Archy, high and dry above the lip. Photo: Kenworthy
What’s life like for Matt Archbold today?
I stay really active, probably more than early on in my career. I am always busy with either surfing, family or huge projects that I’m making slow progress on. I work really hard on staying straight and I’m slowly smoothing out ruts in my life that came from some bad choices. My son Ford and daughter Ruby are what is truly important to me. Ford and I surf together a lot and are really good friends. God, coffee, surf, my kids, Willem da’bro, music, my hot rod and my broad are the things my life is all about today. I live my gift and hopefully inspire others to live theirs, whatever it may be. What’s your best injury story?
I broke my leg in Brazil really bad when I did an air and came down on backwash as it was coming up. I watched my bone come out the side of my leg as I landed. I ended up with a compound spiral fracture. The bone in my leg broke in four places and I shattered my ankle at the same time. The ride to the hospital was totally bumpy and we were stuck in traffic. When we got to the E.R. I had been there waiting on a metal gurnie for hours until my friend saw me there who was friends with the mayor. He called the mayor who called the hospital and got me seen immediately and I got the royal treatment. I was out of the water for a year. I went crazy. What are your plans for the future?
I am going to continue to travel and surf. I have been working on getting my website going lately and I plan on working on that a lot over the next couple of years. I’m just trying to get together a good way for surf fans to kinda track my career through the years by being able to go on to my site and check out old pictures and miscellaneous stuff. Mostly my future looks like this: surf, hang with my family, travel, rock with the Stones in London, cruise my car, get dirty in the garage, hassle the kids, sleep and love my girl.
STEELE
I know you have a model coming out for Santa Cruz Surfboards. Tell us about it? When does it come out?
“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need.” Archy, painting it black in the tube. Newport, CA
I have two models coming out and they should be available this summer. One is a 6’1 round tail and the other is 5’11 double wing swallow. Both the boards will be insane. I am really stoked I was able to do something like these epoxys that’s going to bring me the consistency in boards that I have always wanted. I was able to work with amazing people in the process of creating my models from the shaper, to the artist (Jimbo Phillips Jr.) and the guys up at Santa Cruz. Every one did a great job and my boards are going to rip. Any advice for all the groms out there?
Don’t wait for anyone to go surfing, just go!
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