"The SURFER Interview with Rizal Tanjung," by Alex Wilson, ran in the March 2007 issue. Tanjung was 31.

I wasn't born in Bali. I was born in Sulawesi, in Indonesia, and we moved to Bali when I was 1. Our family has always been in the restaurant business, and my parents wanted to move to Bali to start a new life, build a restaurant, and raise their kids. I’m one of seven brothers—I'm number five. I have a lot of older brothers; we did a lot of fighting and got into a lot of trouble. [Laughs]

Was it tough for you and your family to become accepted by Balinese society after you moved in?

No, not really. I grew up there, so I speak Balinese. I grew up in this small, tight-knit community. I was just like any other Balinese kid.

I was 7 years old, and one of my older brothers came home with this old board. I saw it laying around the house and I was like, “Oh, what’s this?” So I just started going with him. Three or four of us would share that board. But it was big and old and heavy, we’d all have to help carry it. Then we'd take turns riding it. Four of my brothers still surf today. But at that time, in Kuta, during the early ’80s, there wasn’t much else to do. It was just dirt, rice fields, papaya trees, mango trees, coconut trees. So we’d go surfing every day, and on the way home, we’d pick papayas. We had our little stashes of fruit. We’d know which trees were ripe and we’d just stop on the way home and fill up. But in the past 20 years, Kuta has been booming. Big changes now. It’s crazy.

What’s it been like to see that kind of growth?

For me, it’s sort of sad. I loved it back in the day. It was so mellow. But the good part is the whole community in Bali runs off tourism now. Kids have better education and there’re better schools. There’s more money, so the lives of the people are way better. We have better health care and all that, but it’s been tough on families in a way, too. There’s a lot of culture shock. Bali is such a small island and we have so many people coming from all over the world—Scandinavia, France, Italy, Australia, America, Japan, China—and they’ve created a whole new Bali. It’s metropolitan now, in a way. You can feel all these influences.

What was the surf culture like in Bali while you were growing up?

There was hardly anybody in the water. There’d be a couple of guys, maybe, riding single-fins or twin-fins. Gerry Lopez and a few others from his generation came through and left their boards, and the local guys rode them for years. It was hard to get equipment. You couldn’t even find a leash. My one friend, he made one out of a sock and a rope. I learned to surf on these big old single-fins and twin-fins. It was tough. Then a few Japanese guys came through and snapped their boards— thrusters—and left them and we put them back together. I remember they were just so light. We couldn’t believe it.

You said Lopez came through Indo when you were growing up. What kind of effect did that have on you?

When I first met Gerry, I had no board sponsor. I was borrowing boards from my friend Made Switra. But Gerry showed up one day and said he was going to take me to G-Land. So I borrowed this 6’8" from Made and took off with Gerry. That was my first trip to G-Land. When we got there, it was pretty big, like 8-foot. It was crazy to be 15 years old, surfing perfect G-Land with Gerry. He was like a god to us and I was just this little skinny guy. But I was like “I want to show something to Gerry.” So I saw this set coming and I paddled so hard. I was really light and it was hard to get into the wave, but I made this late drop and got barreled, and Gerry couldn’t believe it. He hooked me up with a board sponsor as soon as we got back. I actually have the original fax that Gerry sent my sponsor, framed in my house.

Yeah. He really helped a lot, and getting a board sponsor was a dream come true. Then when I was a teenager, the Quiksilver World Grommet events started happening in Kuta. So that brought kids from America, Japan, Hawaii, Australia, and they all had these perfect shortboards. That’s when we really started to get some decent equipment. Like the late ’80s, early ’90s.

How else did the World Grommet contests affect you?

I was competing in them and doing well. I was beating some of the best young guys in the world and I was just this full Balinese kid who’d learned to surf on a half-broken board. The first year I competed I made the finals, and then I won the under-16 division when I was 15. So I was like, “Man, I can do this. I want to be a pro.” The next year, Quiksilver sponsored me and I went to Narrabeen to surf in the Hot Buttered Pro. It was my first trip outside of Indonesia. That really opened my eyes. After that, I just wanted to travel the world; I wanted to see everything.

Yeah. I hooked up with Danny Wills and Mick Campbell and went out on tour. I won a 3-star in Bali and I made the finals in a contest in Japan. I was going to places like California, Hawaii, England—it was crazy. Every week I saw a different country. It was gnarly and I was broke. Eating nothing, just noodles, and peanuts. But I was hungry to see the world and open the door for the kids back in Indonesia. I wanted to make a name for myself and make a name for Indonesian surfing.

Coming from Bali, I’d already been exposed to so many different kinds of people, so it was easy for me. I’d already hung out with guys from all over the world. But when I started hanging out with Benji Weatherly and Jay Larson, that was it. We were on it. We had so much fun. We were a team; I would do all the cooking and Lars would clean up. Benji was the entertainment. It was perfect. We traveled together like that on the QS for, like, four years.

Benji told me that when you guys were traveling, some of the best times he had were when he was teaching you English.

Oh God. [Laughs] He would teach me something and then tell me to go say it to a group of people I didn’t know. And it would just be something awful. I’d turn around afterwards and he'd be laughing. I was like his personal standup comedy act.

At what point did you start filming with Taylor Steele?

It was during that time. We were doing contests, but at the same time we'd take little side trips to film. Taylor has helped me a lot. Benji introduced me to him and it was really good for me. When you get in front of the camera, you try your hardest. Plus, Taylor’s guided me in a good direction and put me in touch with lots of good people.

Movie parts and photo trips gave you a pretty high profile. At what point did you decide to just focus on freesurfing and filming?

When I signed with Hurley. They picked me up and told me I should just be myself. They told me I didn’t have to go out and do contests. I liked doing them, and I did well—I had a couple really good results on the QS and I’d made the finals at Pipe—but they said, “All you need to do is keep surfing and be the guy with a big smile on your face, representing us in Bali.” So that's what I did. But it’s not like I gave up on progressing. I have more drive now than ever. I want to do everything I can to take my surfing to the next level.

Who were some of your early Balinese influences?

Ketut Menda and Made Kasim. Those two were the first Indonesians to travel the world surfing. They're really, really good surfers. But they just came along at the wrong time. They didn't have the money from the industry. It wasn't like it is today; it wasn’t as big. I was the first guy to come along after the industry started coming to Indonesia, so, for me, the timing was really good. I got lucky. But those guys, Ketut and Made, would blow your mind. Such good style, even today. Like Ketut, he’s almost 50 and he's still ripping. He’s got so much energy and he links his turns so well. His style is amazing, real islander style. So yeah, those guys made an impression, but the money just wasn't there for them.

But even after the industry was interested in Indonesia, didn’t a handful of talented Balinese surfers fall off the radar?

Yeah. A lot of guys just ! disappeared because they were just too into the I Balinese lifestyle. They were too relaxed. They wanted to stay home and cruise. And, at that point, during the mid-'90s, the World Grommet Contest stopped coming, too, so they had even less motivation. But now we have our own ticket. Three years ago we created the Indonesian Surfing Championship. Pepen Hendrix won it the first year and then Bol [Made Putra] won it. This year I won. The tour motivates these guys to go surf every day. They have a goal and it gives them drive. We use the ASP’s system, so the heats are man-on-man starting in the quarterfinals. And we visit world-class waves—all the best spots in Indo. In the future, I think Indonesia will have the best domestic tour in the world. I want it to be so big [that] it goes from Ache in Sumatra all the way to New Guinea.

I want more top surfers coming out of our country—we have the best waves in the world, so we should have the best surfers. In a way, we already do. The guys coming up behind me are right there, but we need to make sure they get exposure. We live so far away [from the world's surfing centers], so it’s hard to remind the magazines what’s going on. But anyone who comes to Indo now is blown away by the stuff these guys are doing. It’s, like, “What? Who’s this guy?”

Let’s talk about those guys coming up behind you—the next generation. How does it feel to see them following in your footsteps?

I love it. Since day one I’ve traveled by myself. I met friends after I was out on the road, but to have my friends from home with me is like a dream. We travel together now, we make Indonesian food, my wife and kid come along. So even when I leave Bali, it still feels like I’m home. And now we have the ability to come to Hawaii as a group and really let everyone know what we can do.

Well, the corruption here is pretty gnarly. If the government doesn’t get paid, nothing happens. But if you give them some cash, they’re on it. Surfing brings money and, to a degree, they see that. And the good thing about surfers is they can deal with anything and go anywhere. They’ll stay in low, medium, and high-class places. Other types of tourists will only stay in high-class places and only spend their money in fancy restaurants. But surfers visit everyone and spend their money everywhere, and that helps people from top to bottom.

You're married now with a son. Has having a family changed your outlook about your responsibilities?

Yeah. You have to be more mature. You make time for surfing and time for family. You have to be organized. But having a family is good for me. The dream is bigger now. I’m 31 and it’s an interesting time for me. When I was 20 to 30, life was amazing, so now I’m interested to see how everything goes between 30 and 40. It’s exciting.

Where do you see yourself in the next couple years?

I have a few shops in Bali, and that’s something fun for me to work on. Just surf, surf, surf can get boring, so it’s fun making shirts and running a business. That way, when surfing is finished, I’ll know how to do other things. But right now, I’m still surfing. I’m not finished, not for a long time. Look at Gerry—the guy's almost 60 and he's still surfing, still getting barreled. I'm surfing better now than I ever have. My dream now is to travel all over Indonesia, looking for surf. Westerners discovered most of the waves in my country, so I want to get some money together and go with my friends to make some discoveries of our own. There're still parts of my country where people don’t surf because of political turmoil, and in some places people don’t even know how to swim; a lot of Indonesians are frightened by the water. So our plan is to go check those I places out, find new waves, and maybe change some mindsets in the process.

[Photos: John Seaton Callahan, Kevin Welsh, Peter King, Brent Bielmann]

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