SURFERMAG Interview: Occy on being a rock star, fatherhood, Curren, Irons, Slater, and a whole lot more.

SURFERMAG: Which brings me to an obvious question. Do you reckon you would have had a few more titles under your belt if the tour was in its current form years ago?
OCCY: (Laughs) Uhmmm…I don’t know…wow…it’s a good hypothetical, but probably not when Kelly was around. I might not have been that good of a tube rider anyway.

SURFERMAG: Oh please; you won the Pipe Masters when you were 17 and it was massive Pipe.
OCCY: (Laughs) Yeah right…Well jeez, you’ve got me thinking now.

Bass

SURFERMAG: This never crossed your mind before?
OCCY: Well it has…jeez…but I’m thinking maybe if I’d had Curren at Teahupoo instead of Bells that might have been good or Fiji (Laughs)…you’ve really got me thinking mate, but I don’t want to claim anything.

SURFERMAG: (Laughs) In an interview we did with Tom Curren a few months back he really came clean about how much you were in his head during his runs as world champion, which is something he never really let onto back then. What did you think of his comments and what was it like being on your side of the rivalry?
OCCY: It was funny y’know, because Tom and I were so opposite. He’s this very introverted guy and I’ve always been a bit more of an extrovert. I speak my mind. So we always had that yin and yang thing going.

SURFERMAG: The goofy vs. regular, the American vs. the Australian…
OCCY: Exactly…so when we had heats together I think we’d both be pretty psyched, and y’know, we had some good ones. He was all time. Those heats I had with him were incredible…the best of my life for sure.

SURFERMAG: Where did you first see Tom surf?
OCCY: I remember coming out of school once during my last year and seeing him surf just over the hill from where my high school was in Cronulla. He’d come by to stay with Jim (Banks) actually. The waves were about 6-foot and it was really hard to get out the back that day and there was nobody out except for him. He was absolutely unbelievable.

SURFERMAG: Really?
OCCY: Yeah, and this was a few days before the Beaurepairs event started, which he won, and he was really young then, about 18 or so, and just ripping on this board that had six channels. I still remember looking at his board wondering what was going on because he was surfing so unbelievable. I’d never seen someone have so much fun and make surfing look so good. I mean, I’d already been surfing, and I was hooked, but after that I remember thinking I just wanted to get that good.

SURFERMAG: The way the Aussies were dominating at that time it must have been fun to see somebody from a different universe?
OCCY: Yeah, well I hadn’t seen anyone surf half that good before, so absolutely, it was pretty enlightening.

JBay Baptism Ellis

SURFERMAG: You’re most quotable line of that era was ‘I just want to beat these American wankers.’ That comment really fanned the flames of the rivalry between the two surfing nations…which, mind you, is something most fans thought was a good thing.
OCCY: (Laughs) Yeahhh…but you know what, when I said that, I wasn’t talking about him, because he was nowhere near a wanker. I wasn’t talking about him at all. I was just…y’know that whole thing was pretty tongue in cheek.

SURFERMAG: Was the mood of the tour different back then?
OCCY: Oh yeah, those years were great, y’know. There was so much passion in what we were doing, and a lot of patriotism too, but even then most of us were still friends underneath it all. I mean we were all scraping to get by so we could keep surfing really. Tom was one of the only guys who was hanging solo, or with his wife Marie, so we didn’t see much of him, which is why I love to see him even today. But we have never even really spoken about all that stuff that went on. I only just heard about what he was thinking through you guys.

SURFERMAG: You mean you’ve never even approached him about joining his band or anything?
OCCY: (Laughs) That would be classic wouldn’t it…that would be really classic. (More laughs) Where were we…Oh, Tom was doing some gigs down in Australia and I didn’t get a chance to see him, but my mates told me he was all time…so I’m really hanging to see him. I heard him play at Kelly Slater’s celebrity event in Fiji, but he was just sitting on the drums backing up everything we’d done—and he was spot on with the drums, too, but I wanted him to take a turn at singing. I told him that…but he still hasn’t busted out a song for me. (Laughs)

SURFERMAG: Well, c’mon, that’s a lot of pressure.
OCCY: Yeah, it’s not like he’s going to go, ‘Yeah, O.K., you sit down for a minute here Occy and I’ll sing you a lullaby.

SURFERMAG: Well everyone knows you love singing, so that celebrity event must have been pretty fun for you, being that you had guys like Jackson Browne there with you?
OCCY: Oh, mate, it was soo fun. But actually, I was really nervous. Everyone had got up and done a number, and I’m just sitting in the background going, ‘I’m sooo not getting up,’ right? I figured it was just a little bit out of my league. But I was drinking a couple beers really fast just in case, because I had this strange feeling that I might get the call because I kind of got there late that night with my wife and baby on the island. But I still had no intention of getting up and then sure enough they started chanting, “Occy, Occy…” and I was just frozen, hiding behind this tree. But once I got up there I had about the best time I’ve ever had…up there on the mic. Just being with that company was amazing.

SURFERMAG: What were you singing?
OCCY: Ah, well…what did I sing? Ah yeah…well I did a couple of Van Morrison songs, and stuff like that. Then Kelly made up this classic ad- lib, it was kind of like a bootie call sort of tune…Anyway, Kelly started it, and I took over while G-Love backed it up. Actually, just the other day Kelly told me that G-Love really likes it and he wants to record it.

SURFERMAG: Shut up. OCCY: Serious mate. (Laughs) So I think we’re maybe going to do that in Hawaii this year, or maybe when he comes down to Oz. SURFERMAG: (Laughs) I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t be laughing. But hey…we’ll sample the CD in the magazine if you want.
OCCY: Yeah? That’d be awesome. If he wants to do it I’m into it.

SURFERMAG: Wow…So your dreams of a singing career are still very much alive?
OCCY: You never know mate, you just never know.