They say nothing can evoke memories like music. And nothing can transport you back to your favourite surf movie moments like their original soundtracks.
Diving deep into the rich history of surf films and music, Warner Records have just released PSYCHED: The Soundtrack To Your Surfing Life the ultimate compilation of the greatest moments in surf movie soundtracks from 1982 to 2014, handpicked to have you traveling back in time in no time.
To celebrate the release of PSYCHED, Australian surf writer Tim Baker gave us a track by track run down of the compilation, it’s 21 tracks long so get ready to go deep into the aural history of surf culture.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -‘Red Right Hand’
Taken from the film: Dear Suburbia
Surf film savant Kai Neville stepped out of the considerable shadow of his mentor Taylor Steele with 2011’s Lost Atlas, but it was the following year’s Dear Suburbia that cemented his reputation for quirky visuals, laser-sharp talent identification and eclectic music soundtracks. Nick Cave’s growling vocals and moody instrumentation provided a dramatic counterpoint to modern aerialists Chippa Wilson and Craig Anderson’s theatrics on the edge of the Australian desert, their tail high spins and deft tube threading set against ancient, crumbling, limestone cliffs.
Was this Neville’s subtle comment on old surf industry artifices crumbling in the face of modern, free surfing, high performance? Probably not. But it married Australia’s mythical desert coast, a musical icon and cutting edge aerial antics in a mesmerising montage.
The Stooges – ‘Down On The Street’
Taken from the film: Bustin’ Down The Door
There’s a powerful juxtapose in coupling Rabbit, MR and Shaun with the Stooges. As these pioneers of the pro surfing world articulate their youthful dreams of a career riding waves, wild man Iggy Pop and his Stooges release animals wails and pounding sonic waves as accompaniment. At around the same time as the Free Ride generation were ushering in the new pro era, The Stooges were laying the groundwork for the coming punk revolution. While the first generation pros fought for surfing to become respectable, Iggy and his band were ensuring rock and roll remained a rebellious outlier.
Rose Tattoo – ‘Scarred For Life’
Taken from the film: The Performers
The potent combination of Angry Anderson’s searing anthem of troubled youth and the breakthrough Hawaiian surfing of bad boy Gary “Kong” Elkerton made an indelible imprint on any surfing delinquents dreaming of death or glory in the Islands.
The fact that Kong was surfing with a heavily strapped and stitched left knee after being speared by a board at Sunset Beach, and that he’d busted almost his entire quiver of boards, made Scarred for Life the ideal soundtrack to Kong’s animal surfing. When Angry roars, “My reputation it cuts like a knife,” as Kong buries his rail through one more brutal carve at Pipeline it’s easy to imagine the pair as kindred souls, each converting youthful angst into their companion artforms.
Grinspoon – ‘Champion’
Taken from the film: Bra Boys
Hailing from the surfing magic lands of the NSW North Coast, Grinspoon could not have been further removed from the grim, gritty urban jungle of Sydney’s Maroubra Beach. And yet their fire-powered pub rock sat perfectly with the tales of violence, localism, machismo thrill-seeking and outright rebellion the ‘Bra Boys doco captured.
Australian surfing’s most notorious gang achieved notoriety for fist fights with police, a grissly murder case, fearless charging of crazy waves and an unlikely peace-making role in the infamous Cronulla Riots. Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson channeled their bravado in this ode to wild, adolescent ambition and triumph against the odds. When Koby Abberton comments of his big wave antics, “One of us could die one day from it, but I’m ready for it,” you know he’s not kidding.
Midnight Oil – ‘Only The Strong’
Taken from the film: Scream In Blue
Cheyne Horan’s revealing 1987 biopic documented his alternative lifestyle in a cosmic, share-house in Byron Bay, while his pro surfing ratings were on the slide. An outlier from the mainstream surfing world of mounting commercialism and professionalism, Cheyne’s cry for understanding couldn’t have found a better soundtrack than Midnight Oil’s tortured primal scream, Only The Strong.
Horan had to be strong to withstand the ridicule and innuendo about his unconventional ways in the homogenized ‘80s surf world, while remaining one of the most resolutely individual and innovative surfers in the world.
The Sunnyboys – ‘Tunnel Of Love’
Taken from the film: Kong’s Island
Perhaps the defining Aussie surf anthem, the Sunnyboys created the sound of surf-drenched, sunburnt, salt-encrusted Summer days. It was a sound that sat perfectly with Jack McCoy’s comical romp, Kong’s Island, introducing us to Sunshine Coast surf sensation Gary “Kong” Elkerton. Sunnyboys frontman Jeremy Oxley was a schoolboy surf champ himself before he found rock fame, yet the rigours of stardom took their toll, just as they did for so many surf stars of the era.
The Sunnboys’ recent triumphant return was celebrated by old, sun-damaged surfers across the country. When they played Tunnel of Love at a comeback gig for the Day on the Green tour, Jeremy dedicated the song to the Kingscliff Boardriders Club, whose now middle-aged members pogoed madly in front of the stage.
Silverchair – ‘Freak’
Taken from the film: Alley Oop
It’s hard to think of a more fitting band for the soundtrack to Alley Oop, Billabong’s slick homage to super-grommets Taj Burrow, Andy Irons, Chris Ward, Michael Lowe and Tim Curran, on the cusp of pro tour greatness back in 1997.
Based on the successful Billabong Challenge formula, pitting a handful of the best surfing talents in the world in a unique competitive format, Alley Oop documented the bold experiment applied to the world’s best juniors, smashing it up around the NSW Central Coast’s rugged reefs and beachbreaks. Newcastle teen trio Silverchair captured the mood with their hard-rocking ode to not fitting in, while the uber-groms went mad amid the glorious Australian east coast. The Oop-generation met very different fates, though all made their mark on the surfing world in one way or another.
Bad Religion – Anethesia
Taken from the film: Momentum
This was the moment Australian surfing emitted a collective, “Oh Shit”, the the cold hard dawn when we realised just how good Kelly Slater was, that he wasn’t going away and there was a whole pack of talented sons of bitches massing in his wake, ready to put the hard partying Aussie surf animal to the sword. Bad Religion’s breakneck musical onslaught Anesthesia just managed to keep up with an astonishing sequence of Slater threading huge Pipe barrels, refining a flawless top to bottom technique in Mexico, carving 360s, busting air and slouching through the most unfeasibly nonchalant backhand lip floaters in the history of humankind.
But if Australian surfing dominance was doomed from that moment, we knew at least there was going to be a hell of a show to enjoy.
Wolfmother – Dimmansion
Taken from the film: Fair Bits
Hard to believe it’s a decade ago that a youthful Taj Burrow drives an old pickup truck along a lonely desert road before the ageing motor overheats. What follows is a surreal paddling voyage through mountain lakes, urban drainage canals and finally an ocean estuary before Taj unleashes his prodigious talents as Wolfmother roar into life with their throwback Zepplin-esque guitar rock. Despite the music’s historical reference points, Burrow is the archetypal modern surfer of the age – utlising jet skis, helicopters, wave pools and multiple angles to document his blitzkrieg of futuristic, above the lip wizardry.
The Celibate Rifles – ‘Wonderful Life’
Taken from the film: Sons Of Fun
Jack McCoy took a break from the lush, cinematic epics to let loose with some plain old fun with free surfing freaks Brenden Margieson, Neal Purchase Jnr and Hawaiian super-talents Ross Williams and Shane Dorian in Bali and beyond. One of Sydney’s original surf punk bands the Celibate Rifles (a neat word play on “Sex Pistols” – get it?) provided an ironic anthem of appreciation for the superficial charms of modern existence. This 1993 romp was a celebration of all that was good and joyous about the surfing life and the young Billabong crew’s elastic gymnastics offered up enough aquatic inspiration to get even the most jaded surfer fired up.
Social Distortion – ‘Sick Boy’
Taken from the film: Archy
Freakish talent and an appetite for self-destruction made Matt Archbold the ideal surf star for the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, as he pioneered a wildly creative aerial attack and pursued a relentless party program on land.
And So-Cal punk rockers Social Distortion delivered a tailor-made anthem, Sick Boy, for Archy’s self-titled 2008 biopic. The track arrives as Archy is staging an unlikely second coming as a successful competitor on the Bud Pro Tour, after a string of DUI’s, no-shows at sponsored events and a stint in the Betty Ford clinic. That his resurrection came on a surf tour sponsored by a beer company was just one of the ironies in a career full of highs and lows. As surf mag publisher Steve Zeldin put it, “He was a team manager’s nightmare but a marketing directors dream.”
You Am I – ‘Coprolalia
Taken from the film: Billabong Challenge 2, J-Bay
The Billabong Challenge events were the inspired brainchild of surfwear mogul Gordon Merchant, filmmaker Jack McCoy and ’78 world champ Rabbit Bartholomew, to ease a re-born Mark Occhilupo back into top level competition while sparing him the rigours of the pro tour that brought him undone so spectacularly in the late ‘80s.
They were also arguably a forerunner of the so-called Dream Tour, making the case for pro contests to be held in the world’s best waves in season. Challenge 2 at South Africa’s epic Jeffreys Bay delivered in spades, with finalists Kelly Slater, Occy, Brendan Margieson and local hero Warren Deane gamely tackling maxing, eight foot rights roaring for a mile down the famous point. You Am I’s frontman Tim Rogers roared his approval in guttural growls and waves of distorted guitar.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – ‘Which Way To Go’
Taken from the film: Kerrzy
The former Coolangatta street urchin who morphed from air show whizkid to pro tour upstart to one of the most well-rounded surfers on the planet, Josh Kerr’s bio-pic needed a suitably, emotionally charged soundtrack.
The coupling of a high performance crescendo in milky overhead barrels with the raw punk rock punch of Melbourne’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring proves irresistible. Kerr’s massive airs, nimble tube riding and power hacks are interspersed with Jordy Smith’s huge laybacks and Chippa Wilson’s aerial trickery – two surfers who neatly capture the range of Kerrzy’s versatile talents. It’s a sequence tailor-made to get you paddling out and pushing your limits in any conditions.
Pennywise – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’
Taken from the film: Momentum
This 1992, fast-edited, thrash surf vid by high school graduate Taylor Steele started a revolution – unveiling a new generation of hyper-talented American wunderkinds as well a wave of California nuevo-punk surf bands. For a cynical Australian surf public, accustomed to overhyped American kids not living up to their reps and bloated pay packets, Momentum was a revelation.
Here was a whole crew of young Seppos who ripped, charged in big and small waves and had an arsenal of futuristic tricks – ringleader Kelly Slater, and his pals Rob Machado, Shane Dorian, Ross Williams, Conan Hayes, Chris Malloy and Pat O’Connell. Steele had the nerve to include waves from a bodyboarder – Pat Roach getting barreled and throwing tail dropknee in a manner that silenced the cynics.
The Datsuns – ‘MF From Hell’
Taken from the film: Doped Youth
Halfway through this raucous, slapstick, spoof from a band of talented surf punks from Sydney’s northern beaches things get serious. The absurd storyline gives way to a grainy sequence of bohemian aerialist Ozzie Wright launching straight on to bare rock, as the Datsuns bellow their profane lyrics over pure, power punk, guitar fuzz.
With cameos from Kelly Slater, Dean Morrison, Luke Stedman, Chris Davidson and a breath taking extras clip starring a very young and very loose Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson, Doped Youth skewered the glossy professionalism of modern surfing.
Bloc Party – ‘Helicopter’
Taken from the film: Campaign 2
By 2005 Taylor Steele was a veritable industry, yet he kept pumping out quality offerings and capturing the best surfers of the moment. A young Dane Reynolds’ staggering sequence set to the staccato guitar blasts of UK band Bloc Party made the point emphatically. Reynolds would go on to become one of the most influential surfers of the next decade, his wild backhand surfing at Macaronis in the Mentawais in particular giving us a glimpse of a high performance future his peers would take years to match. And the Bloc Party’s energetic rock groove saw this track immortalized on the Guitar Hero video game.
Modest Mouse – ‘Fire It Up’
Taken from the film: A Fly In The Champagne
In 2008 the greatest competitive rivalry in modern surfing, between world champs Kelly Slater and Andy Irons, had reached an unexpected truce. At the Quiksilver Pro on the Gold Coast, Irons poured his heart out to his former nemesis and a surf trip to Indonesia together was conceived.
The gently pulsating track Fire It Up, from Washington Indie rockers Modest Mouse, might have seemed an ill-fated choice if the champs had considered the song was lifted from the ominously titled album, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. Yet the coming together of pro surfing’s two contemporary giants proved a happy healing, only made more poignant by the subsequent death of Irons in an airport hotel room in Texas in 2010, from the combined effects of a heart condition and a cocktail of pharmaceuticals.
Yothu Yindi – ‘Treaty’
Taken from the film: Bunyip Dreaming
Vast WA desert landscapes meld seamlessly with Yothu Yindi’s indigenous dance beats and timeless didgeridoo blasts, as Ronnie Burns, Munga Barry and Marcus Brabant weave through cascading reef barrels. A fully loaded troop carrier bounces over rutted sand tracks, tents are pitched and camp cricket ensues in an alien world populated by flocks of white cockatoos and oversized anthills. It’s the quintessential Australian desert surfing dream master Filmmaker Jack McCoy has been seducing us with since Storm Riders. Camping has rarely looked like so much fun.
Coldplay – ‘Clocks’
Taken from the film: Blue Horizon
There are few more inspiring opening strains to a surf movie sequence than the lilting keyboard intro to the scenes of Andy Irons and Dave Rastovich surfing perfect, playful-sized Teahupoo that forms the climax to Jack McCoy’s masterpiece, Blue Horizon. As Coldplay frontman Chris Martin ramps up his insistence that “nothing else compares,” we can only concede that indeed the sublime lines of Messrs Irons and Rastovich are beyond peer, as they navigate their way through indecent volumes of tropical reebreak barrels. The fact that one of these wave riders is no longer with us only tears the heart-strings more.
Leonard Cohen – ‘Who By Fire’
Taken from the film: Bustin Down The Door
A beguiling title sequence introduces us to the pioneers of professional surfing as Leonard Cohen softly serenades us, asking again and again a plaintive, who? Those who realised their dreams of a livelihood from surfing were a bunch of upstart Aussies and South Africans trying to make a name for themselves in the furnace of Hawaiian surfing. When a young unabashed Rabbit declares, “I see my surfing as an artform,” he’s straddling a cultural divide between the freedom-seeking children of the ‘60s and the new aspiring pro’s with stars and dollar signs in their eyes.
Iggy Pop – ‘Endless Sea’
Taken from the film: The Bruce Movie
The Bruce Movie allowed the younger Irons brother to claim the limelight so often dominated by his older sibling Andy. After a spectacular pro career that never quite fulfilled his undoubted potential, despite some heroic victories in the Eddie Aikau Invitational and the Pipe Masters, Bruce’s ’08 signature movie climaxes with the obligatory Mentawai boat trip sequence.
While his smooth carves and wild airs in pristine Indo perfection provide the eye candy, another hard-living survivor Iggy Pop delivers a smooth crooning sonic seduction, 30 years after his Stooges foreshadowed the rise of punk. As Bruce’s pro tour fortunes begin to wane, it is easy to imagine he shares Iggy’s yearning: “I want to jump into the endless sea.”
Psyched: The Soundtrack To Your Surfing Life is out now via Warner Music
