He always has an interesting tale to tell. Of course, we were particularly keen to hear what myriad of craft Eddie is riding nowadays, in addition to a little more behind the mastermind of Shed Nine.
You have a passion for riding so many different types of boards – is that because you simply get bored of the same sensation?
I guess it’s a part of the environment I grew up in. For example, plenty of the crew ride surf, skate, and snow, or we have plenty of talented surfers who rip on longboards or who are pretty handy on foils these days.
Here where I live on the Mornington Peninsula, we are all blessed with incredibly consistent swell. Since I opened my shop on the ocean beaches, there has not been one day, from dawn till dusk, where the waves were dead flat and completely unrideable on a mal or, these days, a foil.
What we lack in comparison to, say, Queensland’s perfect running hollow point and slabbing break surf, we make up for with a range of rip bowl beach breaks, powerful slabs, plenty of bays, nooks, and crannies, and a variety of reefs that can fire up on their day.
Can you chat about growing up in the surf and skate culture of Melbourne? How did that lead to the founding of Shed Nine?
As a kid, I started off skating and then rode bodyboards. My family didn’t have a lot of money, and bodyboards were cheaper, more durable, and easier to hitchhike with. The local Peninsula bus drivers were also happy for us to get around with them, while surfboards were banned.
At age 15, I remember running away from home in mid-winter for three weeks and sleeping under the Crunchie Point yacht club. I was alone with my bodyboard, wetty, fins, a sleeping bag, and a shopping bag of food from the cupboard at home. It was a standard single-parent family, no money, teenage rebellion type situation. It was a beautiful time – cold but peaceful.
I’d surf all day every day, and was as free as I had ever been. That was when I fell in love with riding waves and the ocean. I would meet my friends at First Reef in Point Leo, which I swear was better back in the day, and they would bring me bags of food to keep the dream going.
We had a great crew. In the early days, we would share boards. I’d ride the craft of local friends like Dan Moran’s surfboards and James ‘Pommy’ Anderson’s knee boards, and they ended up being the first two Shed Nine team riders a few years later.
We were all street skaters growing up, until the first skate parks were built locally. I’d skate everywhere with my bodyboard. Once we could drive, we skated parks everywhere we travelled and got into a little snowboarding on the side.
It was an amazing time to grow up on the Peninsula, before mobile phones, social media, and whatnot. I could live off the smell of an oily rag back then, and our crew was a solid one. We coined the phrase ‘Ride Everything.’
So many memories with a great generation of fun-loving friends, good music, and affordable living. It was a different time – bodyboarding was booming. My bodyboarding idols were paying off home loans and travelling the world on sponsors’ coins. Mike Stewart was earning the same amount as Kelly Slater.
I spent a lot of time in the water, winning plenty of comps, picking up sponsors, and living in a van for years while I chased the Pro Tour, filming everyone I saw ripping on surf, skate, moto, snowboard, and bodyboards.
I sold Shed Nine clothes from the back of my car while releasing VHS tapes and then DVDs across those sports, with some being more lucrative than others. I befriended many of the bodyboarders I admired and also beat many of them in competitions as the years ticked by. But for me, free surfing and filmmaking were where it was at.
There was a definitive point where I was in Indo and got a really long, perfect barrel on a surfboard at Desert Point while on a bodyboard trip. I was kind of like, “Ok. This is what I want to do now.”
I later opened the Shed Nine store after completing a small business course in 2006 under the New Enterprise Initiative Scheme. That meant I got the dole for a year, and any money I made on top was mine, so they basically covered the rent. I lived out the back, and I fell for one of the staff members, Claire, my wife.
It was a wild time – very humble beginnings with not much stock and nothing to lose. This was when I had access to a range of boards – surf, skate, snow, and bodyboard – and had a constant flow of second-hand boards coming through the racks to try.
I’d ride anything that felt interesting or different. At that point, I made the relatively late change from spending most of my water time on bodyboards to surfboards. I was always intrigued by riding finless surfboards, alaias, and trying stand-up bodyboarding. I was the first person to prone foil Western Port Bay when foiling became accessible.
Since I opened my shop 18 years ago, I have been basically working crazy hours to save for surf trips, mostly in Indo. Meanwhile, I scour the surf forecasts for the next session at home. We are blessed here in Melbourne with the strong community spirit, consistent swell, skate parks, diverse culture, and the mountains we can access. Long-time friends are all around.
How on earth do you find the time to ride them all?
It’s a juggle. I am grateful that my wife and daughter are supportive of my business and passion, and that my staff are too. It’s not easy, but when I’m planning something important in my life, business, or otherwise, I’ll have this idea in my head when I’m surfing and waiting for the next set.
That is usually when I make that decision and lock in the steps towards life’s next goal. In the ocean I find my calm – an almost meditative state – where I can think, often alone, while waiting for another wave.
How many boards are in your current quiver?
Across all of the boards and sports, I have around 30 in Australia, including five that are my daughter’s. There are also 20 in Bali, including three of my daughter’s. The surfboards are definitely getting bigger as I age, and so am I. Haha.
I will say I have an in-depth understanding of how all of the boards work and why. I always keep a solid range of stock across the sports, and I never try to sell a board that I don’t think will suit the customer. In a passion economy, honesty is the best policy. That’s something often left behind online.
I note that you are currently undertaking the Make a Wave fundraising initiative for SurfAid that requires you to surf for 30 days straight throughout September.
It’s no doubt a great initiative, but is it also beneficial to one’s physical and mental wellbeing?
I’ve taken part in SurfAid and Sober September for the past two years, and that combo is a juggle and a challenge, but it’s also a quiet between-seasons time for retail here, so it’s good for the mind to ride boards each day. You feel amazing at the end, mentally and physically.
This year, I started Make A Wave 25 days early, way back in August. I got up to 42 days straight of surfing, foiling, bodyboarding, and skating, with one day in the snow. On day 42, I strained my lower spine pumping back out through chop in the cold on my prone foil board, so I’ve had to rest and pull out. I kind of pushed it a little too much, and now I’m just in pain. Haha.
I’ve had one surf in the past ten days, but I had to give up on the SurfAid sessions this year. I’ll try again next year for sure. It’s a great cause.
Your interests over in Indo also keep you grounded, no doubt?
I started playing around with surfing accommodation almost 15 years ago in the jungles of Indo. That side hustle has grown and meant that I have now been blessed with countless Indo swings, incredible adventures, mind-blowing waves, lifelong friendships, and the motivation to not only keep surfing through times when the waves are no good, but also to keep fit so I am able to chase the best surf available over there.
There’s nothing quite like a good Indo swing on the horizon to keep you stoked. Indo is becoming more busy and crowded, while at home, with the cost-of-living pressures post-lockdowns, I feel there are fewer people surfing in the colder months mid-week.
Although that’s not great for surf retail, I have been appreciating the uncrowded waves at home more than ever, especially in the past couple of months. But I think having a side hustle is good. To survive in business these days, plenty of us juggle more than one business model.
You’ve touched on some of your struggles in the past, both physical and mental. What have you found to be the key to a happy, healthy life?
We all have problems, but every single person from every single demographic faces different ones, whether they’re about family, finance, school, work, peer pressure, online bullying, addiction, injuries, mental health, sickness, lockdowns, comedowns, depression, police, society, judgement, or whatever. We all deal with our own unique struggles, pressures, and challenges on this amazing ride called life.
I see board sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing as being incredibly beneficial, especially for the youth coming through. That’s not just because of the escape we feel while riding these boards, but also because making new friends, socialising, and travelling to amazing places while experiencing different cultures makes you feel good when you participate in these sports.
Skaters must strive to learn new tricks, and hardcore skaters have to learn how to get back up, dust themselves off, and keep pushing when they fall. If they really want to land that wild trick, they have to keep practicing and stay committed, even through pain and injuries.
These are great life lessons in resilience that apply to the mental and physical commitment needed to be successful in life. Surfing is a great parallel, because we get hooked on riding hollow waves, learning new moves, and wanting to chase bigger and more dangerous swells. But to cop these wild hold-downs, we need to stay healthy and fit. We have to hold our breath underwater and keep paddling out, going against the odds to ride bigger waves each day. To me, this represents the challenges I mentioned before.
To be completely honest, I have faced my fair share at 47. When I hit a low point, I call my board riding mates for a chat. They’re the ones who always understand me.
I grew up in an era where idols across board sports were louder and wilder individual characters than the stars of these days. They often lived rockstar lifestyles in the nineties – which were the days of surf all day, skate all day, ride all day, party all night, repeat. Times have definitely changed, and athletes need to fit the mould a little more to turn pro and pay the bills these days. But that’s cool. As much as I feel blessed to have grown up in freer times, these sports I love were seen as outcast sports back then.
Now, it’s board sports that keep me more focused on my own health, especially at my age. I practice Wim Hof breathing techniques in addition to daily exercise, hot and cold water immersion, training, and stretching. Of course, I ride boards as often as possible too, and focus on healthy diets to continue my dream of being able to shred forever and be a more solid role model – not only as a father, but to young people in general. Out of all the board sports, if we really want it enough, we can surf until we are quite old, and that evolution in itself is what keeps us young.
To anyone out there struggling, keep going! Never give up! We all face hard times, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. Life is what you make it. Always be honest with yourself. Be kind and fair, but never be a walkover. Stand up for yourself, your family, and your friends. Be there for each other, but don’t drain yourself, you gotta know when to draw the line. Work hard, and if you’re a surfer, keep on paddling and things will work out.
I’m 47 now, and so the injuries are taking their toll, but I do feel like if I look after my health and take things a little easier, I can still ‘Ride Everything’ and enjoy riding boards with the next generations for years to come, all while taking my daughter on that amazing journey, which is a beautiful journey to share.
Give us your tip for the latest bit of gear that has you excited at present – board, hardware, or otherwise?
I had a great run of surf earlier this year in Indo, testing out and fine-tuning an ever-evolving quiver. It was solid in the early season, filled with back-to-back swells.
I am stoked that our own Shed Nine range of surfboards, skateboards, snowboards, and bodyboards are high performance, premium quality, and durable, and that we have the knowledge and connections to grow that side of the business into the future. Strength in branding, tried and tested. Since I got home this winter, I have been stealthing around riding all kinds of different boards most days.
I’m definitely stoked on the foil and being able to find long, clean rides, often with no one on the beach. With a foil, you get that snowboard feel without the long drives or lift lines. Foiling can be really time-efficient – get out, catch a few waves, pump back out, link a couple of waves on different sections where surfers don’t ride, get an instant stoke, and then off to work.
If you told me that ten years ago I would have been like, “Yeah, nah.” Although I love the foil, I don’t think the efoils are suited to the surfable waves on our coast, and foilers in general need to be very aware of those around them and keep away from the crowds.
What do you perceive to be the future of board sports going forward? More wave parks, snowboarding remote peaks in far flung lands, skating 360-degree pipes with regularity?
It’s all happening on a global level, but locally here in Rye and on the Mornington Peninsula, we have some great things to look forward to. The Peninsula Board Riders Club and the Peninsula Super Groms are the strongest they have ever been, doing amazing things for members and the community. We also have some great skate coaches catering for all levels accessible from the Peninsula.
Bodyboarding Victoria has plenty in the works, and the local foil crew is starting to push the level higher and get into longer downwind runs. The mountains will always be there for us. We have a million-dollar, state-of-the-art skatepark going in one kilometre from Shed Nine next year. We’ve also just had approval for Australia’s largest action sports training centre to be built just a five-minute drive away in Boneo.
The facility will include artificial snow runs, indoor and outdoor skate parks, a training centre, mountain bike, mountain board, and BMX tracks, a wakeboard cable park, and plenty more.
Word on the street is of another wave pool on our side of Melbourne, which will apparently be partly undercover. Coming up, there is plenty to look forward to, both for the kids and for us elders to stay young for!
Keep shredding! Stay stoked! Let’s go!
