For a 1986 Surfing magazine profile, Sam George interviewed Dave Parmenter and also accompanied the third-year world tour pro to many of that year's contests. "With all his eccentricities," George wrote in his intro, "Dave Parmenter may be the most interesting surfer in the world." Parmenter was 24 at the time. Two years later, while still at the top of his game, he left the tour to become a full-time boardmaker.

IN THE BLEACHERS AT THE 1985 OP PRO, HUNTINGTON BEACH


Look at these guys. [Points to a group of pro surfers milling around in the official competitors area.] This isn’t a surf contest, this is more like a Hollywood audition. Everybody is just standing around waiting to be discovered. Just think. Right now, 

 is going on, a mere three hundred miles up the coast the very same waves are wrapping into Sand Dollar Beach and peeling off perfectly and nobody's there to ride them. I hate this. I hate being here. I don’t need this. I’m so out of place here, I might just go home right now.

ON NOT GOING TO AUSTRALIA DURING HIS FIRST YEAR AS A PRO


I didn’t want to go and be in feudal bondage when I got home because of all the money I borrowed. I was surfing alright at the time, but I didn’t have any confidence. I knew I’d get blown out of the water and then I’d be just like the rest of the would-be California pros who now have night jobs as waiters. They go into debt then give up after a year. I wanted to make it a long, slow process, so that when I was ready, I was really ready.


I’d work all week at Central Coast, pack up everything into my piece of crap car, drive south, sleep on somebody’s kitchen floor, wake up, go win some money, then drive back home and start again.


I’m working to the point where I don’t need a sponsor. I wear stuff because I like it, and survive by winning. I hate the sponsor game. For a lot of guys, sponsorship has become more important than surfing. I don’t need sponsors. I surf better when I’m broke anyway.



He puts a sugar-coating over what was a good hardcore surfing style. He has all these contrived breakdancing moves. It's this thin veneer on one of surfing’s best talents. I can’t help but not like it. It’s undeniable that Curren had a tremendous influence, but I hate seeing anyone propped up as a demigod.


I don’t really respect anyone in California. I don’t think they’re hardcore anymore, though I’ll probably get expatriated for saying that. The last bastion of individuality seems to lie with the older surfers. For many of them their whole life is still dedicated to finding and riding good waves. Now take Mike Parsons. He’s one of the most hardcore surfers I’ve ever met, but in a different way. It’s a reflection of himself that he’s dedicated to. The values are just different. I remember getting home from South Africa, everyone’s friends met them at the airport and they had the new issue of the magazine. Before they said anything, they didn’t even hug each other, they were clustered around the latest surf mag, asking who got what coverage and what sticker was on whose board. They didn’t even talk about the waves they’d experienced, like ‘Oh, Jeffery’s Bay was unreal.’ They just wanted to see the magazine.


It’s obvious that if they’re ever going to popularize it, the girls are going to have to start performing in the nude.


I want to be there [on the world tour] to make a statement. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization, and that’s why you see so much middle-of-the-road surfing going on right now. I’ll stand against that. My influences are from a past era. In the '70s, style was how you looked on a wave; how you sat in the critical part, how your body moved. Nowadays style is limited to how fast you can pump your board—that's it. If [any of the new pros] ever put it up on a rail, I think I’d faint. But it’s not like I want a following, a bunch of kids copying my style—they couldn’t. My style isn’t a style, it’s a tradition.


Sometimes I feel like moving away to Australia, marrying a girl with terminal cancer, and living there awhile.

[Photos: Cindy Hackworth, Peter Brouilett]

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