Dave Allee is the owner of Almond Surf­boards in New­port Beach. At 24 years old, he rep­re­sents a new breed of surfer/shaper/shop owner who is tak­ing full con­trol of his cre­ative out­put. We inter­view him as he jug­gles the respon­si­bil­i­ties of run­ning a busi­ness and just hav­ing fun.

What was it like grow­ing up in New­port Beach?
It was great. I didn’t really real­ize it was some­where to be cov­eted until high school, when they started mak­ing movies and shows about it. New­port is rad because you can bike every­where when you’re young, or even now, dur­ing the sum­mer. Being a short bike ride away from the beach is some­thing I hope to never take for granted. And New­port is inter­est­ing because so much surf cul­ture and so much of the surf indus­try is here. RVCA, Hur­ley, Vol­com, Quik­sil­ver… it’s all right here in Orange County.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I don’t think I got my own surf­board until 7th grade. It was a 7’8 tri-fin. I surfed it for a few years, but I’m happy to have moved on to big­ger and bet­ter surfboards.

What was the feel­ing you had when you you first stood on a surf­board?
I was in ele­men­tary school. I was prob­a­bly filled with excite­ment and a lit­tle bit of ter­ror. I wasn’t “hooked” on the feel­ing until years later.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young boy?
My Dad, for sure. The rea­son I got into shap­ing was because I wanted to have some cre­ative projects to work on with him. That’s what inspired the solid balsa sin­glefin we made a few years ago. That’s where it all began.

What inspired you to own your own shop at such an early age?
To be hon­est, I was a bit opposed to start­ing a surfboard/clothing com­pany because it seemed overly cliché. But I was really enjoy­ing the cre­ative out­let that shap­ing and art was pro­vid­ing. And it was a fun project to get friends involved with… so I kinda couldn’t resist. The shop came about in Jan­u­ary of this year, when things were start­ing to grow and progress a ton for us, and I was feel­ing ready to quit my job and devote my time solely to Almond. It just seemed like a nat­ural pro­gres­sion for us, with the direc­tion things were head­ing. The shop has been incred­i­ble. It’s been no small task, but I’m thrilled with how it’s gone thus far.

What is your process for shap­ing a board?
We do all of our shap­ing by hand. I’m kind of old fash­ioned in the sense that I put value in doing things “the right way.” There are so many tal­ented peo­ple out there, and I think it’s impor­tant to honor the crafts­men and excel in your field. Rather than machin­ing our stuff when things got busy, we brought Grif­fin Neumann-Kyle onto the team to help share the work­load. One of the best deci­sions I ever made. It took a few boards for us to get on the same page, but now things are going super smoothly and we’ve got a great sys­tem going. He’s such a tal­ented shaper, I’m so stoked to have him around.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
Africa for sure. No mat­ter how much you think you know what it’s going to be like, you will still be blown away. I don’t want to say too much, other than I would hope that most every­one could visit there at some point in their lives.

Who/what inspires you?
Wow, that’s tough… I draw inspi­ra­tion from so many places. Obvi­ously there are peo­ple in the surf indus­try who are incred­i­bly tal­ented who I draw inspi­ra­tion from. Guys like Terry Mar­tin, Andy Davis, Tyler War­ren, Kyle Light­ner, Cyrus Sut­ton, Nathan Old­field, Thomas Camp­bell, Mitch Abshere, Tom Wegener, Nathan Adams, Alex Knost, Dan Forte, John Cherry, Levi Prairie, JJ Wessels, Mason Jen­nings. The list goes on and on.

There is inspi­ra­tion every­where though; so many aes­thet­ics and atti­tudes to draw from. Many of the inspi­ra­tions aren’t even visual. They’re musi­cal or intan­gi­ble. That’s the beauty of cre­ativ­ity, there are so many things to pull from and draw from and you get to take your own twist on it and make it your own.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
To rec­og­nize the impor­tant things in life, and to keep it all in per­spec­tive. It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment, and to get worn down by life. But it’s so impor­tant to be able to see the big­ger pic­ture. I have so much to be thank­ful for. There are days that are tough, and there are tasks that seem over­whelm­ing, but being reminded of the impor­tant things in life helps keep it all manageable. There have been many great lessons in my 24 years of liv­ing, but I think per­spec­tive is a good over­ly­ing theme.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
There are always things we wish we had done dif­fer­ently. Con­ver­sa­tions, mis­takes, frus­tra­tions. But at the end of the day all of our mis­takes are learn­ing expe­ri­ences. And they help us grow up into respon­si­ble, rea­son­able adults. So I don’t think I would go back and change anything.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing is a really hard thing to describe. On a prac­ti­cal level, it’s just a great way to start the day. I like get­ting my day started early and get­ting in the water for a few hours. It’s a unique chance to be out­doors and active on a super reg­u­lar basis. It’s fun alone, it’s even more fun with friends. It’s smooth and grace­ful. No wave is ever the same, so there is always oppor­tu­nity for a new, unique expe­ri­ence and new challenges.

Surf­ing has been a huge cre­ative and phys­i­cal out­let and a means to meet a ton of really talented, really cool peo­ple. And there’s always that lin­ger­ing desire to go back for more, no mat­ter how frus­trat­ing or ful­fill­ing it gets.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
At the expense of sound­ing like a 3rd grader, friends and fam­ily, and expe­ri­enc­ing life with them. There are so many excit­ing places to see and things to do in life. And it’s so much more fun to do them with peo­ple you love.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Def­i­nitely all of the same peo­ple who I think inspire me, I would def­i­nitely say are inspir­ing the surf­ing would as well. It’s been great to see things shift away from the big cor­po­ra­tion and the WCT and back onto some of the artists and crafts­men who most of the surf­ing com­mu­nity can iden­tify with. There are a huge num­ber of peo­ple doing some really great things in the surf world.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board?
Right now, I’m surf­ing a 9’6 Almond Log Rhythm. It’s nar­row and thick, like the boards they were surf­ing back in the early 60’s.  I’ve been really enjoy­ing it. Because of the thick­ness, it gets into waves easy and early; but because of the nar­row tem­plate, it feels lively. It side slips right where you want it in the wave. I’ve also been surf­ing a 5’10 Kookum­ber a bunch lately, and hav­ing a blast on that. I like the early entry and smooth lines for a board that small. I want to surf a 5’6 version.

What’s your favorite meal?
Seafood. I really like fish and shrimp and most every­thing that falls under that category.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Mason Jen­nings is at the top of my list right now. Ray Bar­bee too. The per­for­mance that Ray Bar­bee and the Matt­son 2 put on for the pre­mier of the Present was phenomenal.

What’s next for Dave Allee?
I’m not exactly sure. Plenty of excit­ing things I hope. We’ve still been con­tin­u­ing to grow and expand with all the dif­fer­ent facets of Almond. It still feels like we haven’t even come close to reach­ing our poten­tial. So, with that in mind, I just want to con­tinue to have fun with all of the Almond stuff, and see where it takes us. I’m hop­ing to visit Aus­tralia at some point in the next year too. We’ll see, there are so many pos­si­bil­i­ties for the future.

More infor­ma­tion about Dave Allee, his boards and his shop can be found here.
Prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy by Cam Oden. Bot­tom photo by Kyle Light­ner.