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Director’s note: Before the World Titles, money, and fame, Andy Irons was just a surf-obsessed, tow-headed Hawaiian grom. For the first episode of Andy Irons and the Radicals, a look at Andy’s childhood influences—Sunny Garcia, Derek and Michael Ho, Chris Ward, Cory and Shea Lopez, Matt Archbold, and more. Chapter One: The Making Of A Hellraiser

Asked to describe Andy Irons’ surfing, the words seem right on the tips of surfers’ tongues: Aggressive. Angry. Raw.

At the turn of the century, no one made a deeper impact on surfing’s core than the chiseled, wild-eyed Kauaian, in attitude, approach, and polarizing personality. Andy’s surfing moved people.

Any surfer with an emotional bone in their body recognized the gorgeous convergence of channeled anger, radical, raw power, and unrestrained elegance in Andy’s approach. He distilled the very best surfing of the era—drawing upon the small wave antics of Chris Ward and Cory Lopez, pulling in Archy’s body language, Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian’s polished rail-work and wave positioning, and the big wave bravado and Hawaiian power of Kaipo Jaquias, Brock Little and Sunny Garcia—into his own brand of all-conditions surfing.

That broad range of mastery is why Andy’s performances throughout the 2000s came to define the decade. While much attention has been paid to Andy and Kelly Slater’s rivalry, few would argue who had the bigger influence on today’s top crop. For the Post-Modern, Post-Andy Generation, there is no bigger compliment a surfer can be paid than having their approach compared to that of Andy Irons.

Watching Andy’s surfing in 2021, it is hard to separate the performances from the demons he was battling just beneath the surface.

But for anyone who has known the true crushing weight of personal mental warfare, there is something redeeming in Andy’s surfing—a cathartic violence that looks like it provided some relief. And hopefully it did.