You Won’t Get Rid Of Shaun Manners That Easily
Photos courtesy of Shaun Manners’ phone camera roll.
Shaun Manners may just be the absolute guy.
Authentic, and an absolute menace on some fibreglass? Check. And a great hang too, always. It’s probably why he’s one of the more regular centres of focus on correctly-curated feeds, pages, and screens that are in the know, and post-surf, beer-in-hand “let’s rank who does the most torched airs” coastal conversations worldwide. Overall, Shaun’s one of those outstanding members of the frothed-out, easy-on-the-eyes, music-making and culture-shaking community.
But recently, we noticed he’s taken a step back from it all. Aside from a recent appearance at the Padang Cup, things on the receiving end of the Shaun line have been a little static-y, muffled, and, altogether, just quiet. So, we felt compelled to ask, what gives? Well, we gave Shaun a ring mostly to check in, and it turns out that there’s actually a lot more to it. Life, Blistar, a hugely challenging past couple of months, sobriety, head injuries, and more.
Shaun Manners, how the hell are we?
How we goin’ James. Sorry for the delay there, I just got off the phone with Virgin Australia. I had a fucker getting out of a flight.
Oh, that’s no fun. So, what's happening?
Well, a bit’s been going on. Just with life, really, you know? Life’s crazy. Not really, but you know what it’s like. I just moved into a new house in Wollongong, so, just been kind of been trying to get all my shit out of storage and into there. Which I’ve done now.
Then I’m headed to West Oz on Saturday to hang out with my family for the big uncle’s birthday. And then hopefully get some surfing on there and balance that out with playing a few shows and getting some footage. Which doesn’t seem like it should be that hard. But it’s kind of hard sometimes.
Yeah, getting nature to cooperate can always be a bit tricky.
And I’m pretty shit at planning stuff. I'm doing good, though!
Good and not shocking, of course, to hear you’re still surfing a ton! Honestly, sort of the main reason I wanted to have this chat is because I saw you share on Instagram that DM you received from someone, I want to say right around when you were in the Padang Cup, that was like, “Mate, do you even still surf?” And just ripping you. Thought that was a bit harsh, but also just pretty funny.
Oh, man. It's funny, hey? Someone sent me a DM, you get them every now and then, but I don’t check them really. But I was bored at the airport going through them and was, like, fuck, how’s this guy? He’s, like, you’re washed up and whatever. It didn’t really bother me, though. It was just pretty funny.
It's so stupid, but I feel like if you do get a couple of messages like that, and I don’t get many of them, but every now and then I’ll get them, and I figure I must be doing something right. For what we do, you want people to notice or know what you’re up to, because it helps justify your sponsors paying you and that stuff. So when you get a message like that, you go, oh, there must be something right going on. Because there’s enough people watching me that there’s even a hater.
In a way, it’s almost like a wellness check. How’d the whole Padang Cup go, by the way?
I'll just finish on that, actually, really quick since you brought it up. But yesterday, the same guy sent me another DM apologising. He was like, “Oh man! You still rip! Been loving the music you’ve been putting out.” It’s so funny.
Oh my god, best mates now!
But, yeah, the Padang cup was pretty sick. I didn’t expect to be in it. It was actually pretty funny. It’s a bit of a long story, but I hit my head at the start of the year while tucking into backside pits in Ireland, and the first time I left West Oz after that rehab was to Indo. I was on a surf trip, filming for FORMER, but with a few of the Rage gang and we just got lucky and scored waves. But I still didn’t have the stamina that I used to have in the water.
I had some good surfs though and got some fun barrels and felt like my confidence was getting better. Even just leaving the West Coast after doing three months of rehab, I was a little bit wary of how I was going to hold up, because head knock symptoms can put you in shittier moods quicker. So I didn’t know how I was going to be around people. But I was holding up well, and my confidence was getting better and we did this surf trip and a couple of us from this Indo trip went to Ulus for, I don’t know, five days off and everyone was just drinking and having a good time. I was sitting around just twiddling my thumbs because I wasn’t drinking, because of the head knock. I was getting anxious because I was in Ulus going like, “What the fuck am I doing?” I’m spending hundreds of dollars on food and accommodation every day. I should be surfing.
I was giving off the vibe of being antsy and Holly, so funny, she was like, “Don’t fuckin’ worry mate, we’ll just get you in the contest.” I was like, what?
She said don't worry mate, you just chill and I'll get you in there, and I was like what are you talking about? I'm not getting in the contests. But she’s, like, I know the bloke, Harry Man, we’re friends. I'll send him a message and someone's not going to come and they'll put you in instead.
Anyway, she said that like a week before the contest, and we just kind of went about our time, chilling, and some of the Rage gang went on another surf trip and I already had some plans to go on a little bit of a holiday. So, I was just chilling and then I got a message from Harry Man about two days before the contest. I honestly had almost forgotten about it by then. But he was, like, “Hey man, you’re the number one reserve and you’re in the expression session tomorrow. I reckon you can come to Padang.”
I called him and said, oh, sick, but I’m actually kind of on holidays right now. So, I’m not going to come back unless I’m actually in the contest, who’s not going to not come? And he was like, well, actually, Noa Deane isn’t sure if he’s not coming or not. I was like, hold on, let me just call him real quick. I just called him a second later and he actually had a cut on his head and couldn’t surf, so he wasn’t coming. So, I called Harry back and told him Noa’s not going to make it… Am I in? And I was in. I got the ferry the next day and that was it. It worked out nicely. I don’t know what I was stressing about just relaxing.
A lot of work goes into letting your hair down. Wait, you said you knocked your head badly in Ireland? What’s the story there?
Yeah, I was surfing in Ireland. I went over for three months, around the end of December last year and then I got back around the middle of March, April. But, yeah, I hit my head around the start of February, just surfing around there.
I was in a van and it was a bad combo of stuff. I was living in a van over there, so I wasn’t having many showers. If you wanted a shower, you had to go to a leisure centre, which had a sauna, and I was kind of getting in the rhythm of doing that. Having a sauna, then having a shower and one day I forgot to drink water and woke up in my van and had no water in the van, so I went to get a coffee and surfed for four hours after that. So, I was really dehydrated, and sometime during that surf I fell onto my knee into a barrel and knocked my head.
But I didn’t really think that much of it. I was a little bit dazed, but I just kept surfing, and the rest of the day I felt a little off. But I thought it was just because I surfed for four, five hours in seven-degree water. It was cold and I was just, like, yeah, I’m fuckin’ wrecked.
So, as you do in Ireland, I went to the pub for dinner and had eight pints and a bunch of shots and a good time. Didn’t think anything of it, really. But around eleven o’clock or something, I got this splitting headache and went to sleep, but woke up at three just fully fucked. Everything was spinning out of control and I was spewing in this van in freezing weather. I managed to get through it, but it felt like graining out when you’re really drunk, but with a splitting migraine. It was really scary. Graining out is scary as it is, but this was really intense.
I was a bit worried, but I managed to fall asleep, like, sitting up? I don’t know why that felt better, but in the morning I woke up and was just fucked. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a concussion before, but it was just shutter vision. Every time I moved my head, it took my brain several seconds to register and my cognitive skills were out the window. I couldn’t read or concentrate or do simple math equations or anything for a couple months.
Wait, so what was the immediate rehab like? Obviously, you woke up and realised you needed to do something as soon as possible?
So, I didn’t even really know what was going on at the start. I just thought, oh, in ten days I’ll be better. Then I got to ten days and I was like, oh, I’ll be better in another week.
And I had spent so much money and bought this van and had this whole project in mind when I was there, and it was a bit of planning and I spent a bunch of money so I hung on to the very end. I hung on for another month and travelled through Italy and a bunch of stuff, just with my backpack, and figured I’d get better after a week of traveling. But I just wasn’t getting any better. So, I went back to London, where my uncle was living at the time, and he was like, “Man, you’re fucked. You need to get home.” I didn’t want to go home, though, but he was like you need to get some scans and get better. So, alright, I went home.
I needed that advice, because I was just hanging on. I went home, got scans, and the scans were all good and went to see the doctor and got referred to a specialist and basically the specialist confirmed I had concussion symptoms and prescribed me some antidepressants and benzos for my neck pain. But I just knew straight away that that wasn’t for me. I said that doesn’t make sense, I’m not drinking, I’m not doing any drugs, and I don’t want to mess my brain up anymore. Even if it’s prescribed drugs.
I know that those things mess with your psyche a little bit, they’re just not good for you. It didn’t make sense that it’d be good for me at that time. So, I got back from the doctor’s and I was even a bit more rattled because I was like, fuck, I’m back on my own. When you have an injury and you go to the doctor and you get a bit of hope, but then it doesn’t work out and you’re, like, fuck! I don’t have any hope now.
I reached out to a friend, Jed Smith, because I know that he’d spoken about concussions a lot and he gave me his protocol, which was pretty basic. I had actually practised some of the stuff in it before. What the protocol is, is just wake up, don’t look at your phone and if you don’t want to get out of bed just read a book for a bit, then get up, jump in the ice bath, do your Wim Hof, do your meditation, eat some good, healthy foods, have your supplements and then go do some light exercise.
Then start that whole process again, because I’d find some relief but then come lunch time I’d start crashing again. But that protocol, with the ice bath, breathing, and meditation and relaxing just reset me. And I would do that a couple times throughout the day and once before bed, and I did that for about two months, maybe longer.
I still do a lot of that stuff, just not as strict. I do it when I feel like I need to do it. And then, funny enough, I had heard people say that psilocybin had helped with concussions. But it was that same kind of feeling, where someone told me early on and I just didn’t feel like taking drugs. It just doesn’t feel like I should be trying to have fun, hah.
I waited about three months and had a friend’s wedding coming up on the calendar, and I was not socialising much. And even though I was on this routine, I was still quite nervous about socialising and I was getting depressed from it. So I was stuck in this loop of not wanting to socialise but feeling bad about not socialising.
And then I had this wedding come up and, I was like, fuck it, I’m just going to get some mushrooms and micro-dose today. I just did this slow micro-dose throughout the day and I ended up having heaps of fun at the wedding. I went to bed early, but I was still able to socialise and get on my friends’ levels. The next day I was really tired from it all, but that day was the first day when I had breaks between headaches for the first time in three months. So, I was, like, whoa. I hadn’t had any relief by that point, and I still don’t know if was from the mushrooms or from socialising or just getting over that barrier and getting the confidence back a bit.
And it’s been three months since then and I’ve noticed, every month, I’ve gotten better. It’s kind of hard to measure every day, but every month I’ve seen some sort of improvement.
What a wild couple of months.
I wouldn’t fuckin’ change it though. I’m stoked on the routine, as long as I don’t get early-onset dementia or Alzheimer's, I’ll be stoked. And at least I know that protocol’s there so I can enjoy my life, even when I feel like shit.
I’ll do this as the finisher, even if it’s a bit corny, but you’ve been going through quite a bit recently. What’s been stoking you out? What’s been getting you pumped to get out of bed, take on the day, and all that stuff?
Well, I’ve never been sober for this long. I haven’t had any alcohol in maybe seven months now. It’s obviously out of necessity, but I’ve been feeling the benefits of that and it’s made me less jaded with everything that I do.
I’m kind of leaning into more of what I want to do and create. I don’t really have the head noise of if people are going to like it or not anymore. I’m just psyched on the stuff my friends make and the stuff that I make, and I can like it a bit more than I usually do and not be so attached to putting it out there in the world.
Yeah, that’s been my biggest driving force. Having a bit more time and not being hungover all the time and a bit more a free mind and clear thoughts and not having to overanalyse everything. I’m just making stuff and keeping it going, and I want to keep making stuff.
I was worried about not drinking for this long, but I realised I can get the same satisfaction I would get from having a couple of beers from just making stuff and being productive. Yeah, that’s been getting me psyched.