Graham Day

Gra­ham Day is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/shop owner who runs and oper­ates Shel­ter Surf Shop. Grow­ing up in a beach-oriented lifestyle, Gra­ham brings a blend of music, art, and surf cul­ture to the city of Long Beach. We spent some time with him to learn more.

What was life like grow­ing up?
Fifty per­cent South Bay and fifty per­cent Orange Cur­tain, and pretty good—looking back on it now. My mom and dad have always been hard-working, mid­dle class folks that raised my sis­ters and I close to the ocean. Dur­ing our days in Torrance/Redondo, almost every day of the sum­mer and cer­tain win­ters were spent at the beach. My mom worked nights as a bar­tender so as soon as we were out of school for the sum­mer, this was her cue to let us loose on the sand and catch up on sleep in the sun. My dad worked con­struc­tion, but a was lucky enough to have a super­vi­sor for a long time who surfed. So he was off early enough dur­ing the week to catch a day end surf. While he surfed, we roamed the sand. Week­ends were travel time to Ventura/SB or south OC breaks. My sis­ters and I were all sea­wor­thy at a very young age and we would ride those styro boards, old mats or what­ever we could come up with.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
Funny enough, other than my dad and uncles, at first I was really into music. I’m really dat­ing myself here, but when I saw Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” video, that really blew my mind. It would greatly affect a part of my life and my career that only came to a close back in 2007. My expo­sure to surf icons at that time came via sub­scrip­tions to Surfer mag­a­zine, 70’s surf films and what I saw posted on the walls down by the beach. See­ing Cur­ren surf was the thing that really made me look at surf­ing as some­thing that I wanted to work at. I loved watch­ing footage of the Ho fam­ily, Shaun Thomp­son and MR. MR made the hand-me-down twin fins that I had that made it seem okay that I didn’t have a board with three fins.

When did you get your first surf­board?
1984—a hand-me-down Hori­zons West sin­gle fin sting/swallow with the pins cut off the tail. I still have it.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
I have to admit, I expected it to be more smooth and con­trolled. I remem­ber think­ing that it was fast. The feel­ing of the resis­tance and loose­ness beneath my feet was unex­pected. Maybe I remem­ber the sen­sa­tion of tak­ing a nose full of water more. I just remem­ber look­ing out in the lineup for my dad to see if he had seen me. It was at Rat Beach,

How did you come to open a surf shop?
Reck­less roman­ti­cism with sen­sory vehi­cles that put you on the free­way to hap­pi­ness. I’ve always made it a point to try and turn the way I want to spend my time into a liv­ing. On a basic level, we love surf­ing, the ocean and the prod­uct of inspi­ra­tion from the expe­ri­ences these things can gen­er­ate. I had worked in the music indus­try for about 13 years. I started skip­ping out on work to spend more time at the beach look­ing for inner inspi­ra­tion, and a replace­ment for the sat­is­fac­tion I used to get from cre­at­ing and work­ing with oth­ers to cre­ate. Although it wasn’t my ini­tial plan to be a full-time shop­keeper, I was drawn to it.

After about a year of my wife run­ning the shop and me work­ing behind the scenes, I dis­ap­peared on the road with boards for about a week and dis­cov­ered what I felt was a bet­ter way to spend my time. I also need to give credit to look­ing at what guys like Thomas Camp­bell have done. Although I do not cre­ate much in the way of visual art, the whole “Beau­ti­ful Losers” ide­al­ism made it feel warm and pos­si­ble to do what I had done in music. It was like being 14 in the garage with my bud­dies and our instru­ments all over again. Long con­ver­sa­tions with guys like Steve Kra­jew­ski would remind me that life might be hard, but it will be good. So far, so good.

Why did you decide to offer alter­na­tive shapes (twin fins, hulls, ala­ias and hand planes)?
Grow­ing up, I was huge into twin fins and sin­gles because that is what I always had. I rode weird hand-me-down boards. My dad’s super­vi­sor at work had two older sons who I never met, but I have to say that they were into some pretty cool stuff. The sin­gle fin I men­tioned was the first board I got from them. The sec­ond board I got from them was an early Clyde Beatty Rocket Fish. I wish I still had that. What I thought was a curse—being the “beat up board” kid—was really a bless­ing. It allowed me to appre­ci­ate the idea of find­ing dif­fer­ent ways to con­nect with the wave and the dif­fer­ent sen­sa­tions that dif­fer­ent craft bring. I keep my mind wide open when it comes design. You never know what sen­sa­tions and sub­tleties in a shape or design can unlock. I offer the stuff I ride and enjoy.

What is it that makes you such a nice per­son? What code do you live by?
Nice? Who says I’m nice? I mean, I try my best. It must be the love of a good woman, two beau­ti­ful chil­dren, my friends and fam­ily (who I am for­tu­nate to have), the waves and the sun. As surfers, there is a com­mon under­stand­ing we all share. We live sim­ply— and try and have the utmost respect for life, our sur­round­ings and the other folks that we come into con­tact with.

Who or what inspires you?
That’s a broad ques­tion. On a base level, I am inspired by the oppor­tu­nity to wake up in the morn­ing and expe­ri­ence life within the real­ity that I am engaged in—my wife’s patience, my kids and watch­ing them expe­ri­ence things for the first time as they grow. When it comes to surf­ing, it’s more of a cre­ative expres­sion although I am inspired by the feel­ing it gives me. As for Shel­ter, I love to do it because of the feed­back we receive from the peo­ple that share in the expe­ri­ence we try to provide.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
There is an oppor­tu­nity to learn some­thing every day. Always keep “those doors” open. The sec­ond you close them is the sec­ond you stop progress, growth and the evo­lu­tion of the soul.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some thing dif­fer­ently?
No regrets so far and I don’t feel there has been any­thing I could con­trol that could be changed.

What are you most proud of?
First, I am proud­est of my fam­ily. Sec­ond, the fact that I am on some level man­ag­ing to get through life on mostly my own terms.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Although I will be the eter­nal grom in many respects, it is prob­a­bly the sin­gle strongest cul­tural influ­ence in my life. It has made the bad times seem good and the good times all the bet­ter. The rea­son why our shop is called Shel­ter is because we con­sider the ocean to be our shel­ter. I con­sider myself incred­i­bly lucky to have rid­den the waves I have expe­ri­enced and I hope to ride many more. I will be a life­long devotee.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Time with fam­ily and friends, surf­ing, warm sunny days with­out sched­ules, good music, good food, good beer.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
I think fluid style is time­less. The guys who make it look easy are always the most fun to watch. The pur­suit of fun is the premise for surf­ing. I never get tired of watch­ing these guys—Tyler War­ren, Ryan Burch, Jimmy Gam­boa, Alex Knost, Tomo, RK— do their thing.

As for crafts­men, I think guys like Greg Lid­dle, Brian Hilbers, Klaus Jones, Tomo, RK and Larmo are forg­ing or have forged the inroads for any­one to take a new path in pur­suit of a new and unique wave-riding experience—whether they were way ahead of their time or they are the guys who are always re-approaching.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?

Dale Solomon­son Neu­matic
Paul Gross 4th Gear Flyer
5’5 Larmo Ghost­buster
5’6 Lis fish
5’10 Josh Hall keel
6’? Hori­zons West sin­gle fin
6’3 Lid­dle SHRW
6’6 Klaus Jones stringer­less
6’8 Lid­dle Musgo
6’11 Lid­dle “MM”
7’0 Andreini Vaquero
9’2 Lid­dle Designs (Brian Hilbers) L-Spoon

I enjoy surf­ing open faces at empty places.

What’s your favorite meal?
Home­made pizza nights.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I like the iPod but noth­ing beats the warm sat­u­rated sound of some wax on the turntable!

Chris Bell – I Am The Cos­mos
Kurt Vile — Child­ish Prodigy
Roky Erick­son – Anthol­ogy
Avi Buf­falo – S/T
Byrds — Sweet­heart Of The Rodeo
Panda Bear – Per­son Pitch
Fly­ing Bur­rito Broth­ers – Bur­rito Deluxe

What causes/projects/organizations do you sup­port?
We would like to see the (Long Beach) Break­wa­ter come down. It would be cool if some­one did some­thing about the BP mess in the Gulf too. Be good to oth­ers. Life is frag­ile and a gift. We only live once.

What’s next for Gra­ham Day?
We’re always work­ing on some­thing here. Aside from our monthly in-shop events, we will be doing a surf film fes­ti­val with the Art The­ater located across the street from the shop. We will be host­ing three board demo days/seminars this sum­mer with Larry Mabile in June, Dano in July and Jon Wegener in August. New Shel­ter shop boards designed by us in con­junc­tion with some great local shapers are com­ing. Real surf­board rentals. Shel­ter board shorts. We have a new online store that has our offi­cial merch as well as some designs from the Surfrider Foun­da­tion that encour­age us all to sup­port the cause of get­ting waves back into Long Beach.

Find out more about Gra­ham Day and Drift­wood Car­a­van here.