Photo by Steve Sherman

Growing up in Gracetown (south-west WA) I learned not to take things too seriously. I’ve always thought we were blessed growing up there and to try to enjoy every moment. Why wouldn’t you? I didn’t really like negativity, so that is one of the things I avoid. That place didn’t breed too much negativity but Australia does have that tall poppy shit.

It was pretty rural, well, 15 years ago before all this property boom and money and tourism. Just a dead-end surfie town with one road in and one road out. Still is, I guess. But, it can get a bit stagnate. A lot of guys smoked a lot of weed. Everyone pretty much just wigged out on that when there wasn’t any waves. The boredom would start to kick in and you’d try to one-up each other on the piss or whatever it was.

(Legendary West Oz anti-hero) James Catto was a prick. He’s all-time, but he’s a prick. I used to go up to his house when I was a grom and try to get deck grips off him and they’d just make us eat the crookest shit. They’d raid the pantry, the fridge, getting raw eggs, off milk and make us drink it. I’d leave the house and I’d get half a deck grip. Whenever we surfed he’d always burn me (laughter) but it was good, I was a little shit, too. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t asking for it.

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