"Who gives a shit? Does it really matter? Really?"

That's Matt Biolos' take on who should be named 2010 Shaper of the Year. It’s July, somewhere in the backyard of an East Coast cantina, as far from the SoCal hype machine as you can get without a passport. And with a single glance around the scene, it's clear that he's right. Here, at a midsummer “industry party,” the crowd is actually 50 college kids playing corn hole – not what it sounds like, but nearly as fun – plus some shop owners, reps and random players. This is a region light on celebrity pros but crawling with lifelong surfers, with a giant factory pumping out thousands of boards for average Joes, and not a single big name shaping legend or unmanned shaping machine. It’s a town that ain’t always perfect, but frequently rideable. In other words, a town of surfing’s outskirts – but that’s where surfing remains most pure: on the outskirts.

You wouldn't come here to see nouveau tow boards from Gerry or Stretch, or groovy plywood planks. There’s barely a paddle to sweep with, thank Jesus. What you do see is miles and miles of no-name breaks, and day after day of lackluster waves. But people still go surfing.

That's what Biolos has just done, fresh from a go at chest high wind swell across the street. He’s smiling. In fact, he’s claiming the session, largely because he rode something that worked: a little fatter, somewhat flatter, but way high performance. It’s a design that’s earned buzz under the heels of heroes, like Slater-Man at Pipe last year and Super-Dane at Trestles in the summer. Still, it maintains its appeal among the masses for one reason: It helps the average surfer have more fun. And that’s the name of the game for a dirty little label called ...Lost – a label that’s always been less concerned with what the surf stars are doing, and more focused on simply having a blast.

Surfing Magazine: How similar is your personal surfboard to one of your pro’s boards?
Matt Biolos: The last few years, I've drifted away from that. I was never a standout surfer. Most of my surfing is done between Cottons and Lower Trestles. I'm 40 years old and 210 pounds, so it’s hard to ride those boards. And if you size one of the pro boards up to meet my size, then you’re looking at a 6’6”, and I don’t like that. So I ride more hybrids, like a 6’0” Rocket, or a 5’11” Round Nose Fish. Those boards are designed for the individual rider, not a class or skill level.

Still, most surfers buy based on what the stars ride. In fact, this year we’ve seen how much impact a top pro can have on the surfing world- Dane’s Dumpster Diver, the Wizard Sleeve. Do you think it’s gnarly for Joe Public’s psyche to see Kelly riding these ultra-tiny hybrid boards?
It’s not a bad thing at all. He’s making up for his sins. He ruined everybody in the early 90’s with those potato chip boards. Now he’s basically validating all the things we’ve been working on for all these years. Especially my team – Chris [Ward] was riding 5’10” quads in heats at Teahupo’o and winning. Since about 1995 we’ve been making stubby little boards for him. Cory [Lopez] and Gorkin [Aaron Cormican], like the Round Nose Fish and now the Rocket. So what I dig about what Kelly is doing is that he’s validating what our crew has always stood for. But more than that, I think it’s good for the whole surfing market, for all the shapers and surf shops, because it’s getting everyone to go, “Oh, maybe I should change up what I’m riding”. And it’s kind of helping the surfing economy. Plus, they’re just great alternatives; when I started making them for myself, I went, “Wow, these are really fun”.

If we had come to you and asked your opinion of Kelly as Shaper of the Year, what would you have said?
Yes. Because, evidently, he’s designed all of his own boards now. Al’s not making his boards. Al’s out fly-fishing.

But he’s also never worked much with a planer. Does that bother you?
Not at all. Actually, the greatest surfer/shapers are the guys that I look up to the most. There are a lot of good surfers who are bad shapers, but there have been very few good surfers who are good shapers. Mark Richards, who is still second to Kelly as the greatest competitive surfer of all time. Simon Anderson, who was a great surfer and, obviously, an incredible out-of-the-box designer. In the 1960’s, most of the best surfers were shapers. That’s something that has dies away. And it’s something that I could never be. So I think what Kelly Slater is doing is awesome. He’s such a unique human; it’s not like we [the shaping community] are worrying that half the top 45 are going to be our new competitors. Not to mention, he’s a grown man - he’s 38 years old – so his mind has had a lot of time to absorb surfboard design.

Are we heading toward a day when a computer geek can jump on CAD and start pumping out boards without any hand-shaping experience?
That’s like saying that just because a guy is good at CAD, he can go out and design a functional car body or airplane wing. Good luck. Someone who’s good at CAD is going to be good at copying designs, but if you’re just copying, you’re not moving forward, and designs stagnate. You have to be hands-on: shaping surfboards and riding them, and working with really good surfers who are riding your boards and providing constant feedback. Obviously, surfboard design is a constant evolution, and if you’re not completely immersed in the sport and the culture, you’ll never be a successful shaper.

How much time do you spend in the shaping bay these days?
I spend about half my time designing in CAD and half my time in the shaping bay. Of the shaping time, 50 percent of it is spent shaping for the average Joe. The other 50 percent is for my team, which isn’t a lot of time one moment you’re shaping for a grom like Kolohe Andino – who needs to win his NSSA final in 1-foot slop – and the next for Chris Ward, who needs to win in 6- to 8-foot Pipe. That’s why I love CAD. Considering the level of detail and intricacy in surfboards nowadays – you just cannot consistently replicate that when shaping by hand with a planer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally confident in my planer skills. I’ve shaped thousands of boards around the world, but when you’re talking about .18” of concave under your front foot, blending to .21” of concave between the fins, blending to flat out the tail – good luck doing that with a planer.

Does that mean hand-shapers are a dying breed?
Hand-shaping is a cool art form. It’s an amazing skill, probably the greatest I’ve had in my life: to take a planer and carve out a good-looking, well curved surfboard. But if you want to grow a successful business and have a team and a solid number of boards in surf shop racks across the globe, then you’re not going to keep up with the demand by just being a hand-shaper. To make an exact, perfect surfboard, with all the numbers right, it would take even a skilled shaper four hours. I think it’s great that it’s promoted and celebrated, but pure hand-shaping is not realistic for today’s surfboard standards and demand.

What is the single most important design element on a surfboard?
Most important is the rocker – the amount of bend. And secondary rocker which is how you blend the rocker with the outline. Balancing the curves between the rocker and the outline, actually, is the most important design element. I try and keep everything else static. Same fin, same fin placement, same rails. That’s the way you really figure a good board out. Good surfboard design has always begun and always will begin with the rocker – any shaper will tell you that.

Which explains why these short 80’s outlines are working so much better today. So what’s the least important element?
Tail shape is least. You basically have either some sort of rounded tail or some sort of chopped-off tail. So a squash, a swallow, a bat – they’re all basically a long, straight line that abruptly ends. And then a roundtail comes to a curve that consequently shortens a rail line. Think about it: You could take a fish-style tail out in solid waves, and if the overall board is designed for solid waves it will work.

For all your defense of some traditional design elements and materials, you seem to have embraced a fair amount of futuristic technology, Why?
I’m just basically here as a sponge, saying, “Bring me your technologies; if they intrigue me, if they look fun, then we’ll implement them in our designs and we’ll put the product out there and let the public decide.” Whether it’s a stylish kid like Hayden Cox from Australia with his FibreFlex surfboards and carbon rail concepts; or some freak, techno German engineering guys with their Hydroflex surfboards and 3-D glassing; or my friend John Omohundo from Aviso, whose family has been doing high-end carbon composites for forty years; these people on the outskirts of our world come to me – to our brand – and we provide a vehicle for them to reach the public.

Which ones have been successful for you?
To this day, Avisos are still the most popular alternative construction that I’ve ever gone to the public with. They’re not anything that anyone’s going to win a WCT comp on, but they’re good for the techie guy who gets the carbon dashboard installed in his Mazda. A carbon dashboard doesn’t make you drive any better, but those who want one, it’s just fun. A bit after Aviso, a friend of mine brought a new kind of composite technology that seemed to perform better than similar boards like Surftech, so we embraced that and we used it to build a price-point brand on the side: Placebo. Again, it’s a niche thing, and if the niche is big enough, then we’ll run with it.

You’ve also developed partnerships with traditional board builders like Chilli, MR and Cole Simler.
I’ve always embraced working with other shapers. When I first went to Europe in 1997 and visited the Pukas factory in Spain, I saw how big they were and how they brought in new shaping talent constantly. It was a great idea. When the whole retro fish thing exploded, I wasn’t really into making them. We have our own fishes and it’s our own thing, so I just said, “Who’s the best twin-fin shaper of all time?” I called Mark Richards and he was instantly on board. He came over and shaped with us for a while and we’ve had an amazing run. Then, when Chris [Ward] went to Australia for the first ‘CT in 2005, he got a Chilli and loved it. It was a great surfboard. So I just called Chilli Dog and now we’re plugging away. Chilli has done well here in the U.S., too and …Lost does well in OZ through him. It’s been a really beneficial partnership.

Describe your partnership with the …Lost team and how that relationship works.
I could run over to a WCT event and try to give boards to Joel Parkinson or whomever. But with guys like that, you’re only as good as your last board. With someone that you nurture, they’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt after you’ve given them a lemon a time or two. So we have our family: Mason Ho, Aaron Cormican, Cory Lopez, Chris Ward. And then we have our new family: the groms we’ve been quietly grooming, like Kolohe Andino, Coco Ho, Carrisa Moore. They’re in the shaping room whenever they can be, working closely with me and getting really involved with their boards. Balaram Stack, Luke Davis, Ian Gentil, Riley Metcalf, and Cristobal de Col are other kids that I’ve worked with a lot lately.

I think that’s the misconception about …Lost. I’m not, like, shaper to the stars or high-end. It was never meant to be that way. I made boards for Chris [Ward] and Cory [Lopez] because they slept on my couch, you know? I made boards for Gorkin because he was the guy who was going to wear our clothes and smoke fat joints and represent the average surfer. He’s the …Lost guy: parties, drinks beer, gets frustrated with like, doesn’t necessarily like big waves.

...Lost is the imperfect team made up of imperfect people living in an imperfect world. There is a large segment of people out there who are like, "You know? I can relate to that."

The remake of 5’5” x 19 ¼” (REDUX) certainly connected. How did that help this year, and what have surf vids done for …Lost as a whole?
The original 5’5” x 19 1/4” was the movie that kind of put our surfboards on the map; it’s a huge part of our legacy. So in 2005, we started re-releasing most of our other movies from the 1990’s on DVD, like What’s Really Goin’ On and What’s Really Goin’ Wrong. But we wanted to hold on to 5’5” x 19 ¼” and look through all the various footage we’d gotten over the years on fishes and Rockets and add, like, a 20-minute ending to a re-release. As soon as we started to do that, there was a spike in the amount of fishes that the team guys were ordering, thus a lot of fresh footage. Suddenly we went from a one-hour movie to a two-hour movie. Then, Cory and Ian [Walsh] had just gotten back from the Surfing Google Earth trip to Africa, where they had scored the Holy Grail of all scores. Cory was riding a fish gun, roundpin version of our Monkfish, and Ian was on a Rocket. When we got that footage we knew we were done.

But the Rocket already had momentum before Redux came out. Shane [Beschen] came to me with the board years ago and we started experimenting with it. I actually owe Noah Budroe all of the credit for the tail shape. And just by word of mouth that thing kind of took off. Guys like Jordy [Smith] and Dusty [Payne], they would grab them out of our racks because they heard the boards were fun. The Rocket was destined for popularity without the movie – like the Merrick Flyer – and has been our biggest single seller this year. Occasionally a surfboard model transcends the brand, and that’s what happened with the Rocket.

Has it evolved at all?
Oh yeah. Every board we make is in a constant state of refinement. I’ve made some pintail versions that are good for riding in 4- to 6-foot waves. I’ve stretched it into more of a normal shortboard – that’s actually a version we call the Stealth, which has been really popular, too. No matter what design, you’ll always tweak and twist and adapt and refine – depending on what people come to you and ask for.

Most of our successes have been based on how the typical consumer – the average surfer – has reacted. You know, when Mike Reola and I started this shit, we didn’t come from the surf industry. We weren’t NSSA stars or guys who grew up working at surf companies or in the lap of luxury of southern Orange County. I was an outsider and Mike grew up in Florida. We came into this whole thing with an average Joe mentality: We were the consumer and we weren’t these cool guys telling the consumer what they wanted. Fortunately for us, a big enough portion of the market is that average surfer, and that has allowed us to build our brand on a philosophy that basically says, “We are of the people”. Fortunately, certain surf starts and so-called cool dudes are attracted to that philosophy – kids like Chris and Cory, who didn’t make the cut for the whole Taylor Steele Momentum Generation. But there’s no exclusive club here.

But you maintain that prestige. Wasn’t your board nominated for a SIMA Board of the Year award, too?
Yeah, but whatever. They gave that award to Surftech once, so it doesn’t really matter much to me. Even this thing – Shaper of the Year – I’m not sure about. To have guys like Darren Handley and Jason Stevenson not get the honor after all they’ve accomplished with competitive surfing the last few years, it takes a little validity away. I’m not going to say anything about the people who have been chosen in the past, but I will say I don’t agree with some of them.

But the cool thing about us being chosen is that our path hasn’t been based on WCT results and making the perfect 6’1” squashtail. It’s always been more about giving the public what they need. We put a lot of focus on a lot of different, fun boards that help people enjoy their leisure time. That’s what it’s really all about. We make toys. I’m a toy maker. If your toy makes things more frustrating and more difficult, then it’s not a well-made toy.

For more on ...Lost Surfoards CLICK HERE