ROB MACHADO – INTERVIEW FEATURE – CHRIS NELSON
If I won the heat and if I won the World Title, what would be my path? What would I have done? What would have been? It’s so interesting. I think that really solidified the true me. That’s who I am, and I’m totally ok with it.
Rob Machado – surf icon
THE IDEA
Chris Nelson was invited to interview surfing icon Rob Machado for an in-depth feature to coincide with the release of the award winning Momentum Generation movie.
THE RESULT
Written by Chris Nelson the main interview feature ran to six pages in Japan’s premiere surf culture magazine Surfin’ Life.
THE APPROACH
Chris sat down with Rob at the Huck Magazine offices, the day after the premiere of Momentum Generation in London. They spent an hour chatting about Rob’s life as a pro surfer, drawing on many of the pivotal moments in a career that has influenced the course of modern day professional surfing. The feature weaves together key events that Rob was involved in, drawing on his first hand recollections and honest insight, to assess not just the personal effects but also the impact he and his band of contemporaries – Kelly Slater, Shane Dorian, Ross Williams, Benji Weatherly, Taylor Knox, Pat O’Connel and filmmaker Taylor Steele had on wider surf culture.
Surfing in the 80’s was dominated by a legion of strutting alpha males; stocky, pigeon chested, sun-crisped, each confident that they were the best surfer on the planet. They went by monikers such as ‘Kong’, ‘Occy’ and ‘Pottz’. These were power surfers with power egos, charging huge waves on the North Shore’s gladiatorial arena. Punching boards, sometimes each other. Then as the 1990s dawned, a group of fresh faced teens drifted together in a small house overlooking Pipeline.