Andy Irons Interview: Ironing out the creases

If you’ve been on the north coast of NSW the last couple of weeks, you may have seen someone who looks suspiciously like Andy Irons crusing around. Yamba-based journalist Geoff Helisma did, went and said g’day, and scored a great interview…

As I paddled out at Pippi Beach in Yamba a few weeks ago a surfer flew past me and, as I turned to watch from behind, launched himself into the air. Was that Andy Irons? I wondered.

Three times I paddled towards him after catching a wave but each time, before I was close enough to say hello, he caught another wave. Meanwhile, I’m wondering what to expect when I finally catch up with him. I knew he had issues with burn-out last year before dropping off the tour. I knew he had a rep for being ultra competitive – as portrayed in Blue Horizon – and I knew he’d copped plenty of criticism for receiving a wildcard into next year’s World Tour.

Then there were the rumours doing the rounds on the net, painting him as a not so nice guy who was ungrateful for the life he leads. Some of the blogs were downright nasty.
I suspected that most of what was written was rubbish, but I also expected that talking to a journalist would be the last thing he’d want to do.

Finally, I introduced myself and asked if he’d let me interview him for the local paper – he graciously accepted my request. We shook hands and arranged to meet two days later at the Angourie Boardriders comp, where I talked to a reflective, friendly, open and relaxed Andy Irons.


What brings you to spending time here in Yamba?

I’m spending time here just to get away from everything. I’ve been home in Hawaii and in the summer time it’s pretty small, there’re not many waves and I’ve always wanted to spend time on this part of the coast in the off season. I got the opportunity this year to do it. I’ve jut been trying to take advantage of going to as many places that I wanted to go to after the last 12 years of travelling.

How long are you planning to hang around here for?

I’m looking for a good month. I’m settled in. I’ve always gone to places for like 10 days and you don’t really get a full feel for a place, I’m always getting ready for the next trip. Where I think with a month you get a chance to unpack, settle in and get a routine. I’ve been here for a week and it’s been awesome.

Hopefully you’ll get a few waves while you’re here.

It’s been really fun already, it’s got such good variety, you couldn’t ask for much more.

You were pretty burnt out towards the end of last year. I read your Surfline interview and it was pretty honest from your point of view.

Yeah (laughs) I just tried to tell what I’m going through and what I’m doing. I definitely hit a pretty rough patch and kind of lost the will to compete and lost sight of what the reason was that I got involved in the first place. It was pretty scary place to be in. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to come back. The last month or so, I’ve really gone over things: my life, personally, my career, and just kind of sorted it out and gone back to the basics of what makes me happy. I think I spread myself too thin over the last seven years. I was doing well for a while and I started not winning – that kind of affected me. I just got married and I had to reassess what meant the most to me. My wife [Lyndie], she’s really supportive and she knows I’m happiest when I’m surfing, so I went back to basics and got psyched. Things like this, meeting all these kids, and stuff like that has been really helpful to me. You can see the stoke in their eyes and just really what it’s all about.

Thinking back to when you started as a competitive surfer, what was it back then that got you started?

When I first started surfing it was just for the pure love of it. I come from a really small island [Kauai] and I didn’t even know about pro surfing. By 11 I started to see surf mags and videos. I couldn’t believe that there was actually a profession where you could get paid to do surfing. Once I found out about that, it was all I could think of – it was 24 hours a day. I was at school thinking about surfing; I was sleeping and I was thinking of surfing. It was the ultimate outlet for me. I wasn’t really good at anything else. It’s always just been something that’s always been there for me. I found out about the local contests and from there I just got into it. I did my local stuff and from there to the nationals – I just kind of graduated from there.

You went through that rough period, wrestling between wife life, all the people who wanted a piece of you and the pressure of competing. Now, over the last month, you’ve come to reassess your priorities – your wife’s part of that equation now, too. Where would you say you’re at competitively now?

Competitively, I get on the internet and I see it and I follow it and my friends do well. It’s awesome seeing Joel [Parkinson – current World Tour leader] doing so good. I’m not there yet; there’s a certain standard I set for myself and I don’t think I’m at that peak yet, but I’m working on it. I can feel a little spark in me and I know the fire’s there. It’s a matter of harnessing it and getting it to where I feel comfortable and confident. It’s all in the confidence. When I feel confident, I think I do my best surfing. It’s a little way away, but it’s definitely a goal.

You just surfed at the Billabong Pro in Teahupoo and interestingly enough it was Bobby Martinez who beat you. I saw in one of your interviews that you wouldn’t stress so much if the surfer who beat you went on tho win the contest.

I’ve always had that thing where people ask me who will beat you and if you say the guy’s name and he ends up winning the contest – Oh yeah he won it – and you don’t feel as bad. At the time I was frustrated, but to lose to a guy like Bobby, and he is a great kid. I’ve surfed against him my whole life, and he hasn’t got a sponsor right now – that 40 grand I’m sure, helped out. He’s a really respectful kid and we just had a great heat. We did our thing and he had an amazing wave, the first wave of the heat, and just put me up on the ropes straight away. With those kinds of heats you just can’t do anything – it’s Mother Nature and she’s the boss: if she doesn’t bring you waves, you can’t perform.

Are you going to take any more wildcards into comps this year?

I’m going to pass on Jeffrey’s Bay, but I’ll be looking forward to Pipeline and the Triple Crown. I’m just going to set myself up and get ready for that. By the time that comes around, March [and the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper] comes really quick.

You’re planning to use it like a springboard, a bit like Joel Parkinson, to lever yourself into the next season.

From now to then will be about six months, so it’ll be a good trial period to do a couple of things to prepare myself. When that day comes, I’m going to be psyching.

So you’re working towards using the season wildcard you got from Rabbit [Wayne Bartholomew]?

Oh definitely. It was so nice of them [Association of Surfing Professionals] to even do that. At the end of last year I didn’t even think I wanted to come back to the tour. Just not being there and not being ready for it at all, but I knew I needed to get ready and get back there. I saw how good I had it. This year has been a great year, evaluating it all. How lucky we are to get paid to go and surf. To go surfing and surf these amazing places and meet some amazing people. It took me a rough patch; I’ve had a rough patch before, but it’s clear that it makes you stronger. I really, truly believe that.

You probably learn how to deal with it after you’ve been through it a few times.

I had a lot of personal stuff that I went through. I think it’s all learning stuff. If I didn’t go through it now, I think it would have been a lot harder to go through it in five or seven years when I really do want to retire.

Some people are pretty narky, for whatever reason they don’t understand that people all have their own issues.

Everyone’s got their own deal. There’ve always been a few people who don’t understand what I do or what I think or how I act. I try not to focus on them, just the other people who support me – my family and friends, who are there to help me and not bring me down.

You were down on the beach doing surf-orientated circuit training, is that something you’ve been doing for a long time?

No, not really. I was really out of shape in Tahiti and, literally, when I went off the tour last year, for six months I didn’t surf much. I sat on the couch and probably drank a few too many beers. It only took that much time to get out of shape. For some reason I just go one way or the other. Once I changed that, it’s been about a month now, I’ve lost 10 kilograms and it’s just been … I’ve got a goal set now and my life just seems much better. I’m not drinking at all anymore, it’s just been healthy living and hanging around here with all this really clean food. Just doing little things like circuit training and doing little mock heats: that’s all going to help me for next year.

The athlete-style training for surfing is a relatively new thing.

Surfers are the only athletes who don’t think they’re athletes; it’s wild. Most surfers…. For ever there has only been a handful of trainers who do it religiously, but for the majority, I’d say about 80 per cent, it’s just surfing alone – I mean surfing is the best training for surfing – but that extra edge, I think that comes from doing stuff outside of surfing. Out in the water, you know you’ve been doing that little bit extra; it gives you that confidence and that little extra boost to catch that wave and make that manoeuvre or whatever it takes.

I think when Mick [Fanning] came back from injury, he…

That was the perfect example. I think he got a little big, he was injured and he used that time to really focus on what the big goal was and went and achieved it. That’s just amazing, it’s an awesome story.

As surfing becomes more professional, and there are a lot more surfers taking an athletic kind of attitude to what they do – to be more flexible and stronger in certain ways – surfing has become a lot more gymnastic-like?

Yeah, definitely: I’m from the school of… I’ve always been a fan of big power surfers like Occy, [Tom] Curren and Sunny Garcia, mixed in with Matt Archbold and Kelly [Slater] and those guys with the airs. These kids these days – Jordy Smith, Dane Reynolds and Parko – they’re doing flips, and that kind of freaked me out last year, too, when a new batch of kids came in. They’re doing flips and stuff, I didn’t think my surfing was relevant anymore. Power surfing, I think, will never go out of style – I love to watch Occy, still to this day.

That’s an interesting phenomenon, the tricks. They take a high degree of skill to do. They are very technical, but at the same time, watching air after air on a video, I kind of get bored.

That’s it. It takes a lot to shock you after a while. You see 10 airs in a row, the first air will be awesome, but then 10 waves down, it gets repetitive. But if you see a big carve mixed in there, it’s like, whoa. It’s almost gone full circle. Whereas before, you’d see a bunch of carves and one air and everybody would be like, whoa. I think the guys that put it on rail and mix it up with the airs are going to stay on top.

Do you have an opinion about the new format that’s being used at some World Tour comps?

I’m not too familiar with it, you know. Now they have seedings and stuff. I personally think you can look at it either way. You surf the tour and you think you’re there surfing against everyone at the same time, so you think everyone should start at the same base. But, at the same time, it takes four days to run a contest and there’s usually never four days of good surf. So if we can get it down to three… Forty-four is a lot of guys; I don’t think we need that many guys. Everyone has an opinion, but I’m just happy to have a wildcard to get back in there next year.