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Australian surfers love an out-of-control rebel. Particularly if they surf exceedingly well. We admire their free spirited, devil-may-care approach to life; both in the water and on the land. They do things in their own way, on their own time, and by their own rules, and are often motivated by a raging fire that burns deep within their damaged psyche. Initially, they’re driven to prove themselves, but ultimately, they’re driven to destroy themselves. It’s not pretty, but we can’t look away.
Our new mag features the final chapter of Monty Webber’s provocative ‘Dark Lineage’ series, which details the journey of Shane Herring, the boy wonder saga of Nicky Wood and the tragic trajectory of Chris Davidson.
The series is a gritty and at times confronting body of work, which deals honestly with the issues around mental health that are often overlooked in the quest to romanticise and deify surfing figures. Below is an excerpt of the Shane Herring profile which featured in Issue 594.
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Shane Herring
I spent more time with Shane Herring, during his rapid ascendance and descendance, than any other member of this brilliant, but cursed, club of surfers. In late ’91, my brother, Greg, asked me to video one of his new Insight team riders surfing at Dee Why. To say I was blown away by Shane’s surfing would be an understatement. He was the most intense, precise, and muscular Australian power surfer I’d seen since Tom Carroll or Occy. He was super fit, flexible, and focused. Every time he got to his feet on his surfboard he looked like he was shaping up in a UFC match. Every turn he did was a fierce slice or searing gouge. He surfed that day, and every day for the next 12 months, like he was in the final of a pro event. When he actually made it into the final of a pro event, the Coke Classic, he won it.
Shane Herring was born in 1971, in Manly, NSW. His dad was a lifeguard and his mum, a barmaid. His parents broke up when he was very young and he moved with his mother, Sandy, and brother, Brett, to Dee Why. It was there that they started surf- ing. By the time I began videoing Shane he was a fully formed and polished professional; despite the fact that he had almost no competitive experience.
Shane was also the most willing and helpful surfer I ever filmed; and I’ve filmed many. No other surfer ever asked me before a surf, where I would like them to surf, or after a surf, if there was anything else that they could do for me. “Have you got enough foot- age? Or would you like me to go back out there and get a few more?” In short, Shane was not only the best surfer I’d ever filmed, he was also the most considerate. But I saw something in him that concerned me. In my regular interactions with him and others, I noticed that Shane lacked the ability to say “No.” Whatever was asked of him he would give. Even when he knew he shouldn’t. I wondered how this might play out when he started collecting the accolades, and the acolytes that come with them.
After shooting Shane surfing for two months, another Greg, Greg Day, asked me to make a surfing movie for his company, O’Neill. It was to be a low-budget affair, but we were blessed by pumping swell on the Northern Beaches of Sydney for the next six months. Shane surfed for O’Neill, and I captured remarkable sessions of him surfing with his fellow Insight/O’Neill team riders, predominantly Richie Lovett and Michael Rommelse. They blew the backs out of waves from Whale Beach to Curl Curl, and everywhere in between. We would drive together to any one of the Northern Beaches, get out and set up, and locals would sometimes get out of the water to watch. I know this because these surfers would often stand alongside me and ask lots of questions about who I was filming.
All was well, until Shane won the Coke, at North Narrabeen. It was also Kelly Slater’s first pro event, and the two met in the final. It was a classic showdown between the two young surfers from the USA and Australia. Much was made of it in the media.
At the presentation night after Shane won the contest, I found him alone in the bathroom of the Dee Why Hotel looking at himself in the mirror. It wasn’t a quick glance to see if his hair was alright though, he was really looking at himself for a long time. I was at the urinal and called back to him: “What are you thinking about?” He answered instantly: “I don’t feel any different than yesterday.”
The next day he was different. I interviewed him on camera in the loungeroom of the flat he lived in with his mum and brother. It was a strange experience. He was not the same Shane that I had spent the last six months with. He was suddenly very self-conscious and kept pulling his long blonde fringe down in front of his eyes like he was modelling. His girlfriend at the time was standing behind me and kept asking him what he was doing. “Stop acting so weird, just answer the questions and stop posing.” But Shane had earned his moment in the limelight and wasn’t going to trade it in for anyone. The interview was unusable for my purposes at the time. But it did capture a fascinating transformation, from a freckle-faced keen to please grommet, into someone so self- conscious.
Over the next few months, Shane’s mates at Dee Why almost killed him with their demented love of him. Every night was like New Year’s Eve and Shane footed the bill. I saw him consume so much alcohol and smoke so much weed one night that I wondered what it was he was trying to prove. I couldn’t help but think he was trying to kill the monster he’d become. But I imagined it was more likely that he was trying to prove to his friends that he was one of them. He told me that he believed his friends were the most important thing in his life and that they would be there for him forever. I didn’t realise that he was going to test that theory to the breaking point.
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