Toby Cregan Talks Cockroaches Of The Surf Industry
Eight years on, everyone’s favourite underground surf company RAGE are due to release their fifth film RAGE 5.
Beloved for pushing against the corpo surf industry, the RAGE team have been slowly recruiting some of surfing’s brightest, most unique hogs including Holly Wawn, Benny Howard and Kai Hing in addition the already pyscho lineup of Creed McTaggart, Noa Deane, Jaleesa Vincent, Shaun Manners, Beau Foster, Kai McKenzie, Jake Vincent, Wade Goodall and of course Toby Cregan to produce a full length surf film that we didn’t even know we needed. In a world where once iconic surf brands have fallen to a machine trying to keep up with the masses, RAGE have consistently stuck to their own and we bloody love them for it. In the spirit of leaving everything until the last minute, I quickly jumped on a phoner with Toby to chat through what we can expect from the film, the prems and how RAGE 5 almost sent the brand broke.
Hey, hey, sorry I feel like I’ve been playing phone tag for a couple days. I know this tour starts tomorrow. How’s your day been so far?
Yeah good, just trying to finish colour grading the film.
Oh nice, right before a prem (laughs). That makes me feel better.
Yeah (laughs) I’ve just been busy doing a fair bit of admin trying to organise the prems and stuff so I’ve left it kind of last minute for sure.
Give us a little spiel on RAGE 5.
A spiel, shit I’m not much of a salesman. I’ve been working on it for a while, it’s been heaps of fun. It goes a bit into how me, Creed, Noa, Beau and Ellis started the brand as well. A little bit of history. Wait, not really history, but just touches on how we started the brand as a joke back in the day and it still exists somehow. I think that’s the main thing that’s different about it. It has a bit of throwback stuff, but still a hifi surf vid.
Did you know you wanted to do the throwback bit when you started it?
Nah, not really hey. I like to have some sort of story in there. We were filming for so long, like over two years.
Oh woah.
Yeah then I found a roll of film that I’d never seen before from around the time when we were starting the brand in 2016. So I jammed that in there. Creed and I were editing one day and I just got him to go in my bedroom and talk a little bit about how we started it. Then I found some funny footage of Creed and Noa smoking weed and interviewing each other as well, back in the day when they were like eighteen.
Oh that’s iconic.
Yeah I just found old footage and just thought we should put this in. It’s been long enough now.
When was the last RAGE film released?
We did RAGE 400 but that was just on a handycam. We skipped RAGE 4 and went to RAGE 5. That was two years ago I think? It’s been ages. The last one we did with a proper prem tour was RAGE 3 which came out in 2020.
Jeez, you guys have actually been around for so long, hey, it’s so good.
Yeah I know. It doesn’t seem like that long because we only intermittently do videos.
Was there a highlight spot for RAGE 5?
I kinda liked just filming around home. My favourite times were the day trips that we’d do. Pick Wade up and then go meet Creed or whatever. The last trip for the movie was pretty fun though when we went to the desert. The whole movie was looking sick but we just really needed an end section to shut it down, like some heavy clips. I was down hanging out with Noa and Shuan. They were playing a gig in Wollongong and I was just going to hang around there to film, but Noa said there might have been a swell that was worth going to the desert for. I just booked the flights without even checking the brand’s bank account. We could only go for three days which is just so far and so spenno. It ended up sending the brand broke for a little bit to get that clip. Probably should have checked on that sort of shit.
(Laughs) Holy shit.
We ended up getting sick footage for the end though.
Well that’s worth it then.
Yeah, Shaun also hadn’t got a clip for ages and it was the last day. For everything to work out we could only film for an hour and then had to drive like nine hours to make our flight on time. We only wanted to get one clip. It was one of those things where we all like oh it’s not going to happen and then it just did last minute. We were psyched and just pinned it back and made the flight.
How good. I see that you’ve got a couple new recruits on the team now too. How’d they all go?
Yeah, so good. Holly Wawn has some sick clips in the movie. There’s three new people on the team that are having, I guess, their debut in a RAGE film. Holly, Benny Howard and Kai Hing.
Lords.
Yeah they all came through with gnarly footage as well. I filmed with Holly and Hingy a lot up here in the Northern Rivers.
I love that you guys are touring the film first, it’s been sick to see more of that, is the whole team coming out for the prems?
Yeah we got a Kia (laughs) and we’re all jumping in and cruising around. I’m going to pick up this arvo actually, hopefully I finish this video.
That sounds so fun.
Yeah we got five in a row then a couple days off. I've been trying not to think about it too much because there’s just heaps to do so I’m just going to figure it out later.
These things have a way of working themselves out. What’s the plan with the release after the prems?
We haven’t really figured out how we’re going to release it. When we did RAGE 3 you could buy it, so not sure if we will do that again. We’re adding more shows though. Going to do South Aus and West Aus, one in Bali and we might even go to America.
Oh I’m sure the West Aus crew will be stoked with that addition.
Yeah it kinda sounds a little over the top but why not.
Anything else you want to shout out before the prems kick off?
Nah not really. Just hopefully people can come to the prems if they’re around. That’d be nice.
Keep up to date with the additional premieres of RAGE 5 on their insta here and why not treat yourself to something purple here. Catch you at the prems!
