Andrew Crockett

Andrew Crock­ett is an Aus­tralian surfer/photographer who is the pro­ducer of the surf­ing books Switch-Foot and Switch-Foot II. In 2005, he was inducted into the Aus­tralian Surf­ing Hall of Fame for his work in media. We took the time to learn more about his unique out­look on life.

What was your life like grow­ing up?
I was very for­tu­nate to grow up in a lov­ing fam­ily in the coun­try. We had cows, sheep, pigs, horses, ducks, chick­ens, dogs, cats all on a 5000 acre farm, inland from Cre­sent Head, Aus­tralia. It was 50 miles to the near­est town, down a dirt road. My older brother and I didn’t have much on the farm, but we were really happy. Each Christ­mas, we used to drive up to Byron Bay, and I will always remem­ber com­ing over that hill and see­ing the sea and the moun­tains and just bust­ing out of my skin with excitement.

The farm didn’t work out for my par­ents. For­tu­nately, my par­ents had friends in a small town near Byron Bay and my father started a new career build­ing swim­ming pools. I was six years old. Liv­ing near Byron Bay, I was lucky that the ocean was part of my life from a young age.

When did you get your first surf­board?
We always had inflat­able air mat­tresses as kids and my father would also take me out on his ski. I was about 12 years old when my brother and I were both given a surf­board. We bought them from Sky Surf­boards in Byron Bay. I still have the one my brother picked; it was a sec­ond­hand Louie Fer­reira model twin fin shaped by Michael Cun­dith. It still goes like a rocket!

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood up on a surf­board?
I started out surf­ing on my tummy, then went to my knees and, even­tu­ally, to my feet. I don’t think the stoke is that much dif­fer­ent if you are lying down, kneel­ing or stand­ing up. Stand­ing up gives you even more free­dom of expres­sion; you have more con­trol of the ves­sel and more lever­age to be able to turn quickly. Once my uncle put me on a long­board, expres­sive surf­ing took on a whole new feeling.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young boy?
Like any young boy, my father. Aside from all the usual admi­ra­tion a young boy has for his father, my father saved my life twice when I was a young boy. Once on the farm and once in the surf. I will never for­get it.

Who or what inspires you?
There are plenty of inspi­ra­tional peo­ple out there. I am inspired by peo­ple who are happy.

Peo­ple who are pos­i­tively charged, inspired and liv­ing their dreams. I am inspired by pas­sion. Peo­ple who get out there and do what they are in love with and don’t care how that might impact on their “career” or “suc­cess”. I am inspired by peo­ple who have faith. I am inspired by peo­ple who walk the road less trav­elled. I am inspired by older peo­ple who are still smil­ing. I am inspired by any­one who is get­ting on with it.

In the surf bub­ble, there are plenty of peo­ple who inspire me and in the two books I put together, there are over 100 con­trib­u­tors and each one of them inspired me on some level. George Gree­nough is inspi­ra­tional to me; he lives how he wants to live and he cre­ates things that are utterly unique. To sin­gle out only George would not be an accu­rate reflec­tion on who inspires me. The list of peo­ple is quite long.

What inspires me? I think it is some­thing like God and those moments where you just know some­thing cos­mic is hap­pen­ing or just hap­pened. You hear sto­ries that are too coin­ci­den­tal to be a coin­ci­dence. I think we all get to expe­ri­ence things while we are alive that are just unique to us—things that mean some­thing spe­cial in that moment to us. Those sorts of things inspire me..

The past inspires me—film pho­tog­ra­phy, artists, paint, music, chil­dren. Above all, nature inspires me daily.

Tell us about your book Switch-Foot.
Aus­tralia is a “sporty” coun­try and surf­ing here is not immune to that cul­tural base­line. The sport of surf­ing is far more pop­u­lar in Aus­tralia than the lifestyle, the style, the art and the clas­sic move­ment. Switch-foot attempted to restore some bal­ance in the big pic­ture by pre­sent­ing some­thing that wasn’t just about the “sport” of surf­ing. Surf­ing in the U.S. has a rich her­itage in style and cool. You are lucky like that. In Aus­tralia dur­ing the 1980’s and the 90’s, there was an artis­tic void within surf cul­ture. Switch-Foot came out at a time when that void was start­ing to change and both the books were very well liked.

The Switch-Foot books are under­ground. They were self-published and are self-distributed. You can­not see them at Wal­mart or the lat­est cor­po­rate surf super­mar­ket. I don’t think you can see them any­where in the U.S. and that might be quite sad, but that is the way it goes. I have hun­dreds and hun­dreds of emails and let­ters from crew who sim­ply love the books I put together. Recently, we even got a gig in Rolling Stone mag­a­zine; that was big for me per­son­ally. Rolling Stone is one mag­a­zine I would be happy to talk to. The Surfers Jour­nal and the Surfers Path do a good job, but in Aus­tralia it is quite bleak unless you are pals with the edi­tor or some­thing like that. You might be able to get a spread in the “sporty” mag­a­zines that are com­mon fod­der for surfers in this country.

What were some of the chal­lenges in cre­at­ing your books?
I was on drugs when I put the books together. That is the only way I could have done all that work for no pay. I was tak­ing heavy doses of cor­ti­sone every morn­ing to keep the inflam­ma­tion (Crohn’s Dis­ease) in my intes­tine under con­trol. It was pure mad­ness. I should have been at home work­ing on get­ting bet­ter, but instead I was like a crazed bee in a bottle—buzzing around, never con­tented, always look­ing for more. It took me years to get off those drugs and once off them, I real­ized how ridicu­lous I had been to myself and others.

The major chal­lenge to put a book like Switch-Foot together is hav­ing the time to do it all. I spent seven years of my life on the Switch-Foot books. Dur­ing that time, I pushed aside many oppor­tu­ni­ties to have a “real” job and actu­ally make some coin. That was tough and per­haps fool­ish. Now I can look back on it all, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
In rela­tion to surf­ing, you can sit at the end of the line and watch two surfers expe­ri­ence the same sort of ride. One surfer will flick out and be stoked, and another will flick out and be bummed. That says a lot about life in gen­eral: it is about how you are feel­ing on the inside that mat­ters, not the exter­nal wave, the house, the car or the girl.

What are you most proud of?
When I was 18 years old, I was thrown into the “real world” when I was diag­nosed with Crohn’s dis­ease. It nearly took my life. I spent many years in and out of hos­pi­tals, and have had life sav­ing surgery three times. These days, I have an infu­sion of drugs every eight weeks to keep me sta­ble. Get­ting that low and expe­ri­enc­ing those feel­ings and emo­tions … and star­ing death in the face and over­com­ing it … I am really proud of that.

Some­times you have to step back or are forced to step back and real­ize you are not in con­trol. It is humil­ity. It taught me humil­ity, but it also taught me com­pas­sion for oth­ers. I really believe that every­one is going through some heavy shit at some stage or another and these days I feel com­pas­sion more so than I did when I was younger.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
I can­not name one. I think it comes down to how you are feel­ing on the inside that counts. Two peo­ple could be stand­ing look­ing at the same beau­ti­ful scene and feel­ing two dif­fer­ent feel­ings. If you are happy on the inside and you like what you are see­ing out­side, then you have found hap­pi­ness and that, I believe, is what we are all seeking.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing gives us a more solid con­nec­tion to nature. That is where the attrac­tion lies for me. Through that con­nec­tion, it makes you more sen­si­tive and aware to what is going on around you, and that has changed my life immeasurably.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Those moments in your life when noth­ing is really going wrong; there are no major stresses and things pulling at you. Those moments are spe­cial and it brings me hap­pi­ness to be free to cre­ate things, work on things I am feel­ing, take pho­tographs, write songs and poetry … or just go for a guilt-free surf with no men­tal chat­ter going on inside pulling you in a dif­fer­ent direction.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
The path we speak of was once a nar­row, rick­ety old dirt track with famil­iar faces trav­el­ing up and down the coast look­ing for waves. These days, it is a 50 lane super high­way with e-tags and com­puter mon­i­tor­ing of our move­ments and I strug­gle to keep up. If I had to name names, it is peo­ple no one has ever heard of.

What is your cur­rent favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
I am so lazy these days. I like rid­ing my 9 foot bul­let­nose pin­tail and surf­ing it from the mid­dle. I can’t remem­ber the last time I walked to the nose. I am happy surf­ing any­where as long as it isn’t busy with peo­ple try­ing to surf.

What’s your favorite meal?
Any home cooked meal that has had time and love put into it.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I have never pur­chased an iPod, but I love music. I love music per­haps even more than I love surf­ing. Lately, I have been lis­ten­ing to a new record­ing by this older cat called Mulatu Astake and the album is called Helio­centrics. It is funky with a twist of an Ethiopian idiom that he is quite famous for through his 1960’s record­ings. A friend tuned me into a band called Aluta and the Mys­tics. It is reg­gae from Africa and I have been lis­ten­ing to that a lot too.

What are you most grate­ful for?
My health. When your health goes, it changes everything.

What’s next for Andrew Crock­ett?
I am going to sell out to the multi­na­tion­als and then relo­cate to another coun­try and write poetry about the demise of mankind.

To learn more about Andrew Crock­ett and his work with Switch-Foot, click here.