DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR We started Volcom during a very conservative time in surfing. Those first snowboarders we met were all punkers. From Palmer to Matty Goodman on down, it was a rowdy bunch of guys—they were having a great time. That energy really helped the industry. It wasn’t anything thought up by marketers—it was just the lifestyle of snowboarding. You saw this in the films and the way everybody dressed and colored their hair. Just look at the music of that time: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and on and on—they were rebelling against something. All of us, as the youth, were rebelling against something, and that’s where that disruptive punk attitude came from. The youth was tired of the established ways, government politics, and they wanted to break out and have their own voice. We felt that if we’re going to make the world a better place, we have to get in-volved. We can’t let somebody else do it. We’ve got to believe in our own creativity and trust ourselves because we are the future. Listen to Nirvana’s music—they hit the core of how young people felt and that’s why it worked. In Southern California you had Pennywise and the Epitaph scene, and Rage Against the Machine literally yelling at the establishment. Snowboarding had that same kind of DNA and it was natural. We had it right in our tagline, Youth Against Establishment; “We’ve got to rise up and believe in ourselves.” This attitude carried into our business, our marketing and our movies. Maybe it didn’t go over well with some people. I’m sure we crossed the line at times, but it wasn’t intentional. We were just this ball of energy. You could see it at trade shows—we got kicked out of a few. We got kicked out of some hotels and blacklisted. But we weren’t trying to bum anyone out. That trade show scene was gnarly, and the energy was wild. The industry was booming. The movement was happening globally. The popularity of snowboarding and skating brought surfing along. We were all in La La Land and having a lot of fun. We’d have parties at our booth: “The band will play at 3; let’s get 20 kegs.” That turns into 400 people in front of your booth and that didn’t go over well with other exhibitors. The people running the show would tell us, “Hey, you can’t have the band,” or, “Turn down the music.” We would do what we could, but when you have a full-blown rager in front of your booth you have to let it go. We weren’t the only guys do-ing it. Those trade shows were crazy. One time in Japan, we were partying with Terje and our Japanese distributor in our hotel room. After a karate-kick fight that destroyed the paper walls, Bruce [Irons] grabbed a fire extinguisher and wanted to see what would happen if he turned it on in the room. It wasn’t a good outcome. The next day we apologized and had to pay for all the damage. There was stuff like that, but at the end of the day you are running a business. You want to be respectful, but that snowboard scene was wild. How do you bottle that energy and make it work for you, and at the same time stay out of trouble? 078 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.4: Page 80
