Skip Frye

Skip Frye is a leg­endary surfer/shaper from the San Diego area of Cal­i­for­nia. Skip is well known for his smooth style, affa­ble per­son­al­ity, and his tremen­dous skill as a shaper. We spoke with Skip to learn about his life and love of surfing.

What was your child­hood like?
I grew up in San Diego when it was small and quiet. I lived east of Mis­sion Bay right on the edge of jackrab­bits and horned toads before a tract of homes were built in my teenage years. As South­ern Cal­i­for­nia grew up, a lot of the wildlife was elim­i­nated. We really didn’t do any­thing excep­tional. Just the stan­dard stuff like camp­ing with my folks in the sum­mer. The Boy Scouts and the YMCA were great train­ing in swim­ming that I could lean on and are impor­tant for young peo­ple who have an aspi­ra­tion to doing the surf­ing thing.

When did you start surf­ing?
In the spring of 1958. I am in my 52nd year of surf­ing! It’s hard to believe, man – I don’t know where it went. It just went by.

Do you remem­ber the first time you stood up on a board?
Pacific Beach. I had a friend who loaned me a balsa board. This was a year or two pre­ced­ing the advent of foam. The feel­ing was unbe­liev­able – that’s why I’m still doing it! (laughs) It just grabbed me. I never really had some­thing I really grav­i­tated to before. As soon as I stepped on a surf­board – that was it.

What is it about surf­ing that appeals to you?
Rid­ing Mother Nature. The ocean. Just the fresh­ness of it. It’s such a unique thing. Even to this day, I am still in awe and won­der when I am watch­ing some­one slide down the face. I still get amazed by it.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young boy?
Mike Hyn­son. I grew up with him and we were best bud­dies. He actu­ally shaped my boards for three or four years before I learned the craft and started doing it myself. He was a real go-for-it guy. A real for­ward thinker and he always wanted to know what was going on and was into meet­ing the who’s who of the sport. I was a wall­flower, a shy kind of per­son so I kind of tagged along with him. Because of him, I was exposed to the great peo­ple and places in surf­ing. I owe a lot of my expo­sure to surf­ing to Mike Hynson.

My first real influ­ence as far as a hero goes, would be Dewey Weber. He was flam­boy­ant and flashy and quick. But prob­a­bly the main influ­ence would be Phil Edwards. In fact, every­body glob­ally was influ­enced by the way Edwards rode. He was also com­plete in that he surfed and shaped.

There were other peo­ple that came along,too. There were the Hawai­ians like Paul Strauch. He was my favorite surfer of that time period. He’s still an avid surfer over at San Onofre with the Hawai­ian Surf Club over there. He and Joey Cabell were two of the main peo­ple from Hawaii that I really liked to watch and learn from. And George Down­ing def­i­nitely. Down­ing was a lit­tle older than I was and I didn’t really expe­ri­ence him when I was in the islands, but I know of him and his influ­ence. I really respect him as much as any­body in the sport for his contributions.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
The great­est thing I have learned in my life would prob­a­bly be my rela­tion­ship with Jesus Christ. The real­ness of who He is, and what He is and His influ­ence in my life. That’s it – there is noth­ing else that is even close.

What are you most proud of?
I’ve been blessed. God gave me a rela­tion­ship with the ocean and I am blessed in spite of my early behav­ior. My first mar­riage suf­fered because surf­ing inter­fered with my work ethic. I had to re-learn what my pri­or­i­ties are in my life. Now, I try to reflect God’s love and light with every­thing around me. It’s not easy – human nature goes against all of that. The water is a great way of see­ing all of that. Like a crowded day at Mal­ibu. (laughs)

Tell us about term “aloha”
It’s get­ting more and more crowded out there every­day as the sport grows by leaps and bounds. We have to learn about the aloha spirit. One thing that goes against that is com­pet­i­tive surf­ing. It’s in the media fore­front so to a lot of peo­ple that are in the water – they act like it’s a heat.

I used to com­pete and in fact I have ben­e­fited from com­pet­ing in two dif­fer­ent eras. But I am not so much into that any­more. I don’t really attend any of the com­pet­i­tive for­mat things just because I just don’t like that aspect of surf­ing. I just like it when you go out with your friends and have fun and every­body is num­ber one. In the com­pet­i­tive for­mat, there is only one per­son that really feels good about it.

How impor­tant is style?
To me, I was nur­tured that way through my surf­ing. I just tried to emu­late the peo­ple that were styl­ish and had style. I really think that no mat­ter what you are doing or how you are doing it, as long as you are hav­ing fun in the water. To me, the best per­son is the one that is hav­ing the most fun. You don’t nec­es­sar­ily have to be stylish.

It’s the guys that are really flow­ing with the ocean and are really smooth are the kind of peo­ple I like to look at. Edwards, Hyn­son, Cabell, and Dora. And Strauch in the islands – oh, those were the years! Unbe­liev­able. So flow­ing and smooth and beau­ti­ful to watch.

Who do you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
You got to go to Joel Tudor. A lot of the style and artic­u­la­tion of a surf­board with the surfers of the 60s – has kind of been lost. Tudor was one of the first guys in the mod­ern era. I really enjoyed his whole pres­ence in the water and his approach. Jimmy Gam­boa of Mal­ibu is really smooth, a lot of surfers at San Onofre like Colin McPhillips – I like his approach and atti­tude. We also got a young guy here, Josh Hall – I really like his approach.

What about up and com­ing shapers?
Josh Hall. Jeff McCol­lum. Michael Miller. These young guys are together. Way more together than I was at their age! And espe­cially in this day and age with every­thing – soci­ety being the way it is. It’s pretty excit­ing to see the way these guys are honed in.

What’s your favorite board these days?
The 11 foot­ers. It was March of ’90 when I first crafted those blanks. It was the most stoked I have ever been – just the speed and glide on those boards was such a feel­ing. It is the 20th anniver­sary since mak­ing those boards.

What was the inspi­ra­tion behind your famous winged logo?
I think I saw it in a mag­a­zine. Duke (Kahanamoku) had shaped this one red­wood board that had a “V” with wings that were com­ing off of it that was chis­eled into the deck. I worked at Gor­don and Smith learn­ing my craft and in ’66 I wanted to make a model. It was the model era – every­one had to have a model. The graphic artist at the time was an older lady. I told her to draw me up some wings and that what she came up with. I’ve had it ever since. I think it con­veys what surf­ing is – like fly­ing along. And I’ve always been told I surf like a pelican!

What kind of music do you lis­ten to?
Well there are two gen­res of music that I like a lot. One of them is gospel – the African-American por­tion of it. I actu­ally spon­sor a gospel radio sta­tion, 1040 AM in San Diego. This sta­tion keeps my faith. And I also like the energy that is in the African-American churches.

I actu­ally got in trou­ble when I was being inter­viewed and I should have answered the Beach Boys but that never really did any­thing for me. It was always Otis Red­ding or Wil­son Pick­ett. And James Brown was the ulti­mate. The other genre that is my favorite is Afro-Latin, or Cuban music. Peo­ple like Pan­cho Sanchez or Tito Puente. Tito Puente was always a favorite. In fact, the day my shop closed, he died.

Of all the places you’ve been, which is your favorite and why?
I’ve got­ten to go to a lot of places. I like the Caribbean a lot. I got to go to Puerto Rico for a World Con­test back in ’68. Aus­tralia and New Zealand are fan­tas­tic. New Zealand espe­cially because the peo­ple are the most hos­pitable I have ever encoun­tered. I’ve been to Costa Rica. And I want to get over to Hawaii before I get too old and surf Waikiki on a big board at all the breaks. On a big board it would be epic. Like the Duke.

What’s your favorite meal?
I like Mex­i­can food a lot but I’ve been try­ing to eat a lit­tle health­ier. I eat sal­ads a lot. I like sushi. You know, you get to a cer­tain age and your weight becomes a prob­lem. If I didn’t have to watch my weight, it would prob­a­bly be a cou­ple of beef tacos and a bean and cheese bur­rito! (laughs)

What’s next for Skip Frye?
Just keep doing what I am doing. Surf­ing and shap­ing. Get­ting closer to God. I’ll be 70 in lit­tle over a year and just want to live out my life in the right way.

Top photo by Gavin Joule. Other pho­tos of Skip Frye pro­vided by the mak­ers of the film One Cal­i­for­nia Day.