Ziggy Alberts is parked up at Brunswick Heads behind the wheel of his beloved Mercedes Sprinter.
The van is packed with 10 guitars, half a dozen surfboards – twins, singles, quads – and as many foil boards. “And that’s a downsize,” he chuckles as he flips the camera on his phone and gives me a walkthrough view of the van’s interior.
Ziggy indicates he’s succumbed to the stability of a fixed address with a front door and a regular bathroom for now; there’s an album to finish and a tour to prepare for. However, for several years the van was home. The Sprinter saw some serious miles as his crew traversed the country chasing waves and playing gigs. “I crossed the Nullarbor three times,” he says with a measure of pride. Ziggy admits, the travel itself becomes part of the creative process, the places he goes and the people he meets get woven into the folk-pop tracks that have earned him a global following and landed him in front of thousands of fans at concerts around the world. “What’s so inspiring about touring; I’m neither a hardcore naturist nor like, a totally socialite person, but having the polarity of those two worlds gives you so much to write about.”
Despite his success over the last decade, Ziggy, who is on the cusp of turning 30, came late to music. He grew up surfing on Queensland’s Sunshine coast, but didn’t pick up a guitar until someone gave him one as a high-school graduation present. He’d always had an interest writing and during his late teens interned with surf website ‘Stab’ conjuring prose and conducting interviews for blog posts. However, as he plucked away on the guitar and put his mind to writing lyrics, he discovered his real passion lay with music. Soon he was busking on street corners and hustling local venues for gigs. Equipped with an unflinching desire to get better, Ziggy decided that becoming an accomplished performer was mostly about putting the time in. “My theory is 10,000 hours… if you swing the bat for long enough, you start to learn something about technique. And so, I just butted my head against the wall, and I busked… I played five to nine shows a week that were, often two to three hours a day. And you start to learn if you can do 20 plus hours of playing a week you improve.”
Eventually he quit his other piecemeal jobs in cafes and labouring for a stonemason to concentrate on playing. He explains his musical ambitions were buttressed by some basic arithmetic and surfer logic. “The point of my maths was that (if I quit my jobs) I was going to be just as broke if I played one or two more shows, but I would have way more time to surf.” In Ziggy’s eyes the first pub gigs were not only a validation for his music but a rational economic victory for a kid raised with blue-collar roots. “You got a free meal and a drink. And, you know, maybe I got paid 50 bucks… that was already better than working for 11 or 12 bucks an hour at the cafe.”
Eventually he saved enough for his first van, which meant he could go on the road to play gigs. The journey itself was as much a motivation as hearing a live audience respond to his songs. “I bought my first little van, and then I could afford to do the backyard show or the pub gig or whatever it was down the coast. It was also a way to explore the country. I love Australia, and I love driving around Australia.”
Van-life has a kind of laid-back Bohemian image, but throughout his 20s, Ziggy admits his interpretation was much more full-on. “I was living in my van, driving eight hours, setting up a show, playing the show, driving six hours the next day to score a swell. I was hectic… I still am a hectic personality.”
One trip through New Zealand stands out for its uncompromising commitment to playing tunes and getting pitted in one full-throttle journey. “We played a show in New Zealand, in Lake Wanaka (middle of the South Island) and there was this ridiculous swell coming to the Catlins on the south end of the South Island. We finished the show, and just drove through the night, through mountain ranges and changed drivers and stuff like that. And got as good as you can get beachies in, you know, 4/3’s gloves and booties.”
Meanwhile, tours across Australia sometimes included extended periods of coastal wanderlust. “In one particular van, we had an extra set of seats,” recalls Ziggy. “We had, like, 14 or 16 boards, all the guitars, all the speakers – we actually bent the axle of this van on that trip – we had three tents and eight mats. We played our last show at Port Lincoln. And then we spent a few weeks surfing and camping from South Oz into West Oz. I was still playing shows, but we had, like, an extended period of camping and fishing and those were super romantic times and really wonderful.”
Owing to his growing fame, these days Ziggy’s tour schedules are a little less free-wheeling. However, he still prioritises making time for surfing between gigs. A recent strike mission to Fiji saw him paddling out at solid, eight-foot-plus Cloudbreak. “That wave’s no joke,” insists Ziggy. “I got one of the waves of my life… It was super good but super scary… the kind of size and consequence I’d never really been out in. It was really inspiring to just be terrified.” Evidence of Ziggy’s evolved surfing skills can be seen in his recently released music video clip, ‘I’m with You’. Ziggy’s soul-arch fades, technical tube riding and furrowing carves provide the visuals as his voice kicks in and carries you away to a better place.
When asked if any parallels can be drawn between riding heavy waves and standing up in front of thousands of people to sing, Ziggy suggests that both endeavours demand an aptitude for controlling your nerves and staying in the moment.
“You have this fear on stage… particularly you have fear of big crowds. You have to find a way to be calm and mindful… I do meditation before I go on stage because you really have to, it’s such an intense situation, you’ve got to, if you want to be able to try and put on a reasonable show every night. You have to kind of find a way to get in the zone… I guess I haven’t practiced as much mindfulness in surfing, and I would like to apply what I learned in music back to surfing… make it something where you just appreciate the moments even more.”
He also concedes that performing live and surfing both provide uniquely different but equally addictive endorphin kicks. “The high that you get interacting with nature is a bit different to the high you get in social settings because music is so social, you’re playing music to people. They are different, but they’re both super dope and obviously that’s why I like doing both.”
Like many who have had a taste of fame, Ziggy is also conscious that it’s important to be able to return to an even keel once you walk off stage, away from the roaring crowds. “Those highs can ruin you for sure, you have to try and find a way to make mindfulness the tying thread, to deal with those things. Because it’s wonderful, but, like, you know, it’s a lot.”
While renowned for his ability to connect with an audience and put on a good show, wherever he is in the world, at the core of every performer’s act is the song writing process. Ziggy suggests he often does his best composition work on the road. For example, a trip to The Bluff in north-west WA provided the creative stimulus for some of his recent work. “I wrote a whole bunch of songs I’m going to record, and I wouldn’t have written them if I wasn’t there. I was like, I have to figure out how to tell this story about this place, because it’s magical.” In many of his songs that sense of place permeates through the lyrics.
His one hard rule for getting lyrics down is that, when it comes to music ‘inspiration can’t be postponed’ … “I was in Fiji, and a song, just, just a little, a freaky little melody it just appeared, and I was like, shit, and just like, ran back to the room and just tried to find it, because they disappear… other times I’ll get an idea and just sing something into my phone straight away, so I’ve got it.”
Meanwhile, back home on the north coast of NSW, Ziggy loves nothing more than posting up at his favourite outdoor studio and strumming a few chords. “I often just sit at the eastern point of Australia with my guitar, either in the car if it’s raining, or, you know, just on the little deck thing. I love just sitting out and doing that. That’s probably the most true, idealistic assumption people could make. They’re like, ‘I bet you’re like, sitting by the beach, writing songs’. And it’s like, ‘yeah, actually, I do’.”
By the time this magazine goes to print, Ziggy’s creative meanderings have manifested as a new album – his seventh – titled ‘New Love’. It’s billed as a rich journey through honesty, self-discovery, and the beauty of imperfection. Ziggy, who also writes poetry, doesn’t mind exploring the emotional landscape with his music. And perhaps his popularity owes much to his ability to mix an upbeat vibe with more searching themes. Whatever song-writing alchemy he’s hit on, Ziggy’s music resonates with people everywhere.
Last year his touring schedule took him to Portugal, the US, Mexico, Japan and London amongst other places. With the new album out, he will spend much of 2025 on stage, entertaining crowds, but between live shows he’ll still be answering the call of surfing. “I want to do my biggest year of surfing,” he insists. “Touring for a few months and then book a slab of time afterwards to kind of chase.”
Ziggy has cultivated an idealistic, double life that revolves around making music and riding waves. Fortunately, we get to share in the experience through his songs and live performances, hopefully we also find a little inspiration in the lyrics to pursue passions of our own.
