Chippa Wilson & Brendon Gibbens On Staying Under The Radar, Creativity, Vanity, Humble Beginnings & More

Chippa Wilson and Brendon Gibbens, or Beeg as he’s know to his pals, are two of the world’s most accomplished free surfers, appearing in some of the last decades most celebrated films. The pair, who hail originally from NSW, Aus and Cape Town, SA respectively are currently passing their time traversing the globe, stacking clips and attending the premieres of their new film, Listen Now, Misty Dawn, with loads of free beer.

We caught up with them on a stifling afternoon, soon after the boys touched down, in their plush French villa to talk staying under the radar, creativity, vanity, humble beginnings, and getting clips in cold climes.

Here’s an extract:

“WL: When you boy’s are surfing is the entertainment value of surfing your top priority?

B: For me no, I mean it’s pretty selfish really, in fact it’s the most vain thing you could ever do. We just go surf and we have cameramen filming us all the time, it’s actually ridiculous, but I guess the goal is to get footage that would be a personal best and then put it all together make a film, and put it out there and hope that it receives a good reception.

C: My biggest goal is to make one person in the water stoked every surf, if I can get one kid hyped then that’s my job.

WL: Brendon I’ve heard you say before that surfing is like an art. You used to surf comps but then you went off them. Was part of the reason because comp surfing forces you to surf to the comp criteria and that can’t be an art because it’s not an expression of yourself anymore, it’s just an expression of what the judges want to see?

B: I guess with free surfing, you’d have a lot more creative freedom, it’s just a creative outlet maybe, whereas yeah as you know in contests you have to compete against other people in heats, and then there’s the one winner at the end of the day and several losers, I don’t know if I answered that.

C: If you’re going down the line in J-Bay you want to go a straight and do a high line and then do a shuvit you’re gonna get a two, I would give that like a fucking 10, just for creativity and the freedom.”

Read the full interview here.

 

http://features.wavelengthmag.com/in-and-around-quik-pro-2017/7/

Cover photo: John Respondek // Brixton