There’s something of a music theme in this issue of Wavelength. Surfing and music are passions which are married to the soul, each penetrating deep within and moving you like no other. The sheer delight of gliding along a walling face, the elation as you tuck inside, or the catharsis as you drift through a beloved album.
Music, like surfing, touches you, it makes you feel alive. It arouses, it soothes, it connects. It can lift your spirits or calm you from the storm. Chatting to Aaron Bruno, from AWOLNATION, it was evident of how surfing is his life, his escape, his lifelong love. There’s nowhere he’d rather be than back home surfing in Southern California, at home in the ocean.
The Sunset Sons, who, with no pun intended, are riding the crest of the wave. They’re a band that love the sea as much as the music, and as Sam Lamiroy discovers, they’ve got everything in perspective.
Another spirit of the sea, Andrew Cotton, is another who continues to push boundaries. His pursuit of chasing monstrous waves, shows no abounds and his fearlessness on the face of 80ft of vast, boiling power, is to be admired. Simply capturing the wave at Nazaré, through a lens, is awe inspiring enough; but imagine what it must be like to surf it. Cotty knows.
Back to where we began, I recently met Tom Curren, which is akin, for me, to meeting Elvis. I was as starstruck as I was when I got his autograph back in 1985 at North Fistral for the Boardmasters. He was here as part of the Global Wave Conference held at Mawgan Porth, in Cornwall, highlighting the growing threats to waves and surfing habitats worldwide. A worthy event and in Tom, an amazing surfer and individual, still making his mark on the world.