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Jim Banks / Bali

Jim Banks was never convinced by the professional surf tour and left after a few years to dedicate his life to surfboard shaping and explore all of Indonesia, where he eventually settled in Uluwatu.

Who are you? Where are you living/surfing/shaping?
I did a friends workshop a little while ago and the description that came up for me was passionate explorer. If I look back at my life, even when I was a little kid, I would often go off into the Australian bush by myself, just exploring it.
So when I started surfing, it was pretty much the same. Off I would go and explore. Especially in Cronulla, where we had a lot of reef breaks it was a constant exploration to see what was possible, what was rideable.
With surfboard designing and building, it’s the same. It’s a constant exploration to discover what works, continually trying things to see what works.
Of course, exploration was very big thing for me here in Indonesia. I ended up pioneering a substantial part of the reef here at Uluwatu, just out of that nature of mine, to explore, to be curious to see what was surfable. And then that led to going off and pioneering a lot of other breaks in Indonesia. So it’s always been this thing of trying to find out what’s around the corner and what’s true.
I’ve also done the same thing of exploring just within life itself, just trying to understand myself and others around me and discover what’s true and what’s real. And what’s not. One of the things I’ve come to see is that there’s a lot of things that people assume to be true, but they’re not actually. So yeah, it all remains a constant intrigue to me to find out what is true and what is real.
These days, I live at Uluwatu, and as a shaper, it’s incredible because I basically have almost every type of wave under the sun at my fingertips, from tiny, incredibly soft, slow waves to massive heavy barrels. We got long walls, we got short peaks, we got days when it’s fat and soft, we got days when it’s punchy and hollow. As a shaper, it’s an incredible place to be able to continually test my boards. Even if I make a nine-foot gun, I don’t have to wait very long to test it here. So as a shaper, it’s a fantastic place to live. Obviously, it’s getting very busy these days, but I still find time for sessions on certain parts of the reef, I can still get days where I’m surfing by myself or with just three or four friends.

When and how did you start surfing?
As an Aussie kid, a lot of time was spent at the beach. The family would go to the beach on the weekend and hang out. My father was a keen body surfer, I don’t know how old I was when I started body surfing, maybe six or seven years old. By the time I was 12, I got a foam surfboard, and then that followed with a fiberglass surfboard.

When and how did you start shaping?
I started shaping about the same time because my very first board, the deck delaminated and so the glass pealed off the deck. My father and I cut it down and reshaped it and reglassed it. I’d actually bought it off a guy who lived around the corner who, of all things, was blowing blanks in his garage. So I started buying blanks off him and shaping my own boards at the age of 12. I spent my high school years coming home from school and going down under the house and making surfboards after school.

Do you remember the first board you shaped? How was it?
The first board I shaped was the cut down, and it was incredibly crude, I still have it. It’s terrible, there’s no rocker, there’s no curve in the plan shape. Extremely primitive surfboard, I don’t know how I surfed it.

Which surfer had the biggest impact on your shaping?
That would be me. Of course, I’ve always had guys that I’ve made boards for and team riders, but at the end of the day, it’s always been my own desire to push my own surfing and my own level of surfing that’s driven me to make boards that would perform better and better. I think for most of my surfing life, I’ve been frustrated that I couldn’t get the boards to perform how I wanted them to. I always felt a bit limited by the performance of the boards. But these days, it’s the reverse. I think I’m getting to a point where I’m struggling to keep up with the level of performance that I’m now getting from my boards.

Which is the best board you have ever shaped back in the days? Who for?
I don’t know if I’ve got an answer for that. I do remember making a board for Danny Wills for Sunset Beach, Hawaii. I just remember it was early days of the machines. The board just came off with this incredible rocker curve, just this beautiful feed in the rocker. I remember Danny saying it was the best board he had ever surfed at sunset.

Which was the most important era for you?

I think the 70’s was very influential for me. That’s when I set up my dream. Although it was the birth of professional surfing, the 70’s was very much about counterculture and exploration, of turning our back on the cultural norms of getting a job and working nine to five until you’re 60. I was much more attracted to ideas like going up the north Coast of New South Wales, finding an old farmhouse and living this beautiful, simple hippie lifestyle. That was much more attractive to me. The very first surf movie I saw was Morning of the Earth, that was very influential on me as well.


Who is your favorite surfer from the 60’s-90’s and why?
I think I’ve always been attracted to stylist surfers like Billy Hamilton, he was someone that I really loved his style, although he was before my time. I loved Jeff Hakman’s style. I used to look at pictures of him, there wasn’t a lot of footage in those days, so it was just pictures. But I just loved the way he looked on the board and his posture. Of course, Michael Peterson: incredible, super instinctive and unpredictable surfer. That’s what I really liked about his surfing.
I like surfers who have a really nice style. Someone like Shane Dorian, I really like the way he stands on his board and his posture and the way he surfs. Occy, he’s another one. He’s a phenomenal surfer. He’s got this incredible cat-like approach, the way he stands on his board and the way he approaches the wave.
Who else? Of course Laird, he’s such a pioneer, his whole thing at Jaws. Then with the foils and Teahupoo, incredibly influential surfer. I think just on surfing in general, you know, he has consistently changed our concepts of what’s possible and what’s real. So, you know, that’s sort of been my list of favourite surfers. I mean, I like watching anyone who has kind of that natural style.
I could probably ramble off a massive list of surfers. Tom Curren is another one who has this beautiful style and very precise technique.
Joel Tudor, I love the way he surfs. He rides these incredibly huge surfboards and makes it look so effortless in a way that really tips its hat to the history of surfing.
So, yeah, that would sort of be a very brief summary of the countless surfers that I that I like.

Who is your favorite shaper from the 60’s-90’s and why?
I really loved Dick Brewer’s boards, particularly the rocker and the beak nose. And of course, from him, it was Tom Parrish. I really loved his boards. As far as shorter boards go. I don’t know if I was really massively influenced by a lot of other shapers, mainly because I sort of had so many of my own ideas. I wasn’t really looking at what other shapers were doing. But you know, if I look around JS boards always look really nice. When I look at Matt Biolos boards, and I think he has a very similar aesthetic to myself. Rusty, I’ve always liked his boards. Phil Byrne is another shaper whose boards that I’ve always liked. I mean, basically, if I see any board that has a nice curve and a nice balance to it, You know, I’ll like it.
Oh, Michael Peterson, he had quite a few good design ideas that, I don’t know if he ever really got recognised for them, actually, but he had some interesting things that he did with the V and rocker, flipping the tail out behind the fins and things like that. And his rails, such nice rails that he used on his boards. There’s probably quite a few that I’ve forgotten there, but yeah, that would probably be a brief summary of the shapers that I like.

Last words:
I think we are very privileged to be surfers to enjoy the ocean. I think we’re very fortunate to be able to enjoy such an incredible experience. I really feel like the corporations kind of skewed surfing with so much focus on this whole competition and winning thing
when that’s not the essence of surfing. I feel like they took surfing, and instead of developing what could have become, like a music festival, they turned it into the battle of the bands. At the end of the day, it’s such a personal choice of which surfing we like.
I remember this one particular day at Currumbin when I used to live on the Gold Coast, which would have been in the eighties. There was a lot of the hot young kids in the water, trying to do as many turns as they could. And then this guy walked down to the point with an old single fin and a pair of cut off jeans. And this is way before the whole retro thing and all that, This is way before it. And so he paddled out and he took off on this wave and stood there and didn’t do a thing. Just stood there, and he just rode this wave all the way down the point across the river mouth and into Palm Beach. And I just I threw my hands in the air, it was the best surfing I’ve seen all day. He was just so present on the wave, he wasn’t thinking all this stuff and trying to be busy, he was just there, really, being at one with a wave. I don’t think he did a single turn. He just stood there magnificently and just rode this wave all the way down the point across the river mouth and into Palm Beach. I just thought it was just such a beautiful statement on really just feeling a wave and connecting with the ocean.
This whole thing of competition, saying that someone’s better than someone else is just personal taste, you know? Like we go to a music festival and we don’t say, Oh, that band’s better than that band. We just say, Oh, I like that band better.
I think surfing should be the same where the surfers should get paid to perform in an environment where they’re encouraged to go for it and take risks and not be penalised for taking risks, you know, and to just express their uniqueness rather than creating this kind of generic approach to racking up points in a heat. I think surfing got a bit lost there, you know? A lot of this was driven by the corporations and their quest to sell more boardshorts and more product and get more people in the ocean. I don’t know if that really did anyone a favour. Putting more people in the ocean. I think it would have been better for them to spend more money on creating more surf breaks rather than creating surf contests. I think that would have been a lot more beneficial for surfing.

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