Podcasts are everywhere these days. True crime, news, sports — there’s a podcast for everything. Surprisingly, though, there aren’t too many in surfing that pass muster. A good interview podcast is a lot more than just two people talking. Not only does it require a great interviewer and an interesting subject, but it also requires that the interviewer and the subject have a certain je ne sais quoi. A good interview requires a certain amount of chemistry. It requires an interviewer who can ask questions and carry a conversation. Justin Jay has what is required. Above is a snippet of his most recent conversation with Kassia Meador on his new podcast, The Plug.
Jay, if you haven’t heard of him, has quite the resume. He cut his teeth shooting photos in New York as a documentary photographer for rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs. He’s worked with countless musicians, including Jay Z, Outkast, and the Foo Fighters. He has a certain way about him that just kind of allows him to slide into high-intensity situations unnoticed. Inside those insulated cultures, Jay is able to document them without disturbing. For the last decade or so, he’s been working on a book about the North Shore called HI 1K – 10 Years / 1000 Moments on Hawaii’s North Shore, and in the process, he’s gotten to know just about everyone there is to know.
He knows how to talk to people who are in the public eye like they’re his good friends — probably because Jay treats everyone he meets like they are. His new podcast, The Plug, is a series of conversations with cultural arbiters and artists to talk about life at large. They talk about career successes and disappointments, what inspires them, and whatever is on their mind, and it’s always interesting. A few weeks ago, Jay got on the horn with Kassia Meador. They talked about many things, like growing up surfing First Point Malibu, how the lineup has changed, and sleeping on the beach to avoid the overbearing heat of the San Fernando Valley.
Find other episodes of The Plug here. Listen to The Inertia’s podcast here.
