Premium Peek: Did Pyzel Make Its Own Electric Acid Surfboard Test with Jai Glindeman?
Jai Glindeman samples 5 secret models, selects one as his signature.
Ed note: This Pyzel-produced edit has an endearing Electric Acid quality about it, so Jon reached out to see if we’d want to share it with our Premium audience before it goes onto Pyzel’s YouTube in two weeks’ time. Considering the quality of the work and Jai’s surfing(!), we happily obliged. And… surprise! We will be sending one lucky Stab Premium their own brand new “Precious” — Jai’s signature board model. Just click on this link and fill out the survey. Enjoy!
“So, Jon,” I chuckled, “did you draw inspiration for this project from Electric Acid?”
“Yeah, for sure. It was our own little Electric Acid Surfboard Test,” said Jon, “Obviously we know who made the boards this time around but for us it was still a two-sided thing — we wanted to know Jai’s favorite board to make for his signature model, and the Electric Acid thing gave it a fun plot for the audience.”
Jai’s favorite board, as you’ll see, ended up being the “Precious” — named for Gollum’s lust for the one ring to rule them all. We’re excited to see which one of our Stab Premium members becomes our lucky Bilbo.
If you remember, Stab did a Microdose with Jai Glindeman back in 2020 with Stephanie Gilmore’s tailings from her 2019 Acid Test; Jai’s jiving with water is famously easy on the eyes. So, even though my law-school-drop-out senses started tingling at the thought of someone imitating Stab’s IP, I was happy to watch more Jai footy (especially because Pyzel and star lensman Dan Scott did such a fine job with the edit). Plus, as the cliché goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or whatever.
And, since Jon’s a shrewd businessman, an industry wiseguy, a 2x Stab in the Dark champion, and a nice person, I went rogue and asked him a few questions — like who sells more boards between JJF and Nate, the industry of “weird boards”, and how many board bags John John and posse bring on trips (hint: it’s more than 15 and less than 100)…
So the main concept of this short film is announcing Jai’s signature board model by allowing him to pick whichever one he felt most turned on by, sort of?
I just love watching Jai surf, so I said, ‘Here are your board options, go ride ’em — put whatever fins in them, whatever you want to do with them, and just have fun and tell us which one you liked the best.’ He actually liked a couple of them, and we’ll probably make the second-place winner its own board model someday down the road.
It was fun for me too, because refining this one board down the most minute little details and trying to replicate that over and over again, I was able to make some super fun boards and see how they go.
Did you have any preconceived plan or desire for how these boards were supposed to feel for Jai?
No, all these boards were a mixture of ideas I’ve had over time. And the board he ended up liking the most (and that is now his signature model) was a board that wasn’t even made for him. It was a board I made for Eric Knutson, John John’s filmer. Erik was looking for a board he could take anywhere and limit the amount of boards he brings on trips. Because sometimes they [JJF and crew] have up to 25 bags between the two of them with camera gear and all this shit… they pay so much money on extra fees.
But Eric rips himself and ended up loving that board, so I decided to just throw it into the test with Jai. It’s a real bizarre board, there’s not a lot of step-decky, deck concave boards that are also grovelly and performance-oriented.
Jai looked so comfortable on it. Were you happy it ended up winning?
It’s funny, from a marketing perspective, that really wasn’t the one I wanted him to pick. It’s a weird board, you know? But the feedback from everyone has been insane. And it’s based off this board we currently have called the Gremlin. We basically took the “chassis” of the Gremlin and added a bunch of new features. But yeah, it’s an odd-looking board and I think it’s going to take a little bit of faith for people if they’re interested in trying one.
Does Pyzel have plans to move more into that “fun board” space in the future?
Right now we have this thing we’re having fun with called the “Velocity Project”. I’ve been making “fun boards” like twinnies, channel bottoms, mid-lengths, for a while but just one-offs for friends and stuff like that. So the Velocity Project is a way to bring those kind of ideas to market, which is different than the focus we usually have on purely the highest-performance boards.
This video is so well produced. Does Pyzel have plans to move into the “content” world?
I don’t know [laughs]. I think people think we are a big business, and we do have a large footprint, but we are a small company. My wife still runs so much of the business, and this whole thing wouldn’t be possible without her. I honestly don’t know how Mayhem afforded to make such good movies for 20 years — it’s expensive. I will say, this is the first self-produced thing that we’ve done and we’re really stoked with how it turned out and the work Dan Scott did.
As you’ll see, Jai’s hair is significantly longer in the interview than in the clips. This ended up taking a year to make with Jai’s injuries and other challenges. But I definitely want to do more of these and we will be making more stuff, for sure.
Last question, who is selling more boards right now, Nate or John?
It’s always John. John’s the guy. John’s our foundation. John’s always been the guy that really helps me refine stuff and really build on things and everyone loves watching him surf. Maybe Nathan is a little different where a lot of people can’t relate to the waves he is surfing. It’s been so cool seeing him come into his own lane though in the last few years. Nate and Ivan are really their own guys anyways and we’re happy to have them on our boards. They really are family to me, at the end of the day.
Let’s see if Jon Pyzel can win his 3rd Stab in the Dark this year with Kolohe Andino as his guinea pig.
