Keala Kennelly grew up on Kauai in a geodesic dome built by her parents and began surfing at the age of five, a contemporary of the Irons brothers. Through the 1990s and early aughts, she was consistently ranked top ten on the World Tour and was the first woman to tow Teahupoo. She has since pursued successful careers in both acting and music. Kennelly’s life has been also defined by her pushing both physical and social limitations, from her fighting for women’s representation in heavy surf to her coming out during a time when that meant detrimental ramifications to her surfing career. In this episode, Kennelly talks with show host Jamie Brisick about being an early advocate for the LGBTQ+ surfing community, what it meant to be one of the few women in the lineup, how the attitudes have changed, losing her sponsors, giving up her spot on tour to work as an actress for David Milch, fighting for equal pay, and her invite to the Eddie, and her DJ career.

Keala Kennelly

In-depth conversations with the most compelling people in surfing.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Sports

Award-winning author and The New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan came to surfing early while growing up between Hawaii and Southern California. He helped bring surf writing, as a genre, to the literary fore in 1992 with the publication of his two-part essay “Playing Doc’s Games” in The New Yorker, which chronicled both his and “Doc” Renneker’s pursuits at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. His 2015 memoir, Barbarian Days, which documented his surfing life, won the Pulitzer Prize. Beyond the surf, Finnegan has devoted much of his career to conflict reporting in regions ranging from Mexico to parts of Asia. In this episode, Finnegan talks with show host Jamie Brisick about the modern marriage of surfing and intellectualism, the importance of asking questions, writing, curiosity, outing himself as a surfer in the context of his career, Bali’s dystopian reality, the dissemination of surf culture, and how his experience as a teacher in South Africa during apartheid shaped him as a writer.

William Finnegan

A core member of the Momentum Generation and an 11-year veteran of the world tour, Shane Dorian is best known for his big-wave accomplishments over the past 20 years. Born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, Dorian received his big-wave education under Brock Little, Todd Chesser, and others after relocating to the North Shore as a teenager. Today, with multiple XXL Awards under his belt and a bag full of some of the most defining rides in history, Dorian has proven a trailblazer in the big-wave realm, helping to consistently redefine what’s possible via one’s own paddle power. In this episode, Dorian sits down with show host Jamie Brisick to talk about swell tracking, risk assessment, the surfing time warp, decision making in critical moments, family, bowhunting, overcoming self-doubt, and the virtue of patience.

Shane Dorian

Hailing from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, freesurfer Jaleesa Vincent leads a life deeply immersed in explorative practices of self-expression and connection with nature. If she isn’t hunting for waves, she’s playing music, painting, cooking, writing poetry, and experimenting with taxidermy. Over the past few years, her output has helped define a new generation of paradigmatic Renaissance surfers in Australia through unbending fidelity to play, creativity, and staying true to oneself—in the water and out of it. In this episode, Vincent talks with show host Jamie Brisick about her robust creative sentiment, the importance of losing yourself in the things you love, rediscovering her inner child, tap dancing, her recent injury, rustic living, Indonesia, touring with her band, and cultivating her sense of what it means to be a woman.

Jaleesa Vincent

Born and raised in Central California, Nate Tyler eschewed the world of competitive surfing in favor of pursuing the path less trodden as a teenager, building a free surfing career defined by a steadfast dedication to filming, traveling, and artistic exploration. His profile rose through the aughts and 2010’s, due in no small part to his performances in some of the most cult-classic surf films of the era: Creepy Fingers (2006), BS! (2009), Year Zero (2011), Strange Rumblings in Shangri La (2014), and Psychic Migrations (2015), among others. Alongside surfing, Tyler has cultivated an art practice, producing kinetic sculptures that interrogate the relationship between materiality and movement. In this episode, Tyler sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about life and love off-the-grid, the California crowd factor, surfing in the elements, the Central Coast, how fatherhood has changed him, and the importance of stepping away from the world you know.

Nate Tyler

A preeminent figure in surf filmmaking, Jack McCoy started surfing when his family moved from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 1954. In the 1970s, he began experimenting with film and photography and, in 1976, released his first film, Tubular Swells, produced and directed with Australian photographer Dick Hoole. What followed was a four-decade run filming, directing, and producing classics of the surf genre—including Storm Riders (1982), Kong’s Island (1983), Bunyip Dreaming (1990), The Green Iguana (1992), Sabotaj (1998), The Occumentary (1999), Blue Horizon (2004), Free as a Dog (2006), and A Deeper Shade of Blue (2012)—defined via McCoy’s unparalleled water cinematography. In this episode, host Jamie Brisick talks to McCoy about the evolution of surf filmmaking, capturing emotion, mindsurfing his way through hepatitis, traveling, music, and working with a Beatle. Jack and Mark Occhilupo are hitting the east coast of Australia this May to celebrate the 25th anniversaries of The Occumentary and Occy’s 1999 World Title. Jack has remastered the film and it’ll be shown on the big screen for the first time ever. You can purchase tickets at jackmccoy.com.

Keala Kennelly

Download our free app to listen on your phone