Dane Gudang Wants To Smash Every Little Section Until Something Breaks

How many mornings have you cranked the engine, boards loaded in the back, and hit play on a track that you just know will get you in the mood to shred?

Dane Gudauskas knows the sensation well, as you can imagine. Dane dropped this radical little Paradise Projects clip in our Editor’s inbox with a note: 

I have been psyching super hard on this band Hawkwind… pretty much just been playing it full volume before every session around home to fire up and smash some sections, cause as you can tell California ain’t Fiji and you definitely gotta harness any sort of inspiration you can to get out there and hit it!!!

Ain’t that the truth? We hit Dane back wanting to know more about the clip, and to rap about music’s inspirational and Divine Nature. 

Stab

: First, how good is Hawkwind? (And how rarely does a band’s name’s radical-ness match up to the music?)

Dane: Ahhh

man,

 Hawkwind RULES!!!!! 

I just love how their music shoots right through you, and it’s like there no limit to the volume you consume it.  I like that feeling a lot, it’s like your no longer just in your skin anymore, you get absorbed into a bigger energy and you just surrender to the sounds vibrating wildly! So

sick…

Their album

Space Ritual

is just an all-out sound wave!!! 

Do you ever just hear a song when you’re working on a part and immediately go, 

Yup, that’s the fucking song

. And does that push you to want to make the surfing live up to the tune?

Ya!!

 You’re right on the money. I was just psyching up and down the coast, chasing different sessions, and the music just was the heartbeat to everything, you know? I was just rocking this album before every surf this year with a good cup of coffee and you just end up wanting to smash every little section until something breaks—the lip, your board or your body. Just a full car crash, but its sooooo epic when it works out and you stay on your feet!

I just love going fast on a wave and turning hard, and a band like Hawkwind will get you in that headspace for sure! Ha!

What are some of your desert island video part/song pairings? That Bruce Ments section in

Magnaplasm

set to Ween’s “Buenas Tardes Amigo” comes to mind immediately.

How insanely mental was that Bruce section with that Ween song?  I think Tanner still has the VHS down at his house, we put it on on this little TV set thing in his garage and still get psyched on that section.

Music is just the backbone for everything in life right???  I actually really love that band HONK and their soundtrack for

5 Summer Stories

…

It’s an old surf movie, but we had that on VHS and must have watched it a trillion times… Honk was a Laguna band, I think, and that soundtrack is sooooo insane… The song “Don’t Let your Goodbye stand” rules…

I’ve been finding all these old Honk vinyls and they have all these different renditions of the songs… Its fun to nerd out on music, but most importantly it just takes you right back to being that grom sitting in front of the television with a head full of dreams and excitement.  

Looks like you’re on a mixed bag of boards? What spicy little CI numbers are under your feet here?

Mmm, man the 

 are so fun. I have been playing around with some channel bottoms on them and it’s like having this extra gear in a sports car, you can just handle so much more speed and lay it over even in average waves.

And also the OG Flyer, it’s kind of like a shortboard but just a little more forgiving and that’s ideal for California… There’s just not always that underlying power in the waves, so why not just make it a little easier on yourself to get speed, and focus on harnessing it rather than generating it! It has been epic, the CI crew has been on fire lately. They have got a lot of great designs going right now…

So this was all filmed the last couple months, bombing around Southern California and Baja listening to Space Ritual?

Ya, pretty much just filming near home the past few months between trips… It was rad, I kinda linked into some really cool little windows of swell and at home that’s always extra special… But yea

Space Ritual

is THE album… the cover work is so sick, I kinda tried to play around with that style on some paint on my boards, just full lotus vibes and stuff…

I love that vibe—the unknown expanse and immeasurable realm of energy we possess inside and outside of ourselves.