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 the full profile of Chris Davidson which featured in Issue 594 .
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Chris ‘Davo’ Davidson
By the late 90s, the bad seed planted 40 years earlier had grown into a tree and had lots of bad fruit sprouting on its branches. Such is the nature of ancestry. Fantastic Australian surfers who took a wrong turn along the way and were doomed to follow in the footsteps of their misguided mentors.
Many ended up in jail or rehab, and still more were reported on in sensational stories in the surf media and mainstream news. They evolved from alcoholics to ice addicts, went from madcap misadventures to criminal offences. There were robberies, assaults, stabbings, shootings, rape, and murder. The parasitic mass-formation infected so many surfers. I wondered how bad it might get before something changed.
In the early 90s I was working for Paul Sargeant who was based in North Narrabeen. It was my job to shoot and edit his surf-video magazine Sarge’s Surfing Scrapbook. I shot sessions of the new ‘blond bombshell’, Chris Davidson, at Little Narrabeen and the Alley. He was such a great surfer that he was recognised as a potential World Champion. He even beat Kelly Slater in pro events on more than one occasion. He was that good.
One day, while I was videoing pumping surf at North Narrabeen, a fight broke out in the lineup. By the time the tangle had made its way onto the sand, I realised that it was Davo and Brett Bannister. As I kept shooting, Banno forced Davo to the ground and drilled a few punches into his face. Davo got to his feet and yelled at Banno for a few seconds and then it was over. They both paddled out and kept surfing.
Later that afternoon, I decided to check with both the surfers before I used the punch-up in Sarge’s next video. Banno was stoked because he came out looking like an enforcer. Davo was stoked because he got an accidental hit in. Everyone was happy all round. I used the fight scene in a segment cut to a song by the New York Punk outfit, Biohazard; Tales from the Dark Side. It described the gritty, hardcore side of Sydney surfing and everybody loved it.
Davo never achieved the success that was expected of him on the pro tour. The best he did was a ninth at Bells and a couple of 15ths at Teahupoo and in Portugal. Even though he often displayed flashes of brilliance in competition, he proved to be his own worst enemy. When I gave his dad a lift from Mona Vale to Avalon one morning, he confided in me: “If he’s gonna get anywhere in life he’s gonna have to give up the bamboo schooner.”
Twenty years later the headlines of the Daily Mail shouted: “INSIDE THE DARK PAST OF A STAR SURFER WHO DIED FROM AN ALLEGED ONE PUNCH ATTACK – INCLUDING HIS BATTLES WITH ALCOHOL AND DRUGS.”
The tabloid concluded with a quote from Davo: “I don’t want anything to do with this bad-boy image. I just want to be known as Davo, a good surfer and nice guy.” Perhaps the next quote summed it up best: “He was a wild child, with a heart of gold. He was a good kid. A life…cut needlessly short.”
I’m not sure if there is any relationship between the the eight surfers I have described in this series. It’s really just a theory. But they sure used up all of their nine lives: individually and as a group. These were men who lived life to the max, burned the candle at both ends, and then poked their own eyes out with them.
It feels like we are in a different time now. The period just past seemed to have been born out of a post-war Australian larrikinism that morphed into full-tilt-loony-bin lunacy. As I wrote this article, I noticed patterns emerge. Not all, but many, experienced: absent fathers, childhood trauma, escape from violence into surfing, tribal initiations, success on the world circuit, inability to handle money, media fawning, mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, incarceration and internment, eventual self-destruction, and only very occasional redemption. Most of them tired quickly whilst on the pro tour, like bored performing seals in a travelling circus. All of them were hailed as Gods and suffered accordingly.
As I was finishing writing this story, I mentioned my theory to a friend. He told me that while he thought it was a particularly male phenomenon: “They weren’t bad boys…they were just lost boys, who lived life at full throttle.”
There’d be some consolation if the book- ends of Bobby Brown and Chris Davidson, both being attacked and killed in pubs, was the end of it though. Ironically, the last time I heard of Davo; he was in trouble for glassing a girl at the Narrabeen Antler Hotel.
I don’t hear much about bad boys in professional surfing these days. Perhaps they have become more discreet or have sports psychologists that travel with them. Or will it be like at the end of a horror movie, when just before the credits roll, a new monster reappears – full frame?
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