Andy Irons’ Last Interview

Interview by Derek Rielly | Portrait by Steve Sherman

Andy Irons brought the thunder when the world was wilting under the heat of Kelly Slater. For three consecutive years, he owned the world title. But, sometimes when you bring the thunder, you get lost in the storm. Here is a record of thoughts and feelings etc by Andy Irons, 32, from Princeville in Kauai. This interview was recorded on October 15, 2010, at 10:15am…

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.

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.”

Mr Irons rocks the karaoke mic in Fiji. Photo: Brian Bielmann

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.

Another angle of the infamous Waimea shorebreak wave, when Andy won the Eddie. Sequence: Tupat

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.

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 movies), he got me into surf magazines, everything about surfing I’m doing today, is because of him.

Andy’s last ever wave at his homebreak, Pinetrees. Photo: Mike Coots