Landscape Altered

Kustom Airstrike judge and Modern Collective mastermind, Kai Neville, is heading to the Indian Ocean at the end of February. For twelve days he’ll cruise on a boat with Clay Marzo, Jay Davies, Mitch Coleborn, Josh Kerr, Chippa Wilson and a camera. The trip’s aim is to produce a web series called Landscape Altered, in conjunction with the Kustom Airstrike: a bundle of hot little edits made fresh for your web browser. It could also produce this year’s Kustom Airstrike winner. And, you’re familiar with that concept, right? Fifty gees for the best air completed between January 1 and August 31, 2010.

We like Kai and his clever lexicon, and asked him to speculate the winning move to the cashed-up aerial contest.

Stab: What move will win the cash this year?

Kai: Hopefully something stands out so far from the rest our heads will explode. Some unknown freak pulls a christ air or mc-twist, that would be fucken rad.

Obviously, Dusty won with his rotator but what move impressed you most last year? Was it Dusty’s? 

It was a massive rote. One of the biggest stomped. TB’s at Keramas was mental too. I liked Mitch’s flip but again Jordy has already done a bigger one.

Your boat trip features many of the guys who had the best entries last year. What will you be encouraging them to do, besides being precious about wasting waves? 

I’ll be throwing on snow and skate vids when the boys are kicking, try to inspire them to pull something that hasn’t been done before or at least attempt it. That would be really cool, a boat trip dedicated to trying new moves. Everyone throwing 720’s around, backside, frontside and opp are all possible. 360 rotes are standard these days.

Beyond the Mentawais, where are the best waves in the world for pirouettes and twirls? Keramas? D-Bah? 

Keramas and Canggu in Bali have perfect ramps. The reef/rock bottom is a tad smoother compared to the skewers in Hawaii so you’re not too hesitant to punt. The benefit of these waves is 80% of the time the ramp is in the same spot, so you can work through moves. Beachies like the ones in France are rad and you have potential to get the biggest ramp of your life but at times it can be all over the shop. When that ramp comes you better nail it. Reefs are the go, just wait for the onnie and some tide on the reef and boom! All the donkeys will come in around this time, too.

And, finally, this is the big one, say Julian Wilson made a 720 (oop into 360 when he lands) and he wants it exclusively for his new film project, how hard would it be to hold onto, knowing there’s 50 gees sitting there? 

I think Julian would hold onto it for his film, he is throwing everything into that project. Fark, $50k is a joke for one air though, I’m sure he will have plenty of them in his flick.