When Matt Archbold started surfing back in 1979, at age 11, the world had no concept that it was about to witness one of the most explosive surfers to ever have set foot on a surfboard. With a career spanning nearly three decades, Archy is today considered to be the most successful free surfer of all time, and one of the originators of high performance surfing.
As Martin Potter was setting the stage globally for high performance surfing in the early 80's, a young crew, led by Archy out of San Clemente was about to blow the roof off of surfing...
From dropping out of High School as a Freshman at age 15 and turning pro, to becoming the poster child for surf clothing giant MCD, Archy's young life had not a dull moment to it. After struggling with competitive surfing for the next five years and having some success winning a handful of Bud Tour events, Archy quickly leant that pro surfings' '3 turns to the beach' format wasn't for him.
Deciding to set out on a fairly new frontier, 'free surfing', Archy got paid simply to go out and get photos, something that had not been done before then. In his early 20's, his name became synonymous with the legendary surf spot known as 'Off the Wall' all the while riding shorter boarders in bigger waves, something that most had never done or even dreamt of doing. Archy's aeriel attack in the water and explosive surfing revolutionized what we view as high performance surfing today.
Archy is a timeless film that tells the story of 3 very different generations in surfing. Spanning the 80’s, 90’s, 2000 and on, Archy’s amazing story is one of survival through surf stardom at an early age, fame, drugs, alcohol, sponsorships and the surf rock star lifestyle. Light will finally be shed on the true-life story of one of the most charismatic and legendary surfers in history.
Compelling interviews, explosive surf action, timeless photos matched with Narration by Henry Rollins from the legendary band Black Flag and set to an all time soundtrack including The Clash, Social Distortion, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Devo, The Avett Brothers, The Kinks and many others, Archy is sure to effect audiences of all walks of life worldwide. This is a story that needs to be told.
More of Matt's story via SurferMag...and his son Ford rips, too.
