me. It’s hard to find that motivation for contests, but then, when I’m at a contest, it’s not hard to find motivation. I generally know what I’m going to have to do against whom and what that level’s going to go to. I like that challenge of pushing yourself. It definitely helps your level to be on tour, in that you have to be able to access what you can do. But it’s stifling in a way, because we don’t have a lot of time to experiment in the free-surfing side of surfing. You’ve got to be prepared at a contest. You want to be able to push as hard as you can but also be consistent and keep making it. There’s a not a lot of time for experimenting or evolving your surfing in between. You’ve got to focus on the two months we have at the beginning of the year, and maybe two months in the middle of the year. That’s the time to really work on a change of boards or work on new maneuvers or whatever, and in the meantime, also find some really great surf. We’ve had a lot of times where we’ve gone to great locations when the waves really aren’t that good — like this year at Jeffrey’s Bay. I didn’t go, but it was 2 feet most days, so the contest didn’t run, and when it did, it was 3 to 4 feet and howling onshore winds, raining and ugly.

Must have felt rough being in Fiji surfing perfect waves…
(Laughs.) For me, that was way more enjoyable. A lot of people thought I’d blown it and were asking me how I felt by not going to the event, but it didn’t bother me. I was surfing good waves, so it didn’t feel like I missed out. Obviously, I didn’t get a result like some of the other top guys did, but I felt like I got the better of the whole exchange. I had 10 days in Fiji with perfect surf. I like the traveling, though, and the world kind of feels like a big home to me. I have a lot of friends around the world, and that’s sort of motivation for going places, as I get to see all those people. That alone keeps me going. If I didn’t have that, I probably wouldn’t be that interested in a lot of the travel I do. It would be a lot lonelier a place and tougher to just be gone all the time from wherever I thought home was. I don’t know what keeps the fire burning, but I just love to surf good waves. That’s the biggest thing.

Not to dwell on age, but you had a heat in San Francisco where the combined age of your opponents was less than yours, which is amazing in itself. It really highlights how much your level of surfing has risen to the challenge in recent years.
Surfing is changing pretty fast these days. The advancements of airs, the consistency of those doing them, the number of guys doing them and the most technical stuff is really increasing. There’s a lot more depth. When I first got on tour, I thought the level was really weak, to be honest. I still feel like there’s only four or six guys, when you start the year, who have a chance at a world title. I don’t think there’s some guy at No. 16 or No. 25 who is randomly going to come and have a breakout year that he hasn’t had yet. There are some guys at that lower level just getting there now, like a Gabriel Mendina. I think next year he’s probably going to have a chance at a world title. And in future years, maybe guys like John John [Florence]. It helps to push me for sure, because I look at what they are doing. There’s an excitement in watching people like that. People love to see someone do something that no one else has done, or a guy who isn’t one of the usual suspects who comes along and does something crazy. But for the most part, a lot of those guys don’t win contests. If you watch a guy like Dane Reynolds, who obviously is one of the greatest surfers in the world, he could end up being one of the greats of all time and technically, right now, he is as good as anyone has ever been. He doesn’t hold back in contests, but he doesn’t win contests either. But the impression he makes at events is probably more important than the win sometimes. I guess for me, I’ve always wanted to have a balance of winning, or being able to seal a contest and win it, but also push my level. It’s not like one or the other is way more important. Just from a surfer’s point of view, the more important one is going to be your level of surfing, but when you have a yearlong job to do, you’re not going to be on every week, or totally on at every spot. The more important thing during some of those weeks is just to get the result. When you have the chance to push your level and show what you have, you’ve got to be able to do that.

I was just down in Chile with Dane Reynolds and a bunch of your friends, and Dane made the comment about relating more easily to the people he travels with than most of the people he knows at home.
It’s funny. My friends at home in Florida are probably going to be my best friends forever, but there are a lot of areas of my life where I don’t relate to them as well as I do to the people I’ve kind of found around the world. When you grow up in a place, you just become friends with people because you become familiar with them, and you know them. But when you travel, you gravitate toward people because you want to be around them. Sometimes you hate your friends at home, but they’re you’re friends for life (laughs), so you hang out with them. I definitely have created a group of friends around the world that have common interests or topics of conversation we like to talk about or ideas about the world you don’t necessarily find when you live in a small place.

Tell us about VSTR, the new clothing brand you have helped create.
It began out of a conversation I had with Simon Buttonshaw (founding Quiksilver artist) about the way things are done for a business versus how things are done for your passions. We started talking about things we are passionate about, like our belief systems, and the way we like to be portrayed and how we express ourselves. The common thing between us is the clothing brand. I’ve been involved with Quiksilver for 21 years and Simon for 30-plus years, so that’s where we’ve gotten to know each other and our common ground. We’ve done signature stuff with Quiksilver for a long time, but sometimes things get a little lost in that, for whatever reason. So we talked about maybe getting to do something that was really ours — our concepts and ideas from start to finish, something more in line with the idea of how we travel around the world, the people we meet and the places we go, the ideas we have going there and the experiences we want to have. That was really where it all came from. Simon was saying he really wanted to have something to put his most passionate ideas into, and for me, that was going to come through some of the imagery and obviously the clothing design. The idea for the clothes is to make something fashionable that you could wear out, but with comfort. It’s really function over everything. The idea of things fitting together nicely, that is ultimately what led to the idea we had for the bag (a Partners & Spade collaboration). The bag can be used in a bunch of different ways, and basically everything we have in the line could fit in the bag. You could basically just buy that bag and go on a trip and be taken care of.

Must be cool to see the brand coming to life?
It’s exciting. You know, I threw around a couple different names and then the idea for visitor, VSTR, just popped into my head — because it’s really what we all do; we’re just visiting around the world all the time. The idea of it was, even if you just stay in your own home, you’re a visitor. You may be there for 100 years, or only six more months — who knows? But the idea is, wherever you go and whatever you do, respect the people there and try to be thankful for what you have and appreciative of the people who take you around. The first ad we ever placed has a picture that really portrays what the brand is for us. I’m in the photo, but it’s not an in-your-face shot of me surfing; it’s just an exchange with somebody on the other side of the world and obviously about different cultures. It was a goat herder in Morocco, and his goats were climbing these trees. We stopped on the side of the road and hung out with him for about half an hour. I’d heard for years about the goats climbing trees there, and I looked over and saw about 30 goats up these trees eating berries (laughs). It was a cool experience for me, and that picture kind of sums up a lot of the unspoken stuff within the brand. I think anyone can admire a lot of the people we have involved already, like Kepa Acero. You can just see that filming and all that is so secondary. It’s just a way to capture what he loves, and it’s almost an excuse to travel more. I think anyone can appreciate people who love something so much they just dedicate everything they have to it. This is a way to celebrate those people.

There’s really an eclectic mix of people involved with VSTR besides you and Simon Buttonshaw. Surfers like Derek Hynd, Rusty Long and Kepa Acero, artists like Sandow Birk and photographers like Steve Sherman — all travelers, bringing back some of the culture they’re experiencing around the world into this brand.
I think guys like Rusty Long and Kepa Acero — he’s rad — those guys really embody the surfing/traveling lifestyle. They totally represent it. If you saw the new Surfer’s Journal, Rusty did a thing in there about going to Ireland for, like, an 80-foot swell. That stuff just kills me. … I want to drop everything and just go (laughs).

You seem to do pretty well. In between events you’re always chasing swells.
Yeah, I do pretty well. But between contests, any of the personal ties you have end up taking precedence, you know? Which is fine. People are obviously more important than going on a surf trip. But if I wasn’t competing, I’d have … real freedom to do what I want and go places. Then, when there were no waves, I’d come home and do the other stuff (laughs). But inevitably, I’d end up getting stuck somewhere because I enjoy being there, [even if] it’s you going down to South America and finding good waves and being by yourself. It might be a little chilly, but to get to surf alone most of the time, that’s cool. … I imagine most days you’re happy to see someone else and surf together, though. I just love looking for new waves. If I could take off to Ireland or Scotland right now, I guarantee within the next day or two, I’d surf a wave no one has surfed before. I’d be like, “What’s that wave over there?” and hear, “Oh, no one surfs that.” I find that fun. I’ve probably had, like, 15 or 20 waves around the world I’ve surfed before anyone else. Doesn’t mean they were very good or anything, but they were little corners people didn’t see in the reef, or take time with, since something nearby may be better. For me, that’s the fun thing about traveling and surfing.

Derek Hynd is an interesting character, and definitely an alternative thinker within the surfing community.
I’ve always had a lot of respect for Derek’s knowledge about the surfing world. Up until the ’90s, there was no one who knew more about pro surfing and the history of it than Derek did. That extends to board design and thinking out of the box, and out-of-the-box ideas. I’ve been pretty good friends with him for a long time, so it’s cool to have him be part of this, too. He’s always got a unique take on things.

Not sure if you would use the term numerology, but you always seem interested in the connection between numbers and events. You won your 10th world title in 2010, and now your 11th in 2011. Does that mean anything for 2012 or your motivation to keep things going on that front?
Well, I definitely don’t think I’ll be going for 19 in 2019 (laughs).

Maybe, but I read some of your comments after winning the 11th and you seemed to reference that you’ll be competing well into your 50s, and the fact you’re eating well.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily want to be; I just want to be able to, physically. That’s really the idea. I want to physically have the ability to still have my body in good shape. On the road, there are a lot of car rides and plane seats and stuff that takes a toll on your body. On top of the injuries, those are the big things, and getting rid of the scar tissue. Traveling is hard, because you end up eating so much shit food — different stuff all the time — so your stomach is going to pay a price. And your body isn’t necessarily getting all the nutrients it needs all the time, so you have to take your supplements and just be aware of what’s going on with your body. The biggest thing is just having the physical ability at 50 so that if I wanted to be on tour, I could. But that’s not saying I want to be on tour at 50 at all. I’m positive I don’t want to be. I just want to feel like if I were in a contest, I’d be fine.

Well, you don’t have to worry about it now, but you are about to turn 40, so where’s the motivation for 2012?
I’m just trying to go on feel. When I won the ninth title, there were a lot of people asking me if I was going for 10 and how I felt about that, as well as all the new guys, blah, blah, blah. I said I’d happily welcome someone taking that spot from me. If I’m there giving it 100 percent and someone else wins it, that’s fine with me, and that’s just the way it is. I don’t have a problem with it. That’s the future of sport, and our sport evolving and changing. You’re never going to put an end to that, but if you can keep up with it as long as you can possibly do that, it’s exciting, and it’s been good for me. But I don’t worry about holding onto that forever. I just want to hold onto my health, my friends, and my relationships. I just want to surf forever. ♦