Was Surf Film Music Better Back Then?

Surf films and music go together like rum and regret — many of us carry the soundtracks to the films we love far longer than the rides depicted in them. 

And few have had more profound effects on the musical tastes of the surfing public than Taylor Steele. 

Given the changed-beyond-belief state of musical consumption that’s occurred in anyone over 25 — and Taylor’s ongoing attempt to preserve the surfing-music relationship in Sessions Surf Festival — we thought it apt to take a closer look at how the interaction between surf cinema and music has evolved.

“I really got into music watching Chris Bystrom and Billabong movies,” Taylor says from his San Diego base, after six year stints in Bali, Byron and NYC. “T.S.O.L, Hoodoo Gurus, GANGgajang, The Untouchables; there were so many bands from that era… INXS.”

It’s a hefty first batch from a golden era of (particularly) Australian bands, who tend to come in waves more than the constant drip of great American bands, and notably, they were all contemporary to the time. Something that Taylor goes onto explain was a fixture of his initial inspirations and his earlier work. In contrast to present-day where, with the world at their fingertips, surf filmmakers tend to pluck from whichever decade they fancy.

“The car was mixtape cassettes, some just even recorded from putting a stereo near the TV to get those soundtracks because you couldn’t find a lot of bands from Australia over here,” Taylor explains. “But I went to Australia when I was 15 for the first time, so I remember buying Hoodoo Gurus on cassette and that was on repeat big time when I got home.”

The influence of Taylor’s ’90s films is omnipresent in the memories of the world’s current most influential surfers, as stated here. However, one of the most interesting things about this era is that the bands and surfers launched their careers together, at the same time, to the world. Something that it’s not hyperbolic to declare: won’t, and can’t, happen again. 

And like many pivotal cultural marriages, it happened completely organically, out of necessity.

“We have an iconic record store here in San Diego called Lou’s Records and that’s where I found this band Sprung Monkey, just on cassette,” Taylor recalls. “They only had three songs and I think I found it in the ‘San Diego Bands’ section, and I just grabbed a couple of different tapes and that was one.”

An interesting aside to the simultaneous come-up of the Momentum generation and the soon-to-be-world-famous crop of great southern Californian pop punk bands is that, initially at least, the surfers weren’t really into the cassettes that Taylor was blasting in the car. 

“Shane was listening to DJ Quik and all these sort of rap bands at the time, and then Kelly was listening to like, Jimmy Buffett and sort of ’70s radio music,” Taylor says. “Kelly in particular was not into it at all. He was always pushing for a different genre.”

Momentum was undoubtedly the hallmark movie of the era, and Taylor scored the whole movie with just three bands: the aforementioned Sprung Monkey, Pennywise and Bad Religion. The effect the film had on Pennywise in particular (and vice versa) was remarkable.

“They released their album six months before Momentum, and their sales were completely stopped,” Taylor remembers. “And then all of a sudden Momentum came out and the sales tripled, quadrupled — and it was a clear association of why.”

Then Pennywise came to stay at Taylor’s house — which was really his parents’ house — where they were sleeping on the couch and helping Mrs. Steele with the dishes. Then they all went on tour together, an incredible run where Taylor would play his movies and then Pennywise would play a show, along with various supporting acts including an (at the time) young band you might’ve heard of: Blink 182. 

The Momentum II premiere at La Paloma theatre in Encinitas is what Taylor describes as the era’s “Woodstock moment”, and it’s a show that people still now rush up to him now to tell him they were there. 

The first five rows of seats got ripped out, and one of the attendees was so inspired by the frenetic chaos that he started Vans Warped Tour.

When it comes to surf movie soundtracks, it’s baffling to me that none of the whipper snappers in Stab’s: The 35 Best Song Pairings In Surf Films, As Ranked By Dane Reynolds, Taylor Steele & You piece mentioned Morning of the Earth. And it’s interesting because it really, literally decades before, set the tone for where surfing films would eventually go: songs written alongside and for the film specifically. 

What’s more iconic than MP styling through Kirra to “Sure Feels Good” by Brian Cadd? Sierra Kerr surfing Chopes to Ladyhawke and 34 others apparently.

Taylor says that if he was to make another surf film in the age of Spotify and Shazam then he’d definitely hang with a band and get them to create and score it in tandem. A germ of an idea that’s pure Alby Falzon, and, that Taylor and Chris Malloy already experimented with in Shelter in 2001. A soft tribute to Alby’s seminal film, that happens to be turning 25 this year, warranting a special screening at Sessions for good measure. (Honourable mentions: Joe G’s 2011 classic Year Zero, scored entirely by Black Mountain, and pretty much every Noa Deane x James Kates creation, which Noa scores personally).

“We had Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Donovan all coming through the house and playing stuff,” Taylor says of the Shelter, that launched and re-inspired a vein of backyard surf tinkerers that’s still going strong today. “It was the shift when Jack was taking off, and Ben Harper was taking off. More folky style music was was coming into play and so it was just yeah, just trying to capture that feeling.”

Capturing the feeling of the 90s pop punk explosion, and then the 2000 country-soul reboot, is the same sort of lightning that Taylor’s trying to bottle with his upcoming Sessions Surf Festival (formerly the Solento Surf Film Festival), which is now in its sixth year. 

Taylor says the ultimate goal is for it to become the South By South West (SXSW) of surf culture, where a multitude of creative happenings take over a whole town (something he says for the upcoming San Diego event, which runs over a week across a number of different venues, doesn’t feel too far away). 

“Coming back to San Diego, I felt that there was a lack of some of the culture that I was inspired by. So instead of complaining about it I figured I would create something,” Taylor says. “This year we’ve got a full music day with amazing bands from really cool surf sections in surf movies, at a big stage on the on the beach at Seaside, my local surf spot. An art night, a fun beach day with a surf contest, and then there’s films at the Paloma, including the Shelter 25 year anniversary showing…”

If you love surfing and if you’re in vague shooting distance of San Diego in early September, we implore you to head down. And if hearing from the GOAT of surf filmmaking wasn’t enough, we’re offering all Stab Premium members a 2 for 1 deal on tickets to the music festival section (Featuring the Osees, among esteemed others, who took the top spot of our Surf Film/Section listicle, with Messer’s Burch, Wright etc dancing in the background in Chile in Ryan Thomas’s opus Psychic Migrations). Furthermore, 15% off generally for anyone who reads this and has the ability to enter Stab15 into the promo slot.

If that wasn’t enough, Sessions are also giving away 10x double passes to Stab Premium members, so keep an eye on your email for details, we’ll be drawing winners early next week. Don’t say we never give you anything. 

Head here for tickets and go experience some boots on the ground surf culture: we live!