Ian Crane On Not Being An “Air Guy”, The Session Of His Life, An Indonesian Police Chase, And More

Stab’s Editor in Chief, Brandon Barkley, called Ian Crane the best freesurfer in the world after watching his new film Crane Brain. 

He may be right. 

Of course, he may also be wrong. After surfing with Crane on a relatively fun (if quintessentially gray) May morning in Oceanside, I’m of two minds. 

On one hand, Ian tried maybe two airs throughout the entire session and certainly wouldn’t have stacked a “clip” in the traditional sense of the word. 

On the other hand, he ripped the ever-loving shit out of every wave he surfed, linking down carves with floaters with laybacks with every other form of “flow” maneuver one could imagine at a chest-high beachie.

The definition of a great freesurfer will vary depending on who you ask, but making surfing look fun and inspiring viewers to go faster and draw new lines will always be at the top of the criteria. And Ian did just that.

Speaking with Crane after the fact, it’s clear that he prefers this type of surfing to the hi-fi airs that made him famous. “That stuff has its time and place,” Ian says, “but at the end of the day, I just want to do cutbacks and get barreled.” 

There are a lot of cutbacks and barrels in Crane Brain. But there are plenty of airs, too. That’s where Ian’s work ethic comes into the equation — something instilled in him from an early age by his childhood idol Cory Lopez. You’ll hear more about that soon. 

If you haven’t seen Ian’s profile film yet, I recommend watching it before reading this interview. Or maybe that’s reverse psychology to get you to read the interview first. 

Your choice. (Or is it?)

Stab: Crane! Congrats on your brain. Is this the biggest personal project you’ve worked on?

Ian Crane: For sure. Other than Beach Head videos that I’ve made of myself and some friends, this is the first thing that’s been kind of a professional piece for me. O’Neill entrusted some money to me to go and make something cool. So it’s pretty rad to have a profile film. But now I don’t even know if I wanna call it a profile film, because guys like Taj Burrow get profile films. You know, real gnarly guys. 

We watched this film in the Stab office and everyone was pretty blown away. Buck [Stab’s EIC] went so far as to say that you’re the best freesurfer in the world right now, which is a pretty massive claim. I know you’re not gonna say nice things about yourself, so who are your favorite free surfers to watch?

Mason Ho is my favorite surfer. He’s just the funnest to watch and he’s been my favorite before he even started doing YouTube. I just look up to him in a lot of ways. He’s an all-around good human and I think he’s the fucking man. 

But growing up, Dane Reynolds was like…god. The way he surfed and made his own movies and was just thrashing around doing huge turns and airs and everything was insane.

Nowadays I really like those Rage movies that Noa Deane and Creed McTaggart and those guys are making. That “Rage 3” movie is insane. I have it on my computer and play it all the time. And then even more recently is that Kael Walsh video. It’s a different type of surfing than I would ever try to do. It’s so dangerous and psycho, but it’s sick to watch him send it so hard and stick huge things in big waves. 

That’s interesting, because none of their surfing really reminds me of yours. I feel like you have a pretty unique style and approach to a wave. Obviously you can do airs — we’ve seen that in Stab High. But you also seem to really appreciate linking a wave together. Whose style and approach do you feel like you inspired you most when you were younger, or even today?

When I was younger it was definitely Cory Lopez. He’s my idol goofyfoot legend — …Lost Surfboards, fishes and tour comps and barrels. Being on O’Neill from a young age, I got to go on trips with him when I was younger. He’s the ultimate pro surfer. He worked so hard at it. Seeing that at a young age, how he would put in crazy hours if the waves were good and make sure he was getting the job done. I don’t know if I even noticed it when I was a kid, but looking back now, I realize I learned so much from being with him.

Now when I go on trips, I try to be professional and take advantage of all the sessions. If you slack off, you instantly feel regret, like how did I just blow it? 

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. You do surf quite similarly to Cory, keeping that elastic flow in between big maneuvers. Do you think that’s what sets you apart from other freesurfers, who might only be focused on the one big moment?

If I fall 20 times in a row, I’m not having fun. I’d rather ride waves and surf. But now I feel pressure because I’m somehow an “air guy” after doing well in the Stab High contests. Whereas, I wouldn’t really think of myself as an air guy. I just wanna go surf and do cutbacks and get barreled. 

Let’s set the record straight. You won the NSSA Nationals Air Show when you were 14 over Albee Layer and Matt Matt Meola. So you’re not fooling anyone with the “not an air guy” claim. 

Well I’ve always liked airs. Growing up, I had a trampoline in my backyard. We’d throw a skate deck on there and do tricks and shit. It was me and Tanner Rozunko. He was one of my best friends growing up and we’d have little trampoline comps. But instead of flip tricks, I’d do grab airs like I was surfing. That’s kinda where I started learning the stalefish thing. 

Aha, it all makes sense now. So let’s get back to Crane Brain…most of the film is based in Indo. Seems like you were there for a while. What was the trip like?

My trip started in Sumatra. We spent a week or two there and got really fun waves. Then we headed back to Bali, and everything started shutting down. The island was basically back on lockdown with curfews and everything, and we couldn’t get a flight anywhere.

So I rented a van. Nate Lawrence and I unscrewed the seats and drove to Lombok and then to Sumbawa on the ferries. We had a little bed there and ended up just staying in Sumbawa for over a month. We were driving from Yoyos to Super Sucks to Lakey Peak to Desert Point and back again.

It was so cool to drive and check everything out and be more land-based. I feel a lot of times in Indo you base yourself in Bali and then you fly somewhere for a four-day swell and then you fly back to Bali and you’re in your villa and you’re eating fucking sushi and you’re going partying. It’s a luxury life. Whereas this one was just in the van, sleeping in the car, gnarly long drives, sweating it out at Lakey and back to Deserts in the mud. It was more of a feral surf mission than a luxury trip, which is what I prefer to do anyway.  So being on that lockdown and not being able to fly was the best kind of a blessing in disguise. 

What was the biggest thing you learned on that trip? 

I learned a lot of things on the trip. Surf-wise: how to get more barreled, how to do better turns and airs or whatever. Just surfing in Indonesia, your surfing excels light-years in such a short period of time. 

And then I had to learn to work on a project. Normally I go on trips and I’m just on someone else’s trip where I’m just kind of blowing in the wind. Someone else is dealing with logistics and everything else. And this was more like, Okay, we gotta go here. We gotta go there. We gotta film this. This guy got clips, but he’s not in the budget, so we gotta pay this guy. And then this guy got photos, but he only takes cash. So we gotta find the ATM, pay this guy for the photos. Get the hard drives to back it up. 

Sounds like a bunch of puzzle pieces.

Then on top of that, we got all our shit stolen. People smashed our window. Stolen phone, stolen wallet, all our stuff.

So you went no phone the whole trip? Was your girlfriend completely off you when you got home?

Nah, she’s a super trooper. She knows what she signed up for [laughs]. 

The saddest thing about it was I was with this little kid, Kalani, whose dad had just died, and he had a bunch of photos of them together on his phone. We were trying super hard to get it back from the police, and then it went into this full manhunt with Sumbawa police trying to track down this guy on the phones. 

It was even on this Indonesian news channel — they had this weird video of them chasing this guy and shooting at him and talking about our phones being stolen in Indonesian. It’s fucking crazy. The whole town was about it. But Kalani messaged me recently and said they got our phones back, so I’m stoked he’ll be able to get his pictures with his dad. 

You also did some extra trips to Europe for this film. How did that come about?

Yeah, I ended up getting wildcards into the Challenger Series events in Portugal and France. I went to O’Neill and I was like, “I’m already going for these events, can we send Nick Green [O’Neill’s filmer] as well?” And so Nick, Gabe Garcia and my girlfriend came. It turned into this family trip because me and Gabe and Nick all live together at home. It was this rad Euro tour, but I ended up getting COVID at the first event, so I couldn’t do Portugal. And then I lost first round in France. It made me realize I’m definitely over contests. It’s just not meant to be [laughs].

Caity Simmers was there for the contest as well in Europe. She’s one of my favorite little surfers, guy or girl — she’s the best kid coming out of America. She smokes every boy her age and she’s the raddest human ever. So her mom was with her and was cool enough to let Caity stay with us. And she had her 16th birthday when we were there, we had a little birthday cake and everything.

Then we went to Ireland with Cory to finish up the film. That was a full bucket-list trip, location- and company-wise. 

Filming a movie is one thing, but editing it is a whole other beast. Were you in the editing bay with Nick most of the time, or was it more like here are the clips, work your magic?

I sorted all the clips, cut through all the crap, and edited it down to the A-clips from everywhere and everyone. Whatever surfing I wanted to come through for myself and friends came through with the clips I gave Nick. I let him go to town because he’s super fun, creative, and we see eye to eye. And I appreciate all the projects that he works on and his style of work. I knew he was going to kill it. 

What’s your favorite section?

I don’t know. Caity’s part is pretty sick. She’s ripping. I also like the opening part because it’s pretty and it’s something different I’ve seen in myself at least, with bigger waves and more aggressive stuff going on. But then the part with Dusty’s pretty rad because it’s just the best days that I’ve had and a magical session with a surf hero of mine. But the credits are my favorite for sure. 

Like any good surf movie. 

Yeah, I like the credits the best.