Dane Reynolds: “I Wanted To Hate This Board!”

Meet Matt Parker of Album Surfboards, and the board he put in Dane Reyolds’ critical care.

cinema // Oct 26, 2018

Words by stab

Reading Time: 3 minutes

For weeks leading up to our Mex mission for The Electric Acid Surfboard Test, Matt Parker’s Album Dissasym sat in the corner of our Los Angeles office, catching nearly every person that walked through the door’s attention straight away.

“What. Is. That? ” most wondered.

On location at Punta Escondida Resort in Salina Cruz!

Photography

Alan Van Gysen

“Instead of a twin, this one was like, a quad/twin set up.”

Photography

Alan Van Gysen.

Matt Parker/Album’s 5’9 Dysasym.

Photography

Alan Van Gysen

But when Dane first unsnapped the Santa Monica Surf Case holding a few Acid Test entries with glass-on fins, his initial reaction was far less harsh than we’d imagined (hoped?).

“Hmm, looks pretty cool,” Dane muttered, to no one in particular.

Perplexed? Maybe.

Photography

AVG.

But first impressions aren’t always lasting ones, and quickly Dane grew almost irritated by something about the board. There was something off to him, it seemed, with its amorphous outline and half-cocked Pollack-esque resin splatter.

“I wanted to hate this board,” Dane admitted, a few days into The Trip.

Since staking out his territory in San Clemente a few years ago, Album Surfboard’s Matt Parker has been subtly and not-so subtly building a following for his unorthodox, often bold, colorful, and sometimes confounding takes on alternative equipment. Parker is used to a little confusion around his designs, and has no issue being divisive. As one of the next generation of entrepreneurial surfers with a design mind, Parker’s work in Graphic Design is readily apparent.

Matt Parker/Album Surfboards 5’9″ Dysasym.

Photography

Alan Van Gysen.

Matt Parker/Album Surfboards 5’9″ Dysasym.

Photography

Alan Van Gysen

Matt Parker/Album Surfboards 5’9″ Dysasym.

Photography

Alan Van Gysen

With a focus on “alternative boards that you can still rip on,” Parker has let his penchant for graphic design, architecture, and branding influence Album’s vibe tremendously, from their impressively chic flagship in San Clemente, to the radical range of colors, patterns, and materials, while still managing to get some of the world’s best surfers on his boards, including Josh Kerr, Eric Geiselman, and most recently, Filipe Toledo.

Like the surfers mentioned above, asymmetrical boards have piqued Dane’s interest lately. He found it particularly interesting that, with the difference in rail lengths and tail shape on the toe- and heal-side, and with the three-fin set-up, that the board almost felt like a natural thruster through turns.

Click into the profile film above, and scroll south for a selection of images from Stab fav lensman, Alan Van Gysen.