In Timmy Curran’s garage, piled against a wall, there is an ever-increasing stack of surfboards. He has about 20 altogether. This is not surprising. He is, after all, a professional surfer — at one time ranked sixth in the world. Also in his large Ventura home is a growing collection of guitars; he currently owns six. This is not surprising, either. Curran is a songwriter as well. He has recorded a solo EP, opened for Foo Fighters at the Sydney Opera House and is on the verge of releasing his first full-length album.
Do not let the ratio of guitars to surfboards in his house fool you, though. At this point, Curran, 29, feels he is as much a musician as he is a pro-surfer.
And that is a little surprising. At least, it is to Timmy Curran.
“This whole music thing, to be honest, is such a surprise,” he confesses, sitting on a couch in his well-kept living room, a view of the Pacific sparkling over his shoulder. “I’ve always loved music; I’ve played guitar since I was 13. But I tried singing for 10 years, and I was never comfortable singing in front of people. I never liked my voice. Then, a little over two years ago, I was in Japan and I wrote a song. I recorded it on my minidisc, then I came home and showed [my wife] and my brothers, and they all seemed to like it. I was, like, ‘Really? You like it? My voice sounds all right?’ I think that gave me the confidence to keep writing songs and sing in front of them.”
Silver Strand surfer
If Curran’s career as a recording artist came out of left field, his life as a surfer, on the other hand, was practically preordained. Born in the San Fernando Valley and raised in the small Oxnard beach community of Silver Strand, Curran was living in the ocean by the time he was 7 years old. His father, a carpenter and former world record-holding teenage pole vaulter, was, above all, an avid surfer who nudged — gently, mind you — his boys into the water.
“I think it was his dream to have his sons surf with him,” Curran says. “He never forced us into it, he just said, ‘Here’s a board. If you want to surf, cool. If not, no worries.’ But inside, he probably would’ve been bummed [if we didn’t surf].”
Luckily for Tim Curran Sr., all four of his sons took to the sport — especially the one bearing his name.
“Once I started, I loved it,” Curran Jr. says. “I remember so clearly the smells of the ocean, the salt, the smell of my first wetsuit, the rubber. All these things. Being a kid, it’s such a great feeling. It’s hard to explain.”
At 16, Curran started entering competitions. He left Oxnard High School, going on an independent study program for his senior year, and joined the tour circuit, traveling to Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa, Tahiti and Fiji with heavyweights like Tom Carroll, Shane Dorian and eight-time world champion Kelly Slater. He became known for his unique aerial style, using waves as launch pads to pull off a variety of difficult airborne maneuvers. (In 2005, he landed the first-ever backflip on a surfboard.) Before he even joined the World Championship Tour (WCT), Curran was voted one of the world’s most popular surfers; in 2002, Transworld Surf called him “the third most exposed surfer” on the planet.
Tired of the constant travel, and having lost his motivation to win a world title, Curran retired from the WCT in 2005, opting to focus on filming segments for surf movies, doing photo shoots for magazines — and, secretly, mustering up the courage to perform for other people the songs he had been keeping to himself for years.
From ocean to studio
Truth be told, music is as much a part of Curran’s DNA as surfing. Most of his family play instruments. When everyone would get together for holidays, a jam session would inevitably erupt. “It was like a full-on hootenanny growing up,” he says. But, although Curran picked up the guitar as a teenager, he was always too nervous to join in. His self-consciousness as a musician carried over to his songwriting. He began composing songs — mellow folk numbers in the vein of James Taylor and early Neil Young, two of his parents’ favorites — in high school but wouldn’t dare show them to anyone else. He brought his guitar with him on every surf trip and would occasionally participate in casual campfire concerts with his tourmates, “but,” he says, “I was never, like, stoked on it.”
Then, one night while in Tokyo, Curran had a breakthrough. “It was pouring rain, there was nothing to do, so I just sat in my hotel room and wrote this song. It was about seeing somebody in pain and wishing you could do something about it, but it’s out of your control.” The song, “If I Only Had a Way,” came from a different place than those he had written in the past. “[With] other songs, I was trying to write just to write,” he explains. “This song was on my heart.” Plus, when he recorded it, he sang differently, in a voice that sounded unlike his own. Able to disconnect himself from the singer on his minidisc, Curran felt comfortable enough to play the tune for his wife, Shanoah, and his three brothers. To his amazement, the reviews were positive.
Spurred by their encouragement, Curran went on a songwriting spree, using his bathroom as a studio. A few months later, a friend heard his demo of “Horses on the Range” and asked to include it in his documentary on Channel Islands Surfboards designer Al Merrick. Not only that, he invited Curran to perform the song at the film’s premiere, at the 2,000-capacity Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara. “I stressed about that for two months,” he says.
Suddenly a working musician, Curran decided to go into the studio — or, more accurately, his friend’s studio apartment — and record more songs. He put out the six-song Citsuca EP on independent label Record Collection in April 2006. Thanks to Curran’s manager, the record got into the hands of Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett, who asked Curran to support the band on five dates of their fall acoustic tour. Playing onstage in front of thousands of people, Curran’s reaction was the same as when he beat Rob Machado as a 16-year-old: “This is too crazy.”
New sound next summer
This summer, Curran will release his as-yet-untitled full-length debut, which he has already finished recording — well, almost.
“We just wrote a new song,” he says from the driver’s seat of his black Toyota Sequoia. “I’m debating if we should put it on there.”
Curran is parked in his driveway, previewing two of the completed tracks. Unlike Citsuca, which featured Curran alone with an acoustic guitar, the album includes full band arrangements, with Ryan Gleason and Andy Smith backing the singer on bass and drums. One of the finished songs, “Daylight’s Coming,” has the same light, breezy vibe as the EP. But with the added instrumentation, it takes on a swirling, almost psychedelic feel.
It is the only song on the album directly about surfing, Curran says. But that doesn’t mean he has abandoned his first love. This is not a matter of giving up one passion for another. Music and surfing, as he is prone to saying, “go hand-in-hand.” In fact, each influences his plans for the other. For instance, in April, Curran scheduled a week of surfing in Australia around a gig at the Bluesfest in Byron Bay. And when he eventually tours the States, his itinerary will not likely include any dates in the Midwest.
“If I tour, I’m not going to go inland,” he says. “I’m going to be a coast-to-coast guy, so I can always surf.” 
05-01-2007
