On ignoring Taj Burrow,
his first ever chopper shoot
and his hot beef with Stab .

Interview by Aaron Blakey
Photos John Respondek

Okay, let me just say that when you were younger you were one of the hardest humans to interview. Did you hate having a microphone and camera waved about in your face?

Yeah, I found it a little intimidating getting interviewed when I was younger.
Cool, I thought it was just me.
Yeah, it was just you. I saved me worst for ya. Ha!
Last time we spoke you were a brilliant interviewee. What changed? Did you have media training or something?
Nah. I’m now used to being interviewed so I’m comfortable talking to people and answering their questions. When I was a kid I didn’t really want to have a serious conversation with an adult I didn’t know so getting interviewed was always a little painful. When you’re a teenager you have better things to do than interviews.
But when I phoned you yesterday and said I needed to interview you for Stab you kind of let out a little sigh. What’s your beef with Stab?
I just don’t like the way they go about stuff.
What stuff?
I just don’t agree with a couple of the things they’ve written in their mag in the last couple of years.
Alright, how about this anecdote that appears in the latest muckraking edition of Stab. At J-Bay this year Nixon gave a $10k diamond stuffed watch to the surfer with the highest heat-score total. Taj was the front-runner for the timepiece before Kelly overtook him in the quarter-finals. Before your semi with Taj started at J-Bay you guys were sitting out the back and Kelly had just snagged the watch. Taj turned to you and said, “I can’t believe Kelly just got my watch.” According to Stab, you flat-out ignored Taj and sat there, your back to him, facing the horizon. Do you remember that?
Yeah. I remember thinking, who cares? It’s only a watch.
Were you trying to rattle him?
I just didn’t want to get into a conversation with the guy I was surfing against at the start of a heat. I was concentrating on myself. It’s only a watch. If he’d said something important I probably would have replied. I wasn’t being rude I was just doing my own thing. I don’t like to talk before heats.
Although it’s not been reported there’s not really too much love lost between you and Taj is there?
Ummm… I wouldn’t say that.
Okay, but you guys have a hot little rivalry happening…
Definitely. We’ve had a lot of heats together but I like to leave all the bullshit in the water. I really enjoy surfing against him because he always makes me step up but I don’t like to talk shit; I like my surfing to do the talking.
Is a loss to Taj harder to swallow than a loss to Andy or Parko?
I hate losing to all of them. I never want to lose to those guys because they’re the guys I’m fighting it out for the world title against.
There’s definitely something there, it’s not just me making it up. From what I have observed there is a whole lot of gnarly rivalries on tour but when the media starts asking questions Andy Irons is the only one with the guts to pipe up says what he thinks. Do you agree?
Yeah, I do. That’s just Andy’s personality. The rivalries are definitely there but as I said before, I personally prefer to leave that gear in the water and let my surfing do the talking.
Okay. Tell me about this remarkable run that you have been on. You haven’t finished worse than a quarterfinal finish since you won J-Bay in

2006. It looks like you breeze into the quarterfinals at each event.
In some heats it feels easy but you never know what your opponent is capable of on their day, so I can never afford to be too complacent. It may look like I’m cruising but I’m not. Every stop on tour is different too. Like at J-Bay this year the surf was really inconsistent. My plan was to get
two waves and surf them well but not take huge risks because there wasn’t enough waves if I fell off trying something big. In each heat at J-Bay, I found that if I got a couple of 7.5s my opponent would struggle to get back in the game. It may have looked like I was cruising in that event but
it was all tactical.
If you’re not required to surf your best in the earlier rounds that means spectators aren’t seeing the highest level of surfing. Which would suggest the ASP could cut the number of surfers on the world tour. Agree?
Yeah, but there’s guys that need to be on tour because they rely on the money but on the other hand you very rarely get four really good days in a two-week event window. I think there could be some numbers cut.
There’s a rumour that flies about that says while Andy, Taj and Parko all divvy up Billabong’s sponsorship dollars, Mick Fanning, Rip Curl’s
only mega-star, owns one of the biggest contracts in surfing – right up there with Bruce and Kelly. Care to comment?
Hee hee. That’s all confidential. I don’t know what the other guys are getting so I can’t say.
You guys don’t sit around puffing on cigars talking money?
Nah, not at all.
You’re quite the property tycoon. You’ve bought up half the Gold Coast. Seems you’re very aware of the fact you won’t be on a multi-million
dollar contract forever.
Yeah, when I finish the tour I just want to sit at home and have a family and do trips to different places. I’m trying to place my money in the right spots so after I’m done with pro surfing I can have a comfortable life and support my family.
It seems you’re pretty smart with your money although you did drop over 200k on a Porsche Carrera. Hardly your typical surf wagon, what made you buy it? Was it a tax right off?
Nah, I was sponsored by Porsche at the time and they gave me a Cayenne [four-wheel-drive] to get around in. I had that for a year so I saved some coin not owning a car. I wanted to buy a Cayenne and get Porsche to give me a Boxster or a sports car to play around with. They weren’t into it so I just went and bought one for myself. I sold it recently though.
Why did you get rid of the thing?
I wasn’t driving it enough. It’s such a good car so I wanted someone to drive it and it was depreciating rapidly. I lost a bit on it but that’s what happens when you buy a new car.
Tell me about your first chopper session. What’s it like with the photographer and the cameraman looking down on you, the chopper
noise and all that pressure to perform?
Fucked. It was so windy and the noise and everything just shits me. I was over it. I wanted some peace and quiet. Every time I went to do a turn the wind from the chopper would blow up the face of the wave and wreck the section. It was just annoying. I hated it.
Do you find that most places you go, even where the locals are notoriously fucked, that you’re welcome because you’re Mick Fanning?

Maybe it’s that but I also show respect and I think locals like that. I make sure they get their waves and if I do I usually find I get some of my own too.
You should see some of the crap us normal folk have to deal with. The same brown-nosing local geeks that call you into waves tell the rest of
us to beat it before we even get a chance to show any respect.
I know I have it good but I don’t get called into waves and sometimes I do encounter localism. If I paddle out to a localised break and a photographer follows to shoot photos someone might tell me that we can’t shoot there. I just say, “Yep, no worries.”
Last time I interviewed you told me that after watching footage of yourself surfing in Mexico you were bored by what you saw. How do you feel about your surfing right now?
I’m loving it. I’m still mixing it up and trying different stuff, like at the moment I’m really enjoying doing Larry laybacks. I can’t get enough of them.
Give the Stab reader a tip for surfing with more speed?
Leg drive and high lines. When the top guys weave down the line you’ll notice that they ride high
on the face of the wave. If you can generate good speed down the line you’ll do faster turns.
How often are you asked to give tips on how to surf with more speed?
Oh shit, too often. The weird thing is I never concentrated on being a fast surfer. If anything, I concentrated on slowing down so I didn’t look so frantic.
Does it feel like you have been doing the same interview for the past 10 years?
Yeah, it does.
Seems when you guys get interviewed after an ASP heat the answers are always exactly the same.
Yeah, that’s what it’s like because you get exactly the same questions after every heat at every single event.
But you guys have standard answers for every question. I feel like I could do your post heat interview for you. Give us a couple of your most overused lines?
Um… I’m just so stoked to get through another heat… I was lucky to find a couple of fun ones…I’ll just take it one heat at a time… this is one of the most prestigious stops on tour… he is a great surfer I was lucky to find the better waves out there today… my equipment feels really good, I’ve been working closely with my shaper… It’s great to get a win but it’s a long year and I don’t want get ahead of myself. You know them all.
Yup, every tired, bored, weightless cliché. Goodbye.

Everyone