The surf film Waveriders has kicked up a stir, winning awards and rave reviews, while drawing the collective attention of the surfing world to the epic waves of the Irish coast. SE popped over to the Quiksilver Store on Oxford St, London to meet the film’s star Gabe Davies and his wife Lauren, who co-wrote this epic. Check out the trailer and the second part of the interview below. For part one, click HERE

Waveriders Trailer from Waveriders on Vimeo.

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SE: Were there any low points?
Lauren: There were a lot of cold moments.
Gabe: The most frustrating thing for us was, as surfers, because it was all shot on film not video. Joel had his vision that it was going to be super high-quality so that on a big screen it would hold its own, in slo mo, he wanted the details to be mint. That was really hard because you had to source the camera’s, the housing, ops and to find people with the skills to put that in the water. Some roles of film only last three minutes, so you can’t just burn the film, you have to go and change films in the dark room and you’re missing waves because of the technical difficulties.

SE: I guess patience was a pretty major factor.
Lauren: And then the Malloys, their low point was when they missed the big swell because they wanted it for years and two of them were best men at a wedding and the other was injured. They’d been there the whole way through and they couldn’t come. They were devastated.
Gabe: It was really sad.

SE: You’ll have to do a sequel.
Lauren: Yes

SE: Just with those two. You’ve got some pretty big players in the film, such as Kelly Slater and the Malloy brothers. How did that come about?
Gabe: Richie’s really tight friends with the Molloy’s, and he was really influential in getting them on board, and Kelly was more from us, because he’s a good friend ours, a friend from France.
Lauren: He’d just done his eighth world title and he needed a bit of a rest and he was calling us saying “how is it”? And he decided he was going to have a little jaunt. He would have liked to have stayed longer.

SE: What do you think of his latest performances in the ASP? Do you think he’s going to come back and take it?
Gabe: It’s kind of a shock isn’t it.
Lauren: I don’t think you can ever underestimate Kelly, perhaps sometimes he thinks too much about it, but he’s the best of the best really.
Gabe: It’s the worst start in his career.

SE: So the film focuses on George Freeth, the son of an Irishman, that re-introduces wave riding in Hawaii in the 20th Century. It’s only really the last 30 years that things have really kicked off in Ireland, why do you think this is?
Gabe: I think it’s the same as the rest of Europe really and probably the world, surfing’s just exploded.
Lauren: With the cold water destinations people don’t really realise you can surf there.
Gabe: The quality of wetsuits is so good, there are more people surfing year round.

SE: Do you think the people have been pushed out of crowded spots, and are looking for the more remote locations.
Lauren: Yeah, like Kevin Norton, that’s what made him go in search of uncrowded waves, because California was like Europe is now, with the influx of surfers. So he went in search of waves and ended up in Ireland.