Today, November 2, 2012, marks the two year anniversary of Andy Irons’ death. And, it feels like only yesterday that surfers around the world woke up to text messages and emails that they could not, would not, believe. Andy’s legacy, apart from the thunder he brought when the world was wilting under the heat of Kelly Slater, also lives now in his son Axel, who looks more like The Champ every day. For three consecutive years, he owned the world title. But, sometimes when you bring the thunder, you get lost in the storm. In remembrance of The Champ, Stab offers the following conversation. On October 15, 2010, before flying to Puerto Rico for the Rip Curl Search event (a contest Andy would not compete in), the Hawaiian spoke to Stab‘s Derek Rielly about his thoughts and feelings at that point in time. He was aged 32. This is the last interview Andy ever gave.
STAB: Is that the Champ?
AI: Is that Rielly? I know that voice…
Hey, I’m talking to the fucken Champ! The people’s champ! That’s me! Fuck yeah! (Laughing) Fuck yeah, how y’doin, brah?
I’m good, if y’count owning balls like peanuts good. I know you’re good. After Tahiti, you’ve got your comeback locked down tight like a little girls tuna (Editor’s note. This is a quote from AI’s favourite show, Eastbound and Down, series two. It ain’t me being a weirdo.) Yeah, yeah! Kenny Powers, bro.
Kenny fucken Powers. Andy fucken Irons. Kenny fucken Powers! You know that! Hey, so what are we doing? What…what… what’s this whole deal (interview) about, D? Is this for the (Stab hardcover) book?
Yeah (Editor’s note: it ain’t now. We pulled it for this issue). Y’know how it is. It ain’t a book without The Champ inside. Last year we shot you for an interview about your awesome style… You should see me right now. First time in three years, bro, that I’m down to my gold comp weight, 176. This winter it…is…fucken…on, brah. Fucken major Kenny Powers way.
You’re so fucken back. My results don’t speak for themselves (apart from Tahiti), but I fucken haven’t surfed so much in ages, brah. I’ve been surfing two times a day with Freddie P and Dusty Payne. Dusty Payne. That kid fucken pumps me up! He’s my new Cory Lopez. I lost Lopey (from the tour) and I’ve frickin’ finally got some sparring partners. Dusty’s the coolest, gnarliest little kid. Full Maui style, brah. Those guys, they’re a different breed, brah. Dusty is awesome.
Dusty’s gold, almost as gold as his reddish-gold hair. He’s fucken classic as shit.
I just came back from the Canaries with your brother. He’s supersonic, too. How’s this? I was in Madrid on the way to Portugal and I’m going, this guy looks like my brother and he goes, “It is your fucken brother.” He comes up on me… (laughs)… all creepy and sweaty, introduced Evan Geiselman to me as Evan…(laughs) Geiselfuck! And, then he showed me footage of this wavepool thing. It was fucken sick, but, wavepool’s are so hard to surf. Y’gotta read those things like the fucken Matrix!
Brian Bielmann captures Andy, mid-karaoke scream on Tavarua during the Globe WT event, Fiji.
Did Bruce tell you about all the poor bastards in wheelchairs in Tenerife? You walk down the street, thirty per cent are in chairs. The Canary Islands? Wheelchairville?
Yup, go to a hotel and instead of hire car booths in the lobby, there’s a rack of motorised wheelchairs… No shit!
Hey, how good is this! We went to a party with some locals at the beach and all our shit got ripped off! (laughs) Holy shit (laughs)… hey, so, let’s do this interview or have we been doing it? (Laughs)
Got a few lil gems. But, tell me, whenever I spoke to Bruce I always referred to him as The Champ’s Brother. I’d knock on his door and yell, “That the Champ’s Brother?” I love it!
Does Bruce call you The Champ at home? Fuck, I am the people’s champ, brah. You know, Slater’s taking 10 this year and it’s making my three look all the more… I told him, “Get that 10 and make my three look that much cooler, brah, cause I’m the only one who took you out.” And he laughed and I said, “No, I’m serious.”
Late at night, in bed, what keeps you awake, what are you fears? I’m an insomniac. I’m awake all the time, anyway, but my fears are fucken failure, letting down my family, my wife and I’m, fuck, I’m scared to be a quadriplegic, I’ll tell you that right now. A friend of mine’s in a wheelchair now from surfing and that sometimes pops into my mind at night and shit what with the waves we surf. I don’t think I could ever handle it. I’m a wild animal but that would really crash my spirit.
When you need to put your mind in a good place, what beautiful memories do you revive? I still go back to my first surf at the pier, aged seven. Riding this wave that didn’t really break and it was the best feeling I’ve ever felt in my life. I went left, right, left and the wave didn’t really break and I was on the glide. I remember my dad being so proud that I stood up and rode the wave for as long as I did.
What childhood dreams have stuck with you? It’s usually, I’m on top of a mountain and I’m trying to stand on the pinnacle without falling off. The wind gets really strong and it turns into this radical Wizard of Oz trip with the wind coming up and with lightning bolts appearing around. It starts to rain and the mountain starts getting real slippery. What does it mean? Probably, that I’m trying to hold on.
Have you ever truly believed you were about to die? Fuck, yeah! I’ve had some moments, even turbulence in an airplane, where I felt f’sure the plane might crash. I’ve even had planes crashing in my dreams and woken up on a plane. The other nightmare I have is, I’m on a plane and the bottom’s made of glass and it starts cracking. But, fuck, that wave in Tahiti where I got stuck in the lip and froze with fear and just made it? I really felt like I might be physically hurt then. That wave was, literally, a major moment in my life. I remember telling Mark Healy that I’d pulled back on a wave, that I’d fagged out, and he said, “The next one, just put your head down and go”. Bruce was actually trying to get that wave and he said, “Y’better go, FAG!” and the next thing you know I was in the lip and held up and…fucken… I was about to jump, I couldn’t move, I was petrified with fear, literally frozen with fear. I made the wave frozen with fear. I couldn’t move my arm or anything. Somehow it worked out and I didn’t land on my head and get my neck broken. But, it was the wave of my life. I think about that wave all the time.
This unreasonably dangerous tube was photographed in 2009 at The Quiksilver: in Memory of Eddie Aikau. It drove the crowd fucking bananas and The Champ would always do anything for his people. Photo: Michael Clark
Talk to me about failure. To me, failure is not living up to my potential. The whole world title thing was my major drive. I didn’t want to have that Taj Burrow thing where you surf so good but you don’t have a world title. I didn’t want to have that burden. That’s what drove me to take on Kelly. I couldn’t handle being 40 years old and living on Kauai and people telling me, “Oh you should’ve won the world title but you didn’t quite put it together.”
What’s your greatest achievement? It’s going to be in December. It’s coming. Little Axel Jason Irons is on his way. The name Jason is my cousin’s name. Jason’s my hero. It’s my dad’s brother’s kid. My dad tried to get me surfing, but it scared the shit out of me and it turned me off. And, Jason, who I looked up to my whole life, is a Shane Dorian-kinda guy, a genuine good person. He surfs like Tom Carroll mixed with Occy. He rides for Billabong and it’s a major reason why I ride with Billabong now. He’s my fucken hero. He’s a stud. Always been the nicest, coolest badass, but in the best way. No showboating and when it comes down to it, just everything I’d like to be like. He’s seven years older than me and I’ve always tried to tag along with him. I tried to comb my hair like him, fucken, you name it, whatever he had or did, I had to get or do. When he got into BMX, we (AI and Bruce) got into BMX. He showed me Pump and Surf Into Summer (iconic Billabong surf vomits), he got me into surf magazines, everything about surfing I’m doing today, is because of him.
What would you change about your life? Not a thing. Everything’s a learning curve. There’s a couple of things (laughs) I’d like to take back, but fuck, I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today. You gotta go in the mud sometimes to figure out who you are. I’ve had my fair share of hills and valleys, but life’s been radical and exciting. Stuff that kings would die to do. Straight-up, fuckin A. The lifestyle we’ve got and the lifestyle I’ve led since I was 17, I couldn’t even tell my friends. I try and tell stories and they think I’m making it up or I saw it in a fucken movie. Straight up. It’s the life I wanted since I caught my first wave.
Do you have a fear of being broke? Fuck no! I come from humble beginnings. As long as I have a surfboard, a pair of trunks and a roof over my head and, if I don’t a have a roof a tent, I mean, I’ll be happy and a hippy living on bananas. Me and my bother have lived with my mum in a fricken place with no kitchen. What I have now is beautiful and all but I could go back the other way and live like that if I had to. But, I’m not gonna.
Do you have a fear of prison? Shit yeah. That would break me. I’ve had friends that’ve gone in wild animals and come out numb.
Lyndie and The Champ. Love is forever. Photo: Jeff Flindt
What do you like most about your body? My feet. They’re not too jacked up. Everything else is pretty blown out and scarred up. My feet handle it.
Who or what is your greatest love? My wife, right now, she’s fricken… ah, wait… you know what, I’m sorry, but surfing. Surfing’s the only thing that’s always been there day in, day out, fucken girlfriend breakups, fucken report card fails, surfing always makes you feel better. No matter what, when I’m in the water, even if I don’t catch a wave and just swim in the ocean, I always come out a better person.
Do you fear losing the love of your life? If I ever lost Lyndie or my parents or my brother, I don’t know what I’d do. I couldn’t live without them.
If you weren’t The Champ, who would you like to be and why? I admire a lot of people for different reasons, for their different traits and for the different values they have. But, I don’t know man, everyone has their own problems. Everyone’s got ‘em. It doesn’t matter who you are, there’s always something wrong with ‘em. I’m happy with myself.
Enough of the fruity shit. How’s that pussy palace of yours? The home at Hanalei? I call it the Hanalei Bomber. It’s radical, it’s my dream. I grew up across the street in my dad’s toolshed that we turned into a bedroom and it’s four houses across from the water. It’s everything I thought I wouldn’t or couldn’t have. It’s more than I could possibly fathom. No one handed it to me. I had to fucken go and do it myself. And, it’s my proudest accomplishment.
Anything y’wanna tell the world, now that AI is back? People have actually been so… fucken … cool with wanting me to come back. People that didn’t even like me, who thought I wan an arrogant little fucker, are now coming outta the woodwork and being stoked. Richie Collins (radical Californian pro surfer of the eighties) sent Lyndie an email today telling me to stick with it and how stoked he was that I was back on the world tour and how much he likes to watch me and that he only tunes in (on the webcast) to see if I’m there. To me, that’s the ultra fucken compliment.
We all missed The Champ. I swear, I don’t know what it was, but, yeah, I mean, shit, it’s been a trip. In Portugal, after my heats, people were coming up to me and all kinds of cool shit. Back in the day, it was sour apples and a couple of threats but I haven’t had that in a long time. It’s getting me really motivated to try and do good, you know, put my better foot forward.
Is it a good time to bet on the champ? Ha! I don’t want the pressure of fucken losing someone else’s money. But, I’m not going to pull that spoiled brat tantrum shit anymore. That was old Andy. The new Andy is still real passionate, but fricken, I’m gonna try my fucken hardest until the fat lady horns.
The last wave Andy ever rode. Pinetrees, on Kauai, Hawaii. Photo by Mike Coots.
