Watch: Jay Davies in “Native”

Jay Davies, as surfer turned entrepreneur, is a busy gent. His new beverage co, Honest Ale, which he started with fellow West Oz pals Taj Burrow and Dino Adrian is on tap at some of the better pubs out west. If you like beer and more importantly, the effects, have one, or six. Jay and crew are trying to take their label’s reach eastward. So, Jay, on top of the ever-sought profession of surfer, has stumble into the role of businessman. 

Plus, he’s been touring around his new movie: Native in the states over the past month. When Jay arrived in Bondi to premiere his film at Stab HQ, we got together for the promotional discussion of a film that we are pleased to get behind. 

“The film is short and sharp,” says Jay. “We haven’t put any lifestyle in because I wanted to show the rawness of every person in the film. It’s really just putting our state as a whole on a pedestal. And showing off how much we love to surf the rawness of it. From Jake Perkins to Dino Adrian and Kerby Brown.

There are no rules of architecture for a surfboard in the sky.

“We only shot over three months. So every swell run that we did, whoever was a standout in the sessions got the clip. People thought I shot for years for it, but really it just took us a while to put it all together.

“Ninety percent of the film is from the last year, starting from the first of July to August-September time. But Wyatt (Jay’s brother who helped with both filming and the editing process) and I didn’t start working on the final product until February. We just slowly ticked away at it. And funny enough it took us until the first of July to be releasing it at home. And that’s when we had our premiere and I was just like, “Holy shit we actually started this a year ago today.”

“Everyone does these films these days that get all vibey and weird and filled with lifestyle shots. I just want to entertain. I have a bunch of stuff leftover that didn’t fit into the feel of the film that was just like, ‘Fuck it. Get rid of that, get rid of this. Keep it at a high-level, let’s not bore people.’ If it didn’t fit and got boring at any moment, I’d get rid of it. I wanted it high and intense to show how good we have it. The last part is dedicated to how lucky we are to live and be native to the west. Go camping, go drink beers, fish, laugh and get great waves.”

As Jay mentioned, Native is more a homage to West Oz and the people who grew up surfing there than a profile piece. “I wanted to make a film that gave me the same feeling Sabotaj gave me when I was younger. That feeling when I would put the cassette in and watch it back-to-back every morning before I went surfing, all day every day. I watch Sabotaj now and there are moments of it that aren’t as gnarly as what I thought it was back then. But still, I think about the memories from it. It was so fucking psycho and that’s exactly what I wanted to do with Native. All my friends are psychos and every time we surf together there are huge pump-ups and we have the best waves for it. So I wanted to send a message, Why leave?

Something about WA in black and white makes a dire, critical wave look like the open invitation of your dreams.

“We (Jay and Wyatt) even edited it in the backroom of George Simpson’s (the same George Simpson that mapped out the Billabong Challenge) house where he had all his film stuff setup. Being at George’s, it was like passing the torch. And that’s another reason why I wanted to give props to where we come from. Because, yes, Jack McCoy was even inspiring me to make something like this because he made such crazy West Oz films as well. He knew George Simpson as well, so I was thinking along the lines of, “Yeah, the Billabong Challenge. We need to do something like that.

“When I was young, anything with West Oz I was glued to and just studied. I didn’t study the Gold Coast. I hate the Gold Coast. I never want to go to the Gold Coast ever again–even though it’s a right point that goes for three kilometres. This is something that brings me home.”

Native will be available for download Monday, July 10th at RVCA.com. Click this link to secure the film to your personal device. You know for boredom, plane rides, your morning commute, or better yet, before a surf session.