BRA BOYS
The Often Maligned Surf Brotherhood's New Movie

Abberton’s surfing prowess earned him recognition long before he made headlines for legal troubles. Today, his surfing skills are still as sharp as ever, and he’s eager to put them to use.

When Jai got out, it was incredible. It’s what we’d dreamed of. The first surf back together with me and Jai and Sun was insane. Jai had just been found not guilty, and just to have each other free was insane. I still had charges against me, but Jai was free and that was all that mattered to me. And the brothers were back together. We were at Gnaraloo, and the first surf Jai had was at like 12- to 15-foot Gnaraloo. The first wave he gets is this big massive drop, and I’m just paddling over the wave yelling at him, “Go, you pussy!” He just paddles back out screaming his head off. We were laughing for days. It was an amazing feeling.

Respect
My Hawaiian friends stood by me all the way. Like the Irons boys, they were completely there for me, ringing me up every week. Kai Garcia, the Rothmans, Brock Little, all those guys were really concerned about me. After those first years of going to Hawaii and having dramas [Koby famously went toe-to-toe with Johnny-Boy Gomes, refusing to back down], and them seeing that I was a man who stood up for myself, they respected that. Kai’s become like a big brother. You don’t come across too many 275-pound gentlemen...maybe 225-pound, he probably wouldn’t like me saying he’s 250. [Laughing.] There’s a lot of similarities between those guys and us, for sure. They come here and go into the pub and drink beers and hang out and party like they’re one of us. They’re just ready to rock, whatever happens.

A Break Called Ours
Ours is a gnarly reef. For how heavy it is, it’s a surprise no one’s been hurt...properly hurt. There’s been plenty of stitches—there’s stitches every surf—but no one’s died, and the guys have been pulling into some pretty heavy ones out there. It’s such a scene, though, all the boys on the rocks screaming off their heads, yahooing, then you got the rocks themselves. Everyone thinks there’s a bad vibe out there and it’s all trouble, but you’re going to get teased out there before you’re going to get bashed. It’s such a small take-off zone, everyone can keep an eye on everyone else. It’s hard to slip under the radar. I think more people are hesitant about going out, not because they’re afraid of getting beaten up, but they’re more worried about getting the shit ripped out of them if they don’t charge, y’know what I mean? Because you’re right there, right in the thick of it, and if you pull back on one you’re not going to get another one.

Recent Riots in the Streets
What happened in Cronulla a few months ago was the most cowardly thing I’ve ever seen. It was disgusting. Three thousand people beating up four blokes. And then all those kids getting arrested, then locked up and going straight into protection. It was something that I said that got quoted in the paper [that sparked the spread of the riots from Cronulla to Maroubra]. What I actually told the guy when he spoke to me was, “The Bra Boys police the area but everyone’s welcome.” Do you think the reporter put in the last bit about everyone being welcome? It dropped off. Then he rang me and said, “I’m really sorry about that,” and I said, “Mate, a hundred cars got smashed because you left off the end of a sentence.” I was here [in Maroubra] a couple of nights when we were waiting for the retaliation, and there were 500 to 1,000 people in the streets with knives, bats and guns, and I said to Sunny, “We gotta stop this.” There would have been people dying. If those guys [the Middle Eastern gangs] had turned up that night they would have had the same weapons. It would’ve been a bloodbath. And because I was in the thick of it and because I knew how both sides were thinking, we were either going to see a lot of Australians die (and when I say Australians I mean both sides), or we can use a bit of our pull and stop it.

Hold Down
Going to jail didn’t scare me. I wasn’t worried about it. I’ve been in worse places than jail I think. But I hated the thought of being away from friends, family and my girl. There was about 30 seconds of hell because the first thing [the judge] said was, “Koby Abberton, I am going to sentence you to nine months in prison.” So there I am thinking, all right, this is it, I’m going in and I’ll just have to take it on. That 30 seconds felt like an hour. Then the judge goes, “But I am going to suspend that sentence.” I just thought, fark, I’m out of jail! Then I was thinking, after three years of mental torture I can’t believe you still want to play with my head! But I understood it. It’s their intention to scare you and make you realize how close you were to going inside.

Abberton on his pilgrimage in his native Australia.

Losing It All
It comes down to one thing: I come from nothing, I can go back to nothing. I know how to live without money and if I’ve got to do that now then so be it. When I was a young kid I pretty much lived on the street with nothing. As long as I have something to eat...which is sometimes hard at the moment [laughs]. People were saying to me, “You were making good money the last five years,” and I’d say, “I don’t give a f---. It’s only money. It’s only more money to spend on drinking and partying.” Having none might be good for me. I’ll be back bigger and better than ever in no time. The things we’re working on at the moment could make us millions. The documentary’s going really good. The footage we’ve got is ridiculous. We’ve got video of brawls, 20 on 20 in the backstreets of Maroubra, and everything you’ve heard about and read about is on it.

A New Mate
Russell just rang me up. He said, “Koby, it’s Russell Crowe here.” I thought it was one of me mates and I told him to get f---ed and hung up on him. He e-mailed me on the computer and I wrote back, “Whoever this is, stop f---ing around!” Then a young Bra Boy kid who plays for Souths [South Sydney Rabbitohs, the Australian rugby league team that Crowe just bought for $3 million] goes, “Brah, Russell’s been trying to contact you.” I go, what! Then it all clicked and I went, shit. Mate, he’s just like one of the boys. He’s risking big money and his reputation hanging out with us. He’s one of those people who can walk into any conversation and be comfortable with it. He can just deal with it. He comes down to the pub with me on a Friday and there’s 50 of the boys in there going mad and he just sat there sucking schooners with us, being one of the boys.

Over the Ledge
All the shit that’s gone down in the last few years has just made me want to go harder. It’s made me see that life is short. It’s made me worry a lot more about the kids around here. It’s made me realize how easily life can change living in a place like this. I started the Mavis Abberton Foundation [in memory of Koby’s grandmother, who passed away last year]. It’s for kids with heroin-addicted parents and kids whose parents are in jail. When I was a kid if it wasn’t for surfing I’d be in jail for life. I know that now. In jail or dead. So I just want to go out West and around here and get kids to the beach and show them that the beach lifestyle is a savior. Maroubra Beach is a mum and dad to thousands of kids.