Surfing, music and art. These three words inspire revolutions and lifestyles. They have also inspired Andrew Crockett to spend the best part of his adult life, compiling books and nurturing a website, which captures the essence of what it means to live these passions. We were lucky enough to catch up with the ever enigmatic and eccentric Crockett, about the up coming release of his latest project, Switch Foot Reloaded.

We were also lucky enough to get a sneak peak and some of the imagery going into the new book. So kick your feet up at work and enjoy the words below and the pics above.

EmpireAve: How long has it taken to compile the new book?

AC: It is kinda hard to put it into hours, weeks, months and years…if the time it took was a piece of string I rekon that piece of string would stretch from Earth out to the moon and back again how that fits into 4 years of my life, I am not sure.

EmpireAve: Who are some of the contributors that you are most psyched about?

AC: Peter Troy comes to mind…you know, he died during the making of the switch-foot re-loaded book and I rekon he would be totally stoked with how it has turned out. Back in the early 1960’s when lots of people were coming into Australia by boat and the ten pound deal, Peter Troy got on one of those boats and left Australia, I think that itself says a lot about the man. Troy said so much interesting stuff and definitely the most well travelled man I will ever meet in my lifetime. Did you know he hitch-hiked from Tierra Del Fuego (southern tip of South America) to the North Pole? Who does that

There are 90 contributors to the book and I am psyched on all of them, that is why they are in the book, they have inspired me on some level, there is crew from OZ, NZ, England, Africa and the US.

A guy like Bob Weeks is inspirational to me, he started taking photos and developing them when he was ten years old. The interesting bit with Bob Weeks is that he had no motivation coming from his parents or family, he just got into it when he was a kid and has been into it his whole life…he has won photography awards around the World and needless to say, his early surfing stuff is pretty special. Bruce Usher is another older guy who is more passionate than most people half his age, continues to take inspiring photographs, producing books and loving his life.

I am psyched about Greenough’s contribution, he just tells it as it is. In the first book we talked about the pointy nose surfboards and look, it is 5 years later and even Kelly Slater has tuned in and refined the nose on his own hand crafted boards. I don’t think there is one human alive who understands what Greenough was doing with surfboard design in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, these boards were under five feet, high aspect fin, carbon fibre, three planning surfaces and variable rocker. Greenough doesn’t care for any of it these days, it is too crowded to use high performance boards, he is busy making rescue boats, short films and surfing everyday.

EmpireAve: Do you have anything special in store for the launch of the book?

AC: There will be a party in Sydney for sure, planning it for mid October in town with nice food, some music, maybe some visuals, but definitely the book to hand around. There is a surfing museum opening in Queensland, in Tugan (opens June 27th) and we hope to have a night there as summer approaches. If time/money permits I will make a mission down to Torquay to see some friends and probably do something in town. I am going to England in September to see some family and hopefully get some waves in Ireland, we might do a show over there with some music and stuff.

EmpireAve: Do you have any section in the book that was particularly difficult/interesting to pull together? Why?

AC: Difficult and interesting hmmmm, the difficult bit with what I am doing, being independent from the mainstream media and digging into historical significance in relation to surfing, is that it requires research and that research usually results in people talking and that talk might result in the story you have been working on for a year coming out in the latest thrash and crash surfing magazine…it usually comes out in some sort of diluted and biased interpretation though, so the myths surrounding history are perpetuated and the heroes they have created live on.

Interesting sections to pull together…Meeting a guy in Africa who wrote to me and said he loved what I was doing, loved the first book and wanted to help with the second book. That initial interest from him resulted in care packages sent to and fro and uncovering some amazing stuff that he had access to, but moreso just realizing there is a guy on the other side of the World kind of living a similar existence to myself and real passionate about the pure side of surfing.

EmpireAve: When you die would you rather come back as a unicorn or a dragon? Why?

AC: I already feel like a dragon…I kinda sit at home in my cave and come out once in a while and breathe some fire, then retreat into the cave. As far as dying and coming back is concerned, I don’t think I am coming back for a while.

EmpireAve: What’s wrong with the world today?

AC: Don’t get me started. There are too many humans, seriously think about it. When my father was born, 1945 the World population was 2.5 Billion, 60 years later it is pushing towards 7 Billion and growing exponentially. The majority don’t know how to grow a potato, children grow up in childcare centres and are not disciplined, products that should last a decade last a year and are not fixable, profit has won over quality, Sunday family dinners are a thing of the past and you need public liability insurance to throw a good party…As I said, don’t get me started, I rekon pretty much everything that humans have invented or introduced as a social normality is short sighted and in most cases wrong, except maybe for a few things like…the Greenough fin, the double bass and solar hot water.

EmpireAve: Enough focusing on the negatives, what’s good about life on Planet Earth?

AC: The sunrise here this morning with a misty valley, nature, good health, the Ocean, love, parents family & friends, dress up parties, the archives of music, fresh vegetables, herbs, green herbs, planting a tree, seeing friends grow up and get married, being in love, seeing your friends have children and it changing them, a glass of water, a cold beer after working in the sunshine, the sunshine, the salt, the sand in your toes, unridden waves, watching the sunrise at the beach and getting stoked, art, artists, the new wave of open mindedness, the cracks appearing in the walls of materialism, and oh man the waves lately!

Seriously though, there is goodness everywhere if you can see it, and I guess there is darkness everywhere too if that’s what you are looking for.

EmpireAve: How much is ‘Switch Foot re-loaded’ going to cost in store? When will it be delivered ready to purchase?

AC: Not sure if it will be in stores…might only be available out of a caravan. It will be available on the switch-foot.com website by October 12th, delivered to your door in an express bag. Because there are so many contributors and so many royalities, it will be around $90 this time…and the re-print of the first book will be the same. We sold it too cheap the first time around.

EmpireAve: Any parting words about the Switch Foot project?

AC: Just a lot of appreciation for the crew who helped me. I also have to thank Ryan Heywood for introducing me to the ‘empire ave’ crew.

Switch-Foot back in 2003 was labeled ‘the other side of surfing’ and it seems to have blossomed over the last 5 years with free stuff on the internet that we can all check out and the print media not having the only say, it is great. There are two types of surfers, one is into the contest trick surfing thing and the other is into the flow and the artform and it is as simple as that.

There is a lot happening at switch-foot, we haven’t really added anything to our website that isn’t in the first book, and pretty soon the website will change gears and have lots of newness, about 50 new contributors, interesting audio interviews from the years of work, some short films and an internal blog-type thing hopefully with lots of information based material to help crew into shaping boards, taking photographs and maybe even growing a potato.

If you want any more info on Swith-Foot be sure to check out Andrew’s website by clicking here. You can also get the chance to WIN one of the new Switch Foot Reloaded books by being the first to complete and crazy hard surf history crossword Andrew has on his blog. Do you have what it takes?