Q & A: Jamie 'Sterls' Sterling - Into the Mainstream

Did you grow up competing?
I did NSSA and HASA as a grom. I sort of liked it, but not so much because it was always in small waves. But it taught me a lot. It was fun socializing on the weekends. It taught me to be a better surfer because I was surfing against the cream of the crop from Hawai‘i. I never really liked the feeling I got from the other kids when I was surfing with them though. It seemed like a lot of parents pushed their kids way too hard at a young age and for me, my parents weren’t super aggressive with it so I think that’s why I’m still super hungry for it. You don’t want to push your kids too hard. You want to be there for them but you want to let them do it themselves.

Sterls, expressing himself at Pipeline Masters 2006.

Did you ever have dreams of being a pro on the WCT?
No. I always dreamed of doing it differently, like it’s never been done before. I’ve been sticking to my passion and it’s been working out well. I’ve gotten to do a lot of things no one has ever done. I worked hard for it though for a lot of years. But it’s worth it. I’m right where I want to be in my career and life.

When did you realize you were addicted to big waves?
Probably at 14 or 15 years old, surfing big Sunset, which at the time was 10 to 12 feet. Just catching waves on the same day that Kelly Slater caught waves, ya know? Knowing that you were out there when the best surfers in the world were out, and you were handling and surviving it. Being able to go brag about it to your friends who were playing in the shore break. I was doing something my friends weren’t doing. I was paddling out on my 7’4. I had a quiver of four boards back in the day: a 7’4, 6’8, 6’3 and 5’8 and that’s all I needed.

Could you describe the feeling to those who would never dare ride where you ride?
It’s like driving your car super fast on a super curvy road, with nobody on the road. So you can drive the whole road, switch lanes, you don’t have to stay in your lane. You feel that gravity tugging and pulling on you. It’s so satisfying to get the wave, complete it and touch the sand when you get back to the beach—all your endorphins pumping. It starts from like four days before the swell hits to a week after, the dopamine in your body is ignited and so like, for 10 days you’re in a state of bliss.

Um…what is this Deep Throat Award you won at the Billabong XXL Awards?
It’s a porno I made. [Laughs] Nah, it’s like the most committed guy, trying the hardest, charging the hardest, something along those lines. The reason why I think they gave it to me is because I was in Chile on a trip and they called the Red Bull contest on in South Africa, so I flew last minute into Cape Town the morning of the event. Landed there at 9 am, the contest was already going by the time I got there. I ended up having to surf my heat at 10:30 am. So I went straight from the airport to the harbor, changed, put on my 4/3 gloves, hood, boots, packed up my 9’4—I actually already had that waxed—I was pretty prepared because I knew what I was gonna have to do. Slid right onto the zodiak, drove out to the mother boat and surfed the heat, ended up surfing the contest the whole day, and made the final that day. The waves were really nice: 15 to 18 feet, glassy, sunny day.

And you also won the Surfline Overall Performance Award?
I was up for two: biggest paddle-in and overall performance and I’m really stoked I won that award. It emphasizes on the guy who is paddling and towing at the most wide range of spots around the world throughout the year. I’m 50-50. I like paddling. I like towing. So it suits my persona.

It’s been quite a year. Awards. Your first contest win. And I hear you’re a businessman now. What’s going on with Pipeline Posse?
We’re bringing it up to a broader scale. Basically we’re gonna rival Quiksilver and Billabong and any other great surf company that’s been around for years. We have a really good backer. And it’s gonna be really good quality clothes. It’s a lot of hands-on. I’ve been learning a lot of business. We’re trying to mix saltwater with Harvard. Braden, J-Fred, Flynn and the rest of the guys who surf Pipe are the salt water, and the Harvard are the guys in California doing the designs and Rick, the investor.

The Posse goes corpo.
It’s my company. It’s our company. It’s nice to say that. It’s a really great feeling knowing we have some security now as professional surfers. Now being with Pipeline Posse, we are really blessed. We have a lifetime agreement with this company. It’s always been a two-year deal, a one-year deal and then when December comes around, you’re not really sure where your bread-and-butter is gonna come from next year. With this company, we’re going to be able to have endless amounts of fun out here on the North Shore for years to come.

So what’s the first step in taking over the surf universe?
We’re working on a lot of big stuff. We’re gonna be doing clothes off the bat. Our online stores will launch soon. We will do some movies, bigger TV production stuff down the line. We will also endorse other people’s products, cross-branding Pipeline Posse with another brand, things we use on the daily as pro surfers. Not only are we bringing more people into the Posse, we’re advertising in every magazine, we have a website, we have our own clothes factory in LA. We have people in the Posse behind desks now!

So you’re cool with Joe Redneck from Kansas sporting Pipeline Posse gear?
You don’t have to be a really good surfer at Pipe. You’re part of the Posse when you’re friends with one of us, or you like Pipeline or your passion is surfing. It’s not a closed-door, VIP kind of company. We’re basically marketing the best guys at Pipeline, doing what we love to do. We’re still getting mixed reviews. For some reason, people are afraid to put on a Pipeline Posse T-shirt. They think we’re like, bad boys or something. But we’re not—we’re just basically an entity of the best surfers at Pipeline.

Well, the majority of consumers have a North Shore and Blue Crush education on the scene, so they may be afraid of the “regulating” aspect.
We’re the best guys out at Pipe and we want to make it safe for us and anyone else in the world coming to test their skills at Pipe. We just want everyone to enter and leave the water safely, and that’s what we enforce.