There is a stronger force than money in the surfing industry and it's called friendship. While that may come as no surprise to those who surf, it might be a strange concept to the rest of the world where the almighty dollar controls the backscratching and connection-making which occurs.
Taylor Steele and his friends epitomize the surfing brotherhood which exists in beachside towns around the world. What really sets them apart, though, is their impact on the rest of the surfing world. After all, this is no ordinary group of wave-riders.
To begin with, the 23-year-old Taylor Steele makes surf films. They're rather simple films, really, just video footage of his friends surfing at various beachbreaks with soundtrack music by his favorite bands.
Nothing fancy, no special effects, not even any water photography or slow motion. So what's the big deal? Well, Steele's friends are the best surfers in the world, and he's got the footage, the music and the style which have made him the most copied, envied and successful surfing filmmaker in the world.
When the Steele family got its first video camera, no one thought much of it. Taylor and his buddies would take turns filming each other at their local surf spot in Cardiff-by-the-Sea. When he signed up for a filmmaking class his senior year at Torrey Pines High School, no one thought much of it.
Once again, he filmed his pals surfing, this time adding some music and a title, "Seaside and Beyond," and submitted it to his teacher. Finally someone thought something of it and his film won "Video of the Year" for his class. From there, a momentum began to build, and has yet to slow down.
Unhappy with school at Palomar Junior College, a friend persuaded him to take a trip to Puerto Escondido to film a group of young, relatively unknown surfers at the "Mexican Pipeline." The friend was Rob Machado, who also served as the then-largely unknown subject of his first film.
"He didn't really want to go," Machado said. "So I kind of had to talk him into it."
It was a decision he never regretted, as he met not only some crucial future acquaintances, but also some of the people who would become his best friends.
Winter of '90-91 proved to be a crucial turning point in Steele's life. After his successful Mexican excursion, he bought a plane ticket for Hawaii and left for three months, with hopes of scoring some epic footage of the Hawaiian winter season. Things didn't quite turn out like he had planned.
"I wasn't able to stay with the guy I was planning on staying with," Steele said. "He had some relatives come over and it got really crowded, so I just bought a van."
Sleeping in a van parked in front of Pipeline, one of the most famous surf spots in the world, wasn't exactly his idea of a winter in paradise.
"It sucked," Steele said. "It was either really hot with no mosquitoes (windows rolled up), or it was little cooler, enough to sleep (windows rolled down), with lots of mosquitoes. What I'd do was set it up so it was cool enough, and then I'd wrap a T-shirt around my ears so I couldn't hear the mosquitoes. They'd eat me, but at least I couldn't hear them and I could sleep."
Sleeping was only a part of his misery because he also had to deal with the police continually telling him to move, which he would do, only to return the next day. Showering consisted of a refreshing surf. He ate anything which didn't require cooking such as bread, fruits and an assortment of junk food which would make Dan White's infamous "Twinkie" defense look like a Julia Childs' course in gourmet cooking.
"I was still amped though," he said. "I was motivated to do well and it was also one of the best winters in Hawaii that I've ever seen. It was just a great winter and we had great waves."
After a month of living like a gypsy in his van, salvation came in the form of a young up-and-coming surfer named Benji Weatherly. Steele and Weatherly had met in Puerto Escondido a few months before, and soon Steele was living in the Weatherly household, just steps from the beach, with all the hot showers, clean sheets and screen doors he could ask for.
"It was like rags to riches," he said.
This was only the first suggestion of the bond which would soon develop between Steele and this elite group of surfers.
With the footage he compiled from trips to Mexico and Hawaii, as well as the local San Diego footage, he borrowed $10,000 from his parents and released "Momentum," his breakthrough film.
"I put one ad in Surfer Magazine for $3,000," Steele said, "and people just seemed to want it."
Technically, his films were almost a step backward. It was shot entirely on video and from the beach. Gone were the slow-motion water shots of surfers in the tube which filled the majority of surf films up until then. Gone also was the traditional surf movie soundtrack, which was usually comprised of either slow reggae music, or purchased session music from unknown musicians.
"A lot of the older films had soundtracks which sounded like porno music," said Ben Marcus, of Surfer Magazine.
Marcus, the surf film reviewer for Surfer, has been critical of Taylor's films for their lack of creativity, but still acknowledges their influence and massive popularity.
"It's what the kids want to see," he said. "But don't ask me. I'm old."
Steele was just as surprised as anyone else at the success of his films.
"I didn't think anyone would really like it," Steele said. "Because I was using music that I liked, which was a bit faster than what most people were used to."
The combination of young, radical surfers going full speed in fast beachbreak waves accompanied by hardcore punk music proved to be a magical mix. He had struck a nerve with young surfers all over the world who were disillusioned and bored with traditional surf films.
"I made enough money to pay back my parents and get started on my next film," Steele said.
By that point, the surfers he had met in Mexico and Hawaii and featured in his film, were coming into their own as professionals. They were the new generation and, like his films, were breaking down all the old barriers and setting new standards for radical performance levels. Machado, Weatherly, Kelly Slater, Taylor Knox, Shane Dorian and Ross Williams were just a few of the surfers in Taylor's film who were now knocking the old guard out of their top spots with increasing frequency.
"By the time I started 'Momentum II,' surfers and bands were coming to me about being in my next film," Steele said.
What ensued was the creation of a sort of surfing dynasty, one which included not only Taylor Steele and the best surfers on earth, but spilled over into the punk music industry as well.
After mutual friends introduced them to Steele, the members of Pennywise agreed to be featured as one of the soundtrack bands for "Momentum II." The soundtrack, which also included Offspring and Bad Religion, would turn an entire generation of surfers on to punk music and highly aggressive surfing. It was also a huge career boost for bands like Pennywise.
"When that movie came out, it really opened a whole new door for us," said Fletcher Dragge, Pennywise lead guitarist. "Our record had kind of leveled off, it wasn't really selling any more copies. When the movie came out, it got surfers all over the world into us and our record started selling again."
It was a situation where everyone was benefiting from what everyone else was doing, and soon the entire thing began to snowball. The surfers were getting more famous, thanks not only to their rise on the professional surfing tour, but to their exposure in Steele's films.
Steele's films were becoming even more popular thanks not only to the professional rise of his featured surfers, but also to the increase in popularity of the bands on his soundtracks. They in turn were also selling more records, due in part, to his films. It was getting more complicated than the chicken and the egg dilemma, not that any of them were wasting any time theorizing about it. It was just a win/win situation and they all knew it.
By the time he started filming for his third major film, "Focus," the surfers he had introduced the world to were now among his best friends. Stretching from Hawaii to Florida, the best surfers on the planet were almost all Americans, including world champion Slater, and they were all friends with Steele.
At that point, Steele went from the leader of the pack to a point so far ahead, it seems unlikely there will be a successor anytime in the near future. Taylor admits he has an unfair advantage.
"If I'm on the beach filming and someone else shows up with a video camera, I'll call those guys in and we'll go somewhere else," Steele said.
It's the exclusiveness of his footage which also make his films in such demand. He gets the waves and surf sessions no one else has.
"If we're out filming and another filmmaker shows up, we're gone," said professional surfer Taylor Knox. "The guys like surfing for Taylor's films because he's our friend. It's not like we don't want to be in other guys' movies, but you can only film so much."
So when it comes down to choosing between Steele and the next guy, the choice is pretty obvious.
Filming for his movies has also become a worldwide project. He has already traveled around the world several times, collecting footage of the planet's best surfers at the world's best surf spots. To a great extent, the traveling has bonded Steele and his friends.
"We flew into Portugal during the filming for 'Focus,' and Ross (Williams), Conan (Hayes), Benji (Weatherly) and I had never been there," he said. "We drove from Portugal, through Spain and into France. The drive is only supposed to take like 16 hours, but it took us three days because we got lost.
"We had 25 boards on the roof and had this little rental car. Right when we were pulling out of the (car rental place), a rock flew up and cracked the windshield of our car. The roof caved in. It got broken into and it was cold and windy driving with two broken windows. It was a full nightmare trip but it's funny looking back on it."
Traveling with professional surfers hasn't been the only source of excitement for Steele. With the release of "Focus," he organized a traveling premiere party with punk bands from the soundtrack which toured not only the United States, but Australia as well.
However, it was right in his hometown of Solana Beach where the biggest disaster occurred. A near riot almost erupted at the Belly Up Tavern when Pennywise took the stage, causing a considerable amount of damage to the club.
"Someone got on stage and started spraying one of the fire extinguishers," Steele said. "Everyone thought it was one of the smoke machines, until suddenly they couldn't breathe."
The bouncers were unable to control the crowd and both Pennywise and Taylor Steele premieres were banned for life.
"Everyone pretty much got in trouble although we shouldn't really have been playing there," Dragge said. "It's a pretty mellow bar and they weren't really expecting it. They didn't know what they were in store for."
As far as Steele goes, the incident at the Belly Up ended up in a way which has become very typical.
"I was friends with the head bouncer, so I didn't really get in trouble," he said.
"Helping out a friend" is certainly a recurring theme when trying to understand the web of professional relationships in the surfing community. It's Taylor Steele though, which ties so many of them together.
"It's sort of a cliquĊ½y crew," he said. "But once you're in, you're basically set up."
Could Steele and his friends be just a microcosm of the greater business world? Is this tight-knit community of surfers, filmmakers, musicians and graphic designers simply a "California Dreaming" version of the Old Boys Network? After all, they're both almost equally exclusive. While one requires a family name with old money, the other requires a lifetime by the beach and a desirable and marketable contribution to the pot.
"Above all, it's about having fun and being friends," he said. "Ideally, I'd like to retire from making films when Rob (Machado) and all those other guys retire."
Until then, Taylor Steele's films promise to continue to dominate the surfing film industry, as his latest release, "Good Times," continues as the number one selling surf video in the country and quite probably the world.
"If your name is Taylor Steele, you sell a lot of videos," said Shannon, the manager at South Coast Surf Shop in San Diego. "He's the man."
Steele's friends clearly echo her opinion.
"Taylor Steele will be making the best surf videos as long as he's making movies," Knox said.
Despite all of the praise, Steele keeps a remarkably cool head about his accomplishments.
"I just think to myself that I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he said.
It's an incredible success story of someone who changed the face of surfing with just a little help from his friends.
Be the first to comment on this article!