There can be no denying the phenomenon that is Robert Kelly Slater. Few will argue with the notion of greatest competitive surfer of all time, and a quick google search of the stats of Jordan, Tyson, Bolt, etc. will reveal a compelling argument for greatest athlete in any sport, ever.
But, without meaning to downplay his myriad of achievements outside of the competitive arena, it is also hard to refute that Slater’s success has occurred, largely, within the confines of The System. Indeed, this is a huge part of the man’s genius. From an early age Kelly had mastered competitive surfing in the way a champion chess player can demolish an unsuspecting opponent in a few moves, all whilst adhering to the stipulations of a strict, complex rulebook.
But once in every generation comes another worldly talent so far ahead of the curve that their surfing sends shockwaves reverberating through the established order. Freakish prodigies who seem to operate in a different plane, and who challenge the status quo to such an extent that the powers that be are never quite sure what to do with them.
“I was so pumped”, says San Clemente local, Matt ‘Archy’ Archbold, as he harks back to the early 80s, to the days when he qualified for the-then ASP World Championship Tourat the age of just 16. “I was ready, but I don’t think they were ready (for me).”
Born and raised on the California coast-line, the naturally shy and unassuming Archy says he got into surfing, “Because my brother said, if you don’t surf, you’re a kook’,” he laughs.
Honing his skills at San Clemente’s T-Street Beach as part of a pack of extremely talented mega-groms including Gavin and Shane Beschen, Mike Parsons, Dave Eggers, Dino Andino and fellow aerial whiz kid Christian Fletcher, there can be little doubt that Archy was an immediate stand-out. Eager to prove to his older brother that he wasn’t a kook, Archy says growing up surfing amid such an impressive grommet-class was like a “friendly competition, but you wanted to be the one ripping harder”.
While Fletcher was turning heads with his aerial abilities (at a time when very few surfers were going above the lip), Archy could match him in the air but also brought a stylish aggression to his carves and a phenomenal ability to thread the tube, a skill he would later come to perfect at Off The Wall(a break that is now synonymous with the name Archy).
Surf journalist, historian and curator of the online Encyclopedia of Surfing, Matt Warshaw, remembers grommet Archy’s talent on full display at T-Street in the 80s.He says Archy was “…unfairly pigeon holed” with Fletcher as a sort of “radical, progressive, new-breed package thing. It was hard not to think of them in the same breath” but remembers Fletcher the (aerial) ‘specialist’ and Archy the ‘stylist’.
“I loved watching Matt Archbold surf, for the same reasons I loved watching Tom Curren surf. Matt’s surfing was beautiful from start to finish. His flow and the way he put moves together, he was a genius.
“I always took from other people’s style I liked but used it my own way”, says Archy, citing 1989 ASP World Champion, Martin Potter, as perhaps his most important influence. “The first time I saw Pottz (he)just blew my mind. I was a little grom at T-Street, looked out and see this guy on a wave and I was like ‘Holy shit, that’s Martin Potter’. I’ll never forget that. It was mind-blowing the way he rode the wave. So fast and radical. I just tried to be like that but in my own style.”
That the 1989 World Champion remembers the exchange is testimony to Archy’s natural talent. “I remember going to San Clemente with Jimmy Hogan”, says Pottz.“There were these three grommets playing in the shorey on a busted-up board. Shane Beschen, Dino Andino and Matt Archbold. Archy definitely stood out. He had such a unique style already as a tiny little grom. I gave them one of my boards and said ‘when I come back next year if you’ve still got it, I’ll give you another one’ so they shared the board for a year. When I got back, they still had it. It was broken into about five pieces, but they put it back together. I gave them another board and all three of them became pro-surfers and joined the Tour. But Archy was definitely the standout in my eyes.”
Known more these days for his recent contributions in the WCT commentary booth, those too young to remember may not realise just how pivotal a figure Pottz had been in the evolution of surfing. At a time when the sport had shed the hippie peace and love ethos of the 1960s and surfers were no longer viewed as societal outcasts, the 1980s was a time of unbridled success in the burgeoning surf industry, and pro-surfers were enjoying the spoils.
Lead by Martin Potter, the decade would usher in a new era where flamboyance and excess, both in and out of the water, were being celebrated. Pottz’s main sponsor, Gotcha, a surf brand as famous for founder Michael Thompson’s legendary parties as it was for surf apparel, rolled out their now infamous ‘If you don’t surf, don’t start’ advertising campaign, and surfing was entering new realms of innovation and performance.
All of this was like a lit match to a Molotov cocktail for a young Archy who suddenly felt like the progressive, powerful surfing style that he had been perfecting at home might be celebrated on a world stage and he set his sights on making the NSSA American National Team. “I quit all my other sports, and I was just living surfing”, Archy says. “Surf just consumed me. I made the national team the following year.”
But as quickly as Archy had made the team, disciplinary problems began to bubble to the surface. “I didn’t really fit in”, he laughs. The wild-spirited desire to challenge the boundaries of convention so on display in the water also extended to his on-land persona and Archy’s stubborn refusal to conform within the confines of a pre-ordained structure created friction with the NSSA’s coaching staff.
“From day one they tried to tell us how to surf and I was like ‘You can’t tell me how to surf!’.” Looking back, telling a surfer whose abilities were so far ahead of what, at that time, was considered the norm feels a bit like telling a young Jimi Hendrix how to play the guitar.
But, as difficult to tame as he may have been, that Archy possessed preternatural talent was never in doubt and his core surfing was sufficient to see him breeze through almost every junior contest he entered. At just 16 he had dropped out of school and was travelling the globe competing against his hero Pottz on the World Championship Tour.
Having joined the Tour at such a young age himself, Pottz knew all-too-well the pitfalls a young Archy was likely to face. “I did as much as I could to help him. I turned pro when I was 15 and went to Brazil on my first trip overseas when I was 16. I got zero help from anyone. Back then we didn’t have team managers and coaches. We had to work it out ourselves and I knew how difficult that part of it was. Being away from home in a foreign country trying to find your feet on the world stage.
But while Pottz was happy to offer some sage-like advice to a naïve teen Archy on land, in the ocean it was a different story. “Once we hit the water it was game on. When it came to surfing against him, I went all out because I knew how good he was.”
But after five years on tour with few results to show for it, Archy grew disenchanted. Clearly the era where the judging criteria would evolve to recognise progression and innovation was some time off in the distant future and he dropped off tour towards the end of the 1980s.
Matt Warshaw remembers not being surprised when Archy’s competitive career at the top level came to a premature end. “If you spend just a few minutes talking to him (you realise) he doesn’t have it in him. He’s not a killer. He doesn’t want to go out and beat people and he doesn’t want to surf to whatever the criteria was back then. He was so good that he was able to win junior contests, but he was not cut out to be a killer on tour.”
The absence of a killer instinct coupled with Archy’s unflinching refusal to conform was a recipe for a short, World Tour career. “That period of time was the era of, can you figure out how to get four scores in 20-minute heats?” says Warshaw.“The format didn’t suit him. Matt wasn’t going to modulate his surfing to do that.”
Fortunately for Archy, falling off tour didn’t spell the end of his pro-surf career. On the contrary, with surf companies beginning to recognise the marketing potential of a virtuoso surfing approach too unique to fit into the rigid world of the ASP coupled with a bad-boy image, the sponsorship dollars continued to flow in, as did requests for magazine photos and video footage. And, just like that, the quiet kid from San Clemente was making all the noise in the fledgling days of freesurfing.
If Archy’s World Tour surfing had failed to capture the attention of an entire generation of groms around the globe, all of that was about to change. Enter fellow San Clemente local Herbie Fletcher (father of Christian) set to direct the third instalment of his successful Wave Warriors films, a series of surf docos becoming well known for showcasing the world’s most powerful surfing on the world’s most high-performance waves.
Donning a fluorescent orange Lanty spring-suit and set to the refrains of Rock Your Balls by Herman Ze German (better known for his drumming with European rockers The Scorpions), the 1989 footage of Archy tearing Lower Trestles to pieces is permanently etched in the minds of countless young viewers who watched it over and over, memorising every inventive move, and wearing out the VHS tape in the process.
The power surfing showcased in the film signalled a changing of the guard, and the global impact of Archy’s three-and-a-half-minute segment cannot be overstated. Andy Irons, an obvious Archy protégé, famously included the clip in his pre-heat psyche up routine, and its influence would live on through the surfing of the Momentum Generation in the decades to come.
But Archy’s recollection of the clip is typically unassuming. “I just remember them trying to get me down to Lowers, pulling me out of my house and we’d had a party the night before and I was hungover, all my buddies laying on the couch, all these booze bottles around.”
That Archy could channel such a ground-breaking performance while sporting a hangover speaks volumes to his talent, but it also alludes to a much bigger problem that had been brewing just below the surface for some time that was set to explode. With a pocket full of surf industry cash, a natural aversion to his growing fame, and too much time on his hands, Archy began to turn to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to fill the void that was left after he turned his back on the excitement of tour life.
I started getting in trouble. I was just sitting around here too much. The ocean’s where I’m supposed to be. I always said if I could just surf 24 hours a day, everything would be great. I just had all this energy and didn’t know what to do.”
Apart from a brief cameo and a gig as Patrick Swayze’s surfing stunt double in the1991 Hollywood blockbuster Point Break, Archy began to withdraw from the public eye, even failing to show up for the final of an event at Salt Creek after an all-night coke and booze bender.
At this point in his story, it’s tempting to apportion some blame to Archy’s sponsors for ignoring the red flags and failing to intervene, but the reality is that this was just another example of the nascent surf industry not being ready for a characterlike Archy.
“Nobody did him wrong”, says Warshaw.“He just got really lost the way tonnes of kids do. He didn’t spiral down because of the Tour, he spiralled down because he was genetically predisposed to addiction. I don’t think there’s a villain, I don’t think pro-surfing did him wrong. Everybody hoped that he would find his way through it.”
But, while sponsors seemed happy to turn a blind eye to his self-destructive ways while he was performing, it wasn’t until his over-indulgence began to clash with his public profile that they decided to act. When Archy pulled his no-show act one too many times, some of his sponsors started to turn their backs on him. But this did little to curb his reckless behaviour. Charged with multiple counts of Driving Under the Influence, Archy found himself facing prison time and a court-ordered stint in the Betty Ford clinic.
By all reports Archy emerged from rehab a changed man, albeit only temporarily. Coupled with the birth of his first child, he started to enjoy some solid results on the PSAA Tour (the infamous ‘Bud Tour’ sponsored by America’s answer to VB, Budweiser) and looked to be cleaning up his act.
It was around this time that Archy began to reinvent himself. Centred around a love of vintage cars and motorcycles, he ditched his trademark long, golden locks and the California beach boy image, trading it for the tattoos and slicked-back rockabilly aesthetic associated with greaser culture. Now a common sight on the American west coast, he was among the first to adopt the look, reaffirming that Archy is always several steps ahead of the pack.
But, with the ink still drying on this slick new image and some long-overdue success in the competitive arena, Archy’s public profile began to rise again, forcing him to withdraw once more from the discomfort of the limelight and back into old habits. When a close friend died in a drink-driving incident Archy fell even further into the reclusive world of drug addiction and began to regularly inject himself with a lethal cocktail of narcotics, including cocaine and heroin.
When asked how far down this road Archy travelled, his answer is typically candid, tinged with an obvious hint of remorse. “To the bottom for sure. I’m glad I’m on the other side. I’ve seen so many people not make it. It’s not a good place.”
While Archy was able to pull off a move rare amongst his fellow addicts and kick his drug habit before it cost him his life, this time it wasn’t freakish natural ability that enabled him to stand out from his contemporaries. Archy credits his success in getting clean to support from his extended network of family and friends.
Afraid of watching him become another casualty, a friend dragged Archy out of a San Clemente drug den and took him on a surf trip to Hawaii. On the North Shore any addictive energy was transferred to his beloved Off the Wall. At a time when giant, rhino-chasers were the order of the day, in even modest-sized North Shore waves, Archy again defied tradition, pulling into bone-crunching barrels on unconventionally small boards.
However important that trip was in resuscitating Archy’s surf passion, ultimately it was the love of a good woman that was instrumental in liberating him from a life-time of addiction and reigniting his lust for life. “I owe so much to her”, he says of wife Audrey. “It helps to have people that love you. Without her I don’t know if I’d still be here.”
Archy says, these days, it all seems like it happened “a long, long time ago”, and that the drug-addicted version of himself feels like “a different person”. That Archy can find a silver lining even when recollecting this dark period in his life is testament to the maturity and wisdom he seems to exude these days. “It’s good that I went through it. It opens your eyes to a lot of things. I can help people if they are going through hard times. I can give them my story. Whatever I can do to help others. I think that’s what it’s all about”.
“Every now and then I see him”, says Warshaw. “He looks weathered, like a person who’s been through decades of troubles, and he’s come out and he’s just surfing beautifully.”
“He just drew a different line on the wave”, says Martin Potter. “I honestly thought Matt Archbold was destined for World Championships.”
For those of us from the Wave Warriors obsessed generation of groms, that Archy survived his addictions and has settled into a surf-spliced, family-man groove in2024 affords us a collective sigh of relief. In some respects, Archy’s is a cautionary tale, particularly for the young pro-surfer with alternative tendencies, but it’s also a reminder that surfing can help you make it out the other side.
Like his predecessor Pottz, contemporary Christian Fletcher, and willing pupil Andy, Archy was a non-conformist who became something of a counterculture anti-hero. In 2020, Metallica’s James Hetfield would describe Andy Irons in a Billabong advertising campaign in a manner that could apply equally to Archy; “a rebel in a rebellious sport.” And while it’s a mistake to romanticise any abusive use of drugs and alcohol we can still revel in the fact that Matt Archbold was the antithesis to the clean-cut, media-trained, Slater-inspired athletes of the modern World Tour. Archy remained true to himself and for that reason will forever be revered, by some at least, as a true icon of our sport.
