• Mark Occhilupo
• ‘My Hero’ by Foo Fighters
• Occy: The Occumentary, 1998
• Jack McCoy

“A movie that keeps springing into my mind for some reason is The Occumentary. It’s the fucking sickest movie…”

Brendon Gibbens’ face lights up at the mention of Jack McCoy’s classic film. “That was the first surf movie my Mum actually bought for me, for my Birthday. I don’t know how old I was, but it was the first surf movie I ever watched.”

“It’s so quirky and so cool and such a good story,” says Kai, “and it’s Occy and it’s funny and it’s some of Jack’s best work… There are a couple of sections in there that are just rad tear-jerking surf moments. Seriously, like when he’s surfing Bells, and the Foo Fighters — it’s like, the Foo Fighters are so lame, but it works so good in that movie, it’s so rad: [breaks into song] ‘There goes my hero…’ No one can pull that shit off, but Jack and Occy can pull it off.”

Wasn’t there another Foo Fighters song in the movie he did with Parko, Free As A Dog?

“Well that project was a little bit different. Yeah there was, there was one in the Andy-Rasta movie [Blue Horizons] too. That’s like his jam, Foo Fighters. But Occy was the one. That was the one that worked.”

Jack actually used two Foo Fighters songs in The Occumentary — the temerity! — the second being ‘Everlong’, which is the one playing in the background as Jack talks about the making of The Occumentary in the following video, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Surfing:

https://vimeo.com/67432958