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SURFERMAG.COM ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

SURFERMAG.COM: And how was it that they were influential?

RICH PAVEL: Well, Wilbur had a really strong spirit. Just like Stevie (Lis), had a really defined spirit, and a lot of these guys who were formative in the water and the lineup, that’s how that is. I think of (Mike) Doyle as that way.

SURFERMAG.COM: So you marched down as a 17, 18-year-old?

RICH PAVEL: No, no, like 14 or 15.

SURFERMAG.COM: And you got your first piece and you did your mojo on it?

RICH PAVEL: And it was a Fish. Because the whole thing was, you’re a kid, you’re so fired up you want to make the best board ever! You’re just gonna make the best ever. It was at that time when the Fish design was real big down here. And to some people’s way of being, it still is about the Fish.

SURFERMAG.COM: And how did that board turn out?

RICH PAVEL: It rode good.

SURFERMAG.COM: Best ever? (laughter)

RICH PAVEL: (laughing) I guess at that time, yeah.

SURFERMAG.COM: How big was that board?

RICH PAVEL: 5’ 6”.

SURFERMAG.COM: Wouldn’t it be neat to still have that?

RICH PAVEL: I still have that one.

SURFERMAG.COM: You still have that?

RICH PAVEL: I still have that.

SURFERMAG.COM: That’s great.

RICH PAVEL: And it’s funny because I didn’t know where it went. It was gone for like, years, and then I saw a kid walking with it one day and I was like, “Hang on, no way.” I traded him a board for it, he got a really good board for it. A brand new board for it, but I got my original Fish.

SURFERMAG.COM: Tell me about the Fishes back then. You know, the story goes Steve(Lis) stood up on a kneeboard, actually, Stevie’s kneeboard, right? That first version of the Fish was out of a kneeboard blank and the characteristics of a kneeboard were inherent in the design, no?

RICH PAVEL: Very much. I don’t know that there was such a thing as a kneeboard blank back then. Most of the boards that were made were made out of a blank that was done by Jim Turner. There was a series, a 6’ 11”-A and 6’ 11”-B, and a lot of really good boards came out of those blanks.

SURFERMAG.COM: So you had to really cut that blank down to get a 5’ 6”?

RICH PAVEL: But if you think about it a lot of guys were taking longboard blanks and making two boards. You know, that was like the two-for-one special blank. And Stevie Lis, and Stan Pleskunas. They would drive up to Orange County, to some foam place, and Stevie’s mom would take them, and they’d say, “Yeah, we need some foam,” and they’d make bellyboards, or whatever kids felt like doing. So all this stuff was innocent. And it’s kind of bitchin how it was brought into existence that way. And so to answer your question, it wasn’t a cut-and-dry, “Right, I’m gonna get the blank and I’m gonna get the right blank.”

SURFERMAG.COM: What happened between the time when you were 14, when you did your first board, and the time when you said, “Okay this is how I’m going to make my living?” How much time was that?

RICH PAVEL: That’s a really good question. It might have actually come before I made the first board. I was doing ding repair like any number of rats started out, you know [laughs]. I was born at the old Scripps Hospital down at 417 Nautilus. It was just a totally different scene compared to what a lot of what Southern Californians have grownup with. It was just different; I can’t describe it in words in the course of an interview. I think you do understand what I’m talking about.

SURFERMAG.COM: I do, La Jolla, San Diego for that matter, it wasn’t Huntington Beach.

RICH PAVEL: Yeah, exactly. So, I was doing some ding repair on some boards…

SURFERMAG.COM: …Wait a minute, are you saying that you were born to be a shaper?

RICH PAVEL: I have kind of come to grips with that in a sense because there were incredible expectations within my family for standards of excellence and professionalism. And there were really, really some radical head-to-heads between my folks and I. I remember distinctly my mother, almost with her head in her hands, and at the same time just like firey anger, like, “You will not turn out this way,” and saying stuff like, “Do you want to end up like Skip Frye?” Which I don’t think Skip turned out too bad [laughs]. But at the time, you’ve got to remember, she was dropping me off at the back of Select Surf Shop and Skip was living in the shack back behind there.

SURFERMAG.COM: This might have been a time when you didn’t want to turn out like Skip Frye.

RICH PAVEL: But the point wasn’t to emulate or be like somebody in the sense of socio-economic, keeping up with the Joneses type of thing. It really was a question of a way of being, a certain way of being. And I had always, not necessarily admiration, but certainly respect, if not admiration, for the way these people, Skip, were.

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