Here’s a confession: I have not been watching a lot of surfing lately.

I’ve actually been watching a lot of soccer. Or, you know, football. Listen, I know it sounds bad. “But you’re writing for a surf-adjacent web and print publication, and you can’t just slack like that,” you’re telling me. And I get that. “But the US Open of Surfing is on,” you say as you look up from a webcast being seared onto your laptop’s screen. “Think you can just pick and choose what you watch because, you’ve,” and you’ve started to do that thing where you do air quotes with your fingers now, “Seen it all?” And like, yes, but also I’ve been trying to reduce my screen time plus it’s been really small in Southern California lately and I don’t really like watching people surf amazing waves while I have to grovel six-inch shi— “Think you’re better than us, then?” You’ve shut your computer closed now, and you’re taking off your blue light reduction glasses and, ah, well, you’re rolling up your sleeves.

Here’s the thing though: I really like football. In fact, I reckon it has a lot more in common with surfing than we care to recognise. In both, you have technical aspects and personal style coming together to create what, almost quite literally, is poetry in motion. “Oh, yeah?” You’re probably asking me. “How is then that one’s exclusively played on land and the other is all water.” And my response to that is: You must be an absolute treat to chat with at parties. Sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate something for its inherent beauty and excitement rather than its relatability to your own skills and abilities. Zinedine Zidane hitting a Marseille turn on an incoming defence is not unlike a Craig Anderson bending time and water around him on a very calculated bottom-turn in saying that, however.

There’s one football player I love watching highlights of in particular. His name is Xherdan Shaqiri. Shaqiri has had a weird career. He’s a five-foot-five, 165-pound human Lego who can bicycle kick who won a Swiss League title with FC Basel, a Champions League title with Liverpool, and has provided Switzerland with some of its greatest international moments. He’s also not a starter. In fact, he comes off the bench. When he starts to lace up his Mercurials though, you just know something is going to happen. You don’t know what exactly, but it’ll be something that ends with either the ball getting rifled right in that perfect spot in the back of the net or somewhere in orbit and no in-between. And it’ll be the most exciting thing you see during the entire match, no matter what.  

In a way, he reminds me a lot of Rolando Montes. Why? They’re not built like one another. But like those moments when that muscular meat cube trots onto the pitch and you get that feeling that the nearest Adidas Tiro is about to be weaponised, when Rolo runs down the beach with a piece of fibreglass under his arm you know the lineup is about to go nuclear. It’s a show-up and blow-up mentality, and it’s what makes watching what are often familiar clips in familiar scenery filled with people holding even more familiar poses something new and exciting.

 Rolo recently joined the equally dynamic Mikey Wright, Kael Walsh, Al Cleland Jr., Lungi Slabb, Andy Nieblas, and Griffin Colapinto (in his Quicksilver debut) in the mountain and wave’s recent digital endeavour, Repeater. The result is like watching a team full of Xhaqiris hit the water. So, I loved it. Like Saturn before it, filmer Wade Carroll’s put together something that’s worthy of watching in full screen, phone down, and leaning back in your chair at that perfect angle where you’re comfy but don’t fall backwards. It’s the cure to surf media malaise, even when the waves are tiny.

 Filmed on location in Reunion Island, Puerto Rico, Australia, and Ireland, it’s the ultimate example of everyone just going huge and hoping for the best. We gave Rolo a call for a very quick chat after he finished a long-weekend premiere marathon circuit through Southern California. He was just about to board another flight to Aus before heading off to Bali and then Puerto Rico after that. Seriously, he answered the call from curbside check-in. He’s always on the move, but he always has the time. A show-up and blow-up mentality, indeed:

So what you’re at the airport? Beautiful, pristine, world-class Los Angeles International?

Yeah! Here at the airport and we’re boarding soon.

That was, like, only three days you were in California, then? Premiere circuit and out? 

Yeah, like four days in total.

Finish what’s in front of you and move on to the next one then? 

Yeah, pretty short and hectic (laughs).

How's everything with the premiere and everything? Stoked on the reception for everything?

Yeah! A bunch of people came through and the movie’s mental. Everyone seems to be loving it.

I mean I know I really, really, really enjoyed it. How did it all come about? Was it a result of some leftover Saturn stuff and then making new things with that or did it come from a new idea altogether?

It was something new, yeah. Wade-o (Wade Carrol) had full control of this one so he just did as he wanted to do and it turned out to be pretty mental.

Yeah, he knocked it out of the park. Like he usually does.

Oh, for sure.

So where are you headed to? 

Well, I came from came from Bali to California for the premiere and I was going to go back to Bali. But then, uh, yeah, I decided to cancel my ticket, because I was going to go through Aus anyway and go from Australia to Bali. So I cancelled my ticket from Australia to Bali and decided to stay a few days down there with Kael.

Are you living in Bali now? So you’ve been there for a good kick now. Or are you just on a long-term vacation surf trip?

Yeah, long-term surf (laughs). I’ve been renting this little homestay around for, like, three months now? It’s super sick and I pay, like three hundred US a month for it so it’s nice.

Oh, it hurts to hear that.

It’s a good, little basecamp. And I’ve been hanging with Lee (Wilson) a bunch, too. We’re actually neighbours in the same building.

How good is that? Lee is the best. So are you and Kael going to do any filming at all down there? Or are you just going to enjoy some waves to enjoy them?

Yeah, we should be filming, I'm sure. I'm not sure where we're going, but I think there's a bit of a run of swell. We’ll try to link up with like Jenno or something over there.

I mean, it doesn’t feel like Saturn was all that long ago. At least in full-length surf edit timelines. It seems like it was a pretty quick turnaround between the two. How long were you filming for Repeater, then?

I think we filmed for a total of four months. And then Wado took about three months to edit it. So, real quick. We were just doing trips back to back to back. We did Ireland first and then went straight to Mexico and then Aus and then Reunion Island from there.

Any particular highlights from that hectic road?

Yeah, there was a bunch. But, fuck, I think my favourite was Ireland. It’s funny, the waves weren’t really that good. But we were there for like a month and the waves weren’t very good until the first three weeks, but we just stuck it out. We actually changed our flights four times and ended up getting rewarded in the end with enough surf in the last two days to make it worth it.

So after Aus are you just letting your hair down in Bali a bit then coming back this way?

I think I'm going to do a week in Aus and then go back to Bali until like mid-September and then we should start getting swells in Puerto Rico then so…fuck, hopefully just go back home and relax a bit (laughs). 

Wouldn’t that be a treat?

I’ve just been travelling so much. It’s fun but it definitely gets tiring. (Loud PA chatter plays in the background). 

Sounds like you’ve got to go through security. I’ll leave you to it so TSA doesn’t detain you for being on your cell phone in the exact wrong spot. Thanks, Rolo! Chat soon. 

Yeah, thanks too! Talk soon, dude.