When I sit down in front of Matt Biolos’ big wooden desk his wife, Kelly, immediately comes into the office with her cell phone. The room is in the back of his San Clemente factory and it’s lined with classic …Lost surfboards. There’s a Rocket or two, a Driver, a couple of Mark Richards-inspired twinnies. I want to grab one and go jump in the water at 204’s, just up the hill. His wife hands him the phone: “It’s the Toll Roads,” she says.
“Hey, yeah, my card was charged twice, can you possibly fix that,” he asks in his typically-even tone. They figure out the bill before he playfully toys with the customer service person on the line: “I’ll pay it,” he says, without cracking a smile. “As long as you guys promise not to build a road through my favorite wave.”
Aside from that dry wit, Biolos has one of the most varied skill sets in all of surfing. He’s a renowned shaper, but he started building his own snowboards at 13 and has been riding snow for at least that long. And he of course knows his way around a lineup. This diverse knowledge base is partly what makes him such an interesting interview – that along with his willingness to have an opinion. For 45 minutes, with the bustle of surfboard manufacturing going off in the background, we go back and forth in his office in San Clemente’s legendary Los Molinos shaping district: we talk about surfing’s relevance as a sport, some interesting WSL conspiracy theories, why snowboarding is more easy-going than surfing and the iconic …Lost films vault. Matt’s easy-going cadence and vast surfing knowledge is perfect for the podcast format.
Editor’s Note: This podcast was recorded just before the world shutdown due to the Coronavirus crisis.
