Surfbeat: A Decade Later

Summer is here and SURFBEAT is back after a ten year break.
SURFBEAT will once again explore the world of surfing through the lens of music, art and culture. What’s on, what’s new and what makes surfing and music a key part of our surf experience.
I recently interviewed master surf filmmaker Jack McCoy when he was in Torquay for a series of screenings of his films hosted by the Bells Beach Surf Film Festival.
Jack has been making award wining surf films for over 30 years. Music is always a feature of Jack’s films. He has worked with many of Australia’s top musicians to create killer soundtracks for his surf movies including the cult classic Green Iguana which featured Occy and a host of other top surfers.
Jack McCoy: The soundtrack to GREEN IGUANA was done exactly as I’ve done for all my movies. I’d just gone to Hawaii and spent three months in Hawaii and Mark Cunningham this friend of mine said ‘This guy comes out here every summer and he is in a band called the Celibate Rifles you ever heard of them?’
And I said No I wasn’t really a big punk guy, I might have heard of them but I wasn’t a fan of the Celibate Rifles and he said go and meet this guy Damian (Lovelock).
So I called up Damian one day and said; “I’m a friend of Mark’s and he wants us to meet and I met him and he was a surfer and we had a lot in common and I said; “What are you working on?” and he said; ‘I’ve got a new album I’m doing by myself outside of the band.” So he played me a few songs including the Green Iguana song and I thought it was very clever. And right there and then because I had this idea of trying to create this little story of these islands and things and the Green Iguana was the missing link I needed to tell the story. So I said; ‘That’s the name to my next movie, I’d like to use your song for it.”
And on the spot one of Australia’s cult surf films was born.
Written by John Foss