 Professional surfer Timmy Curran tests new waters as singer/songwriter
Some people must have some good karma. I mean really good. If your morning routine involves reaching for a timecard to punch in your daily nine to fiver after your daily bout of numbing traffic, you may not want to continue reading. This is the story of another pro-surfer turned pro-singer that’s become an epidemic in music lately, giving the layman another reason to be envious. (You can almost hear them say: “Can’t you just be famous for one thing?”) It’s a rarity to make a living off of something you’re passionate about in today’s grumpy-at-the-gas-pump world. But if you’re like Timmy Curran, you may alternate between standing in the green room while getting barreled in exotic waters and standing in the green room backstage before a show—all with some rewarding moolah adding to the fun.
“Music was a surprise, so part of me feels like I got thrown into something I dreamt about doing but never thought would happen,” the Oxnard native tells me by way of Bali, where he’s shooting a music video directed by Dustin Humphrey (who teamed with Taylor Steele for Sipping Jetstreams). “If this would have happened when I was in my early 20s, it wouldn’t have been good for me due to my age and all that was going on at that time.” All that was going on was that he was fulfilling the dream of groms everywhere, carving his place in surf history. Sponsored by McCrystal surfboards at the age of 11 and competing professionally by 16, Curran’s early adulthood was spent touring the international surf circuit landing covers and full-page spreads for magazines featuring his pioneering aerial tricks, culminating in his most distinctive claim to fame, 2005’s air-catching, eye-catching 360 surf maneuver now known as “The Flip.” Upside down flip, that is. It seems cultivating your reputation as surf icon can be a full time endeavor. So where does the music come in? Leave it to flat surf to get a surfer to put down his rip stick and pick up the guitar. “Horses On The Range,” one of the first songs the 30-year-old ever recorded when his bathroom doubled as his recording studio, was written during a spell of no swell in 2005 when Curran looked to the handy, travel-friendly acoustic guitar for solace. “I was in Brazil for a WCT event,” he recounts. “The waves were flat and I’d been sitting in my room for a few days because of pouring rain. I was coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t having as much fun on tour and was thinking about taking some time off. Surfing on tour is a great job and I can’t complain at all, but you do get a bit homesick and I was losing my competitiveness as well. While I was in my room I was visualizing the freedom of horses running wild on the range. It was almost like I was watching a movie in my head about total freedom.” Soon after, “Horses On The Range” underwent the studio-polish treatment for a big screen debut in the Al Merrick documentary Flow. “Josh Landen, who directed Flow, is a friend of mine,” Curran explains. “He asked if he could use the song for the Tim Curren section. I remember counting down the days until the premiere because I couldn’t believe I might have a song in a movie!” That might not seem so momentous to music industry snobs, but surf movie soundtracks have incited some plentiful music careers. Ever heard of a guy named Jack Johnson? You get my point. Artfully sentimental movies in the same vein as the Moonshine Conspiracy series of surf flicks—disparate to the thong-flinging, “let me give the bird to the camera again in case you didn’t see it the previous 100 times I did it” Irons brothers-type, punk-fueled flicks, have engendered a new connotation of the genre surf music. Jack Johnson has been the reigning king and now Curran is joining court. (Johnson even penned a song about him not-so-ambiguously titled “Timmy Curran,” which sits in the internet vault of lesser-known tunes.) Like a fairytale whirlwind, which all musicians blow out birthday candles wishing to get swept up in, Curran’s musical career started on a whim and just wouldn’t stop. Next came the Foo Fighters a-knockin’. Imagine that, you don’t even have an album yet and you’re invited to open up for the Foos on their 2006 acoustic tour. You’re invited to share the stage with someone who shared the stage with Kurt Cobain! (Reread introduction if you’re feeling depressed, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.) Though inexperienced and intimidated, Curran rounded up a band made up of close buddies and hit the road. “I’m excited that I got thrown into playing in front of large crowds early on because once I got past those shows, it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” he says of those massive-show fears. “Even though during the entire Foo Fighters tour I could barely sleep at night because I was stressing about messing up, I loved getting to play for so many people.” A veteran in front of the camera and crowds, Curran did just fine on the road and realized his potential to make music his second profession. Word Of Mouth, his debut full-length album he describes in true singer/songwriter fashion as “my journal about everyday life, love, struggles and heartache,” is being re-released this week and was initially up for grabs as a free download on his website. “I wanted to do something different and see how it went in the surfing community before I took the next step,” he explains in reference to the internet release. “I also remember having Jack Johnson’s mini disc recordings and spreading them around to all of our friends. It seemed to be such an organic way of sharing music.” Rather than his cutting edge, aggressive style of shortboarding in the water, Curran’s dry-land musical incarnation is imbued with, shall we say, his inner tranquil longboarder. Though not necessarily revolutionary like those infamous surf skills, he upholds the mild-mannered tradition of poignant pop rock well. Word Of Mouth, which evolves his earthy, acoustic EP Citsuca from porch-front folk stylin’ to a refined batch of ornate songs ready for radio, was produced by Ian Nickus, with a few numbers getting a helping guitar hand from Foo Chris Shiflett. It’s a satisfyingly sweet debut in the musical arena as Timmy Curran launches himself into more than just big waves. “I really would love to make surfing and music my job in some way for the next 10 years,” he admits. “There are surfers like Tom, Occy and Sunny who are really inspiring for surfing into their late thirties and later. With music I have so much to learn. I love writing and playing it, so of course my dream is to do it for a living even longer than surfing. We will see.” Word Of Mouth is set for re-release on July 22.
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