Jed Noll

Jed Noll is a tal­ented Cal­i­for­nia shaper whose name doesn’t eas­ily escape the shadow cast by his father, big-wave pio­neer Greg Noll. Set­ting up shop in San Clemente after years shap­ing with Pear­son Arrow in Santa Cruz, Jed has carved out a rep­u­ta­tion all for him­self. We spoke with him to learn more.

What was it like grow­ing up?
Grow­ing up in Cres­cent City with a well-known father who is such a part of surf­ing his­tory is prob­a­bly dif­fer­ent from what peo­ple might think. Surf­ing was pretty much non-existent to me when I was a young kid. Dad was a com­mer­cial fish­er­man and nobody really rec­og­nized my father as a surfer. I came from a town of 1500 and they just didn’t think too much about surf­ing. I did a lot of fish­ing, hunt­ing, and motor­cy­cle rid­ing. It was a pretty sim­ple, nor­mal kind of kid life. As a fam­ily, we would drive down and visit Gumby (Pat Ryan) and Eddie Tal­bot at ET Surf­boards to get some boards and then we would go surf­ing down at San Onofre.

Tell us what it was like being the son of Greg Noll.
The first time I real­ized that my dad had some con­nec­tion to surf­ing, was the movie “Ride The Wild Surf” that showed on tele­vi­sion. I remem­ber watch­ing that and see­ing him surf­ing and he would go, “Oh, there’s Mickey”… “or look there’s Dad!” It was a Hol­ly­wood movie and he hated it. It wasn’t until I was about 12 or 13 that I really even began to have a con­cept of maybe some of his accomplishments.

Being in the surf indus­try now, I totally get why my Dad is so much a part of surf­ing cul­ture. He tells a great story, there is no doubt about that. Even to this day I get a deeper under­stand­ing. Lis­ten, I’ve heard the sto­ries as many times as any­body! But I still lis­ten to them because every time I hear them, it means some­thing dif­fer­ent to me as I’ve gone through life. In the begin­ning, the sto­ries were just funny, excit­ing and off-the-wall.

As I lis­ten to the sto­ries today, I am pay­ing more atten­tion to the cul­tural aspects of them and how the sto­ries relate to where we are today in surf­ing. It’s a com­mon thread that started in the mid-sixties up until today. Things such as man­u­fac­tur­ing, mate­ri­als, and atti­tudes all helped forge the surf cul­ture we have today and it is amaz­ing to think that most of those things have remained the same.

Do you remem­ber the first time you stood up on a board?
I do. It was at San Onofre. Some­where between Old Man’s and Dog Patch. It was in early morn­ing and I must have been 10 years old. The water was glassy, green, and over­cast. It was low tide and it was a right. I remem­ber my Dad and sis­ter always telling me to get going at an angle, and turn hard, and to do all these things. But for that one wave, it all came together. I slid across that thing and it prob­a­bly took about 6 or 7 tries to even get close to that one ini­tial experience. It was the sen­sa­tion of hear­ing the wind in your ears. I had a smile on my face for sure. I was elated that I had finally done it after every­one else had told me it was so great. Super excited at the glide – that’s what I remem­ber most – the glide.

Who did you admire when you were younger?
My big deal was Potts (Mar­tin Pot­ter). He was the first guy I really felt attached to. As a kid, you are always inter­ested in what’s new and cool and dif­fer­ent. See­ing Potts surf­ing quad-type, trippy Blue Hawaii’s with flames on them, and him being a guy that was really aggres­sive – he was just some­one who clicked for me.

When did you decide you wanted to shape surf­boards?
12 or 13. My brother started shap­ing and he would hang out with Gumby down in Her­mosa. He came back up North and built his own shap­ing room in Cres­cent City. His focus at the time was short­boards, so he asked my Dad to come down and shape a long­board. I watched the two of them shape this board and in that moment, I knew that this was it. I saw the foam fly and the stoke that the two of them had mak­ing this board. The process, the lingo – I was into the whole thing.

When I got to Pear­son Arrow at age 18, I was green. I swept the floors and cleaned up the rooms. And I took every oppor­tu­nity to learn every­thing about surf­board mak­ing from any­body I could. I was for­tu­nate that all those guys were around and they were great. I spent about 4 to 5 years with them. I learned the most from my two pro­fes­sors: Bob Pear­son, a con­tem­po­rary shaper who was doing 2500 boards a year and from my Dad, an old school crafts­man who was only doing 10 boards a year. They each shared with me a love for shap­ing that I will never forget.

What made you move down to San Clemente?
I was hav­ing a hard time get­ting the qual­ity glass­ing I wanted up in Santa Cruz. Many of the guys who were good at it were all work­ing in-house. They were busy doing their own boards so that when I dropped mine off, they ended up just sit­ting in the racks. So I started mak­ing some trips down here to The Waterman’s Guild from a tip from my Dad’s friend, Sonny Varde­mann. I was trav­el­ing back and forth and it was then that I finally took a hard look at the num­bers. Blanks, ship­ping, and resin — all were less expen­sive down here. The qual­ity of work I received was bet­ter and the mar­ket is tremen­dously big­ger. That’s when I decided to move down here.

What do you love about shap­ing?
To be hon­est, it’s the alone time (laughs). Espe­cially if I can close the door and put some head­phones on. With shap­ing, the bet­ter that you get at it and the longer that you do it, the less of a job it becomes and the more it becomes more sec­ond nature. It starts to free up your head space. I can be think­ing about my fam­ily or any­thing I want to. It’s kinda like meditation.

What do you love about surf­ing?
It’s hard not to get a charge out of it. Get­ting sun­burned and a feel­ing a lit­tle crispy with the sore shoul­ders – noth­ing helps me sleep bet­ter at night than that.

Who do feel is shap­ing the path of surf­ing today?
I tend to look to the past for peo­ple who have done great things. Peo­ple like Paul Strauch comes to mind. A clas­sic indi­vid­ual and a leg­end who is still a great influ­ence on the com­mu­nity to this day. Tom Morey – I mean, he made the Boo­gie Board! He has always been inno­v­a­tive in his use of advanced mate­ri­als. When it comes to con­tem­po­rary guys, it would have to be Joel (Tudor) and Wingnut. They made the sport of long­board­ing pretty cool. And Kelly Slater, I mean the guy has won 10 World Cham­pi­onship titles…

What are you most proud of? I am proud of my fam­ily – my wife and my lit­tle girl. It is a pretty awe­some thing to bring life into this world. The best part about being a father is watch­ing my child expe­ri­ence some­thing for the first time. Like the time your kid tastes some­thing new. It’s so much fun to watch them expe­ri­ence a straw­berry or a macadamia nut for the first time. Recently I took my three-year old daugh­ter on my back while surf­ing. We caught our first wave together. To hear the squeal – I mean, it was amazing!

What’s your favorite meal?
Oh, I’m a big fan of food! What imme­di­ately comes to mind is South­ern Fried Chicken made in a skil­let and home made potato salad, paired with a New­cas­tle. I usu­ally eat clean and healthy – skin­less chicken, fish, etc., but man, that’s good com­fort food!

What kind of music do you lis­ten to?
Every­thing. Every­thing from clas­si­cal to jazz or any­thing that is on that day. Since I don’t have a long com­mute in the car, it’s when I shape that gives me the chance to lis­ten to music. The kind of music has lot has to do with what kind of board I’m shap­ing. If it’s a true tri-fin it’s gonna have to be fast. And when it’s a clas­sic three-stringer long­board, the music needs to be slower. Right now my chan­nel on Pan­dora is Guns and Roses.

What Golden Rule do you live by?
Be hon­est and do what you say you are going to do. And if you are going to do some­thing, do it the best that you can. Whether it is busi­ness or fam­ily, those rules thread through everything.

What is your favorite board at the moment?
It’s a 9’6” “Da Cat” model. Sin­gle fin, chan­nels on the bot­tom, scoop deck – the whole deal. It was one of the 250 lim­ited edi­tion boards that were made at the time. I got it because it was a mis­take or blem. After hold­ing on to it for about two and a half years, I finally took it to Low­ers on a Thanks­giv­ing Day. It has all the bells and whis­tles and I just didn’t expect it to per­form. But it worked really, really well.

What’s next for Jed Noll?
I’ve always been inter­ested in using newer mate­ri­als for build­ing boards. After spend­ing a lot of time and energy get­ting our retail space going, I want to focus on con­cept­ing new surf­board designs and inte­grat­ing mod­ern mate­ri­als. I’m a huge fan of the Marko recy­cled foam con­cept with epoxy resins. And I’ve got some ideas in mind for boards from the tran­si­tional era – some flex­tail and Gree­nough con­cepts but using today’s mod­ern mate­ri­als. Should be interesting!

Find out more about Jed Noll and Noll Surf­boards here. Prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy cour­tesy Jed Noll. Addi­tional pho­tos by Glenn Sakamoto.