The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick

Available Episodes

5 of 76

Bob Hurley
Surfwear tycoon Bob Hurley spent his early days around Huntington Beach, California, shaping for labels like Hot Stuff, Infinity, Wave Tools, and Lightning Bolt. After spearheading Billabong USA from 1983 to 1998, Hurley transitioned to the creation of his namesake brand, centered around an ethos of innovation that he observed in the youthful counterculture of Southern California at the time. While he stepped down as Hurley’s CEO in 2015, he remains deeply involved in surfing, still sculpting foam, as well as working with John John Florence on the latter’s own namesake company. In this episode of Soundings, Hurley and Jamie Brisick sit down at the executive’s ocean-front home in Newport Beach to talk about the key ingredients for his entrepreneurial success, Southern California’s surf scene through the decades, the highs and lows of the industry, sponsoring Occy, learning to shape, and legacy. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).
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Pauline Menczer
Born in 1970, raised in Bondi Beach, Australia, Pauline Menczer found her way to the surfboard at age 14. Actually, it was half a surfboard—a snapped hand-me-down from her brother. Four years later she won the 1988 World Amateur Champs, hopped on the ASP world tour, and finished the year ranked fifth overall. Her surfing was loose, springy, full of hurled tail. She won lots of events, and, in 1993, the world title. Menzcer has appeared in many surf videos, including 1998’s Blue Crush (the surf video, not the feature film), 2001’s Peaches: The Core of Women’s Surfing, and 2004’s Surfabout: Down Under. She’s the unofficial star of the 2021 documentary Girls Can’t Surf. She released her memoir, Surf Like a Woman, in 2024. She was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 2018. In this episode of Soundings, Menczer talks with Jamie Brisick about grommethood hazing in Bondi Beach, winning a world title, overcoming adversity, battling stereotypes, adjusting to life after pro surfing, and writing her memoir. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).
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Chris Burkard
Born in 1986, Chris Burkard grew up on California’s Central Coast and knew from a young age that he had to get out. Photography became the avenue. Primarily self-taught, Burkard won the Follow the Light Foundation grant in 2006, and away he went, working as a senior staff photographer for Surfline, Water magazine, and Surfer magazine, as well as freelancing for The New Yorker, National Geographic, and ESPN.com. In 2009, he was contracted by Patagonia to be a projects photographer. Burkard’s photo books include The California Surf Project, Come Hell or High Water: The Plight of the Torpedo People, Distant Shores, High Tide, and The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth. Along with still photographs, he makes films, including Russia: The Outpost Volume 1, Faroes: The Outpost Volume 2, The Cradle of Storms, and Under an Arctic Sky. You might glean from those titles that Burkard has a penchant for the colder locales. On that note, he started photographing Iceland about two decades ago—and fell so in love with the place that, a couple years ago, he up and moved there with his wife and two sons. Along with photography, Burkard is also an avid adventurer, recently completing a 90-mile fat-tire bike ride across Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier. In this episode of Soundings, Burkard talks to host Jamie Brisick about traveling, Ansel Adams, the allure of cooler climates, finding purpose, moving to Iceland, the state of surf photography, and the challenges and rewards of environmentalism. Produced by Jonathan Shifflett. Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).
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1:15:39
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1:15:39
Jeff Hakman
Born in California in 1948, Jeff Hakman’s father introduced him to surfing at age eight. Four years later, the family moved to Oahu, and the year after that, at the age of 13, Hakman surfed Waimea Bay for the first time. In 1965, he was invited to the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational, held at Sunset Beach. Hakman was 17. He won. In the ensuing years, on his Dick Brewer-shaped boards, Hakman transitioned seamlessly from longboards to shortboards—and went on a winning streak. He won the Duke again in ’70 and ’71; won the first Pipe Masters in ’71; won the Hang Ten Pro and Gunston 500 in ’72; and the Hang Ten again in ’73. Bookending his stellar competitive run, he won the Bells Beach event in 1976. After winning that event, Hakman sat down with the owners of a fledgling Aussie brand called Quiksilver and convinced them to make him the US licensee. Today, Hakman lives in Bidart, France, where he sits down with Jamie Brisick for this episode of Soundings to talk about surfboard design, growing up on the North Shore, the birth of the surf industry, humility, and the challenge of returning to an everyday existence after living the extraordinary.
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1:05:22
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1:05:22
Holly Wawn
Born and raised on the northern beaches of Sydney, Holly Wawn’s father started pushing her into waves at their local Bungan Beach when she was three. She started competing in her teens, won local events, and won the 2012 Australian Junior Titles at age 15. From 2015 to 2019, she competed full-time on the ’QS, bagged a few thirds, but came to realize that she was happiest surfing outside of the contest forum. Now 27, based in Coorabell, near Byron Bay, Wawn is a freesurfer known for her big, swooping hacks. In this episode of Soundings, Wawn sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about lineup hierarchies, her relationship to competition, life as a freesurfer, producing content, the importance of self-expression, and her cinematic goals.
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