Kirk Putnam

Interview by Larry Cecil

Kirk Putnam is a California surfer and the proprietor of Liddle Surfboards. He has a particular interest in boards of the displacement hull variety and if you are looking to purchase a hull or to learn of their unique attributes and contribution to surfing history, “KP” is the man. We caught up with Kirk to find out more about his rich and colorful surfing life.

What was your childhood like?

I grew up in Burbank. We lived by the studios and my mom worked at Disney. Burbank was a middle class utopia. Since I was an infant, we had a small summer cottage by the ocean in Laguna Beach. A lot of people who lived in Burbank and Pasadena had a place down there. You would take the Old Highway and cut through the Canyon to get there. 

Tell us about your first ride

My brother was seven years older than me and he was already in a surf club. He had a board and surfed at Rockpile. When I was eight or nine, he got stuck watching me. And almost as a joke, he pushed me out into the ocean on his board. I knee paddled out of Rockpile and turned around and caught some white water. I got that glide and that was it. It was on.

Your first board?

My brother won a Bing surfboard in a raffle at a surf movie in Van Nuys in the early 1960s. We went down to the Bing Copeland’s shop and ordered it. Bing made my brother a brand new, custom shaped board. When he got shipped off to Vietnam around 1966, I took over his board.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?

The Liddle Crew: Glen Kennedy, Greg Liddle, Andy Davis, and Steve Krajewski  (Esteban Bojorquez). They were the best surfers at Malibu and they just happened to be from the Valley. I also looked up to my cousins, Danny and Nick. They were good friends with a guy named Scott Stanley. It's how I got a ride to Malibu. You don't go surfing when you're from the Valley when you don’t have a license unless someone takes you. I was lucky at an early age to be able to go with those guys. If you gave a guy gas money, you could probably get a ride to the beach. 

Tell us about your experience in Santa Barbara 

I started visiting Santa Barbara before I graduated high school. I would stay with the McCarthy family. They had a house right across from the tar pits in Carpinteria. That was where we gravitated.

The day I graduated from high school, I didn't even make it to my own graduation party. I had my car all loaded. I just split to Santa Barbara. I roomed with one of the McCarthy brothers, who had a little studio apartment behind the fire department in Carpinteria. We both attended the city college. My dad passed away when I was young and I had his Social Security. All I had to do was go to school. 

“Being in the ocean. The smell of a fire on the beach at Rincon. The low tide smell. That whole experience in those early days of being in Santa Barbara was paradise. I wanted to be there. That's why I immediately moved and I found a way to get ensconced in that small community.” 

When I needed extra money, I did babysitting for Al Merrick down the street. I was going to college and I met Al at the Channel Islands . Al's wife was working at the shop. She's already had a kid and she was pregnant and she just couldn't work anymore. She suggested I run the shop. 

I was influenced by all the good Santa Barbara surfers. The late Scott Gall was a goofy foot guy that rode for Wilderness who lived in Carpinteria. He was just a phenomenal goofy footed surfer and he was born and bred with style. He looked like a bird on a wave. He was my hero.

It wasn't an easy thing being an “out-of-towner,” I took some stitches and punches and had some battles with a few of the locals. The one good thing was, when I worked at a surf shop and they needed to buy some materials, I was “the guy.” I had an “in” from working at a shop.  

Being in the ocean. The smell of a fire on the beach at Rincon. The low tide smell. That whole experience in those early days of being in Santa Barbara was paradise. I wanted to be there. That's why I immediately moved and I found a way to get ensconced in that small community. 

Tell us about your influences in Santa Barbara

I got a job working at Yater’s from ‘73 until the ‘80s. It was my dream job. I was already familiar with Yater’s boards as Greg Liddle was already selling them at this shop in the Valley. Just working there was a huge influence for eight years of my life. I admired Renny’s (Reynolds Yater craftsmanship and his consistent work ethic. Whether it was lobster fishing or building his boat, everything he did was just top quality.

Renny is a man of few words – I wish that part was an influence on me! I had a big mouth, was hyper, and always running around. He gave me a lot of nicknames like “Easy Money,” and “Speed.” I think he was both amused and annoyed with me at the same time.

What did you admire about his boards?

Renny’s designs were always well thought out. They were never anything too extreme. And he was always open to new ideas. Renny was always looking for the best materials to make the lightest and strongest boards. He never took an idea and overdid it. For example, when V-Bottoms came in ‘68, Renny didn’t just jump in and make these horrible things. He would tone them down and put his own subtle adjustments to make them work. Some of Yater’s V-Bottoms are the best ever made in California during that era.

Tell us about your meeting and working with Marc Andreini

I met Marc at Al Merrick’s shop. He was glassing and sanding for him. We bonded immediately over our love for surfing. We also both loved longboarding. In the summertime, when the waves are crappy and small, most hardcore Santa Barbara surfers have a longboard stashed away for the little waves. When we go out on our longboards, we would just laugh our asses off – just having a blast. Marc’s just a good, straight up guy. We’ve been friends for over 40 years. If we ever got into an argument, it was usually about some bullshit surf trivia. 

I’ve always rode and worked with Marc on boards – stubbies and hulls. We collaborated on all of the Vaqueros in (1994?). We got a blank and shaped the board at Yater’s. Our intention was to recreate the single fin squaretail boards from the film, Innermost Limits of Pure Fun. I even hand drew the logo of a cowboy on a horse with the words, Vaquero de Los Olas. 

But then there were years when Marc first got into the insurance business and only made boards for himself. Then around 2004, I reconnected with Marc and we would meet and surf together at Pismo in the San Luis Obispo area. My wife attended x-ray school up there and we were literally a mile and half from his house every other weekend. Recently we’ve worked on the Special K, a re-do of the Vaquero and the McK, a full on remake of the V-Bottom boards McTavish originally made in ‘68. We were obsessed with that era.

You’ve done quite a few design collaborations with other shapers (Liddle, Anderson, Hilbers, etc.)  How did this come about?

Most of these collaborations came out of necessity and would happen naturally through friendships. They came about when a shaper/friend either moved away or just stopped making boards. 

With Greg Liddle, I was really connected to him in the ‘80s. Then in 1983, Greg moved to Hawaii and decided he no longer wanted to be a surfboard maker. When this happened, Krajewski and I started to work with Paul Gross and later, Spencer Kellogg. 

Then Paul quit building boards and started getting into the mat business. Shaper Scott Anderson approached Steve and I about creating a Bojorquez model. Krajewski later went on and helped build the Venice Mollusk Shop. Greg then called me from Hawaii and told me he wanted to start building boards again. 

With Hilbers, I’ve always gotten boards from him during the Thruster years. Brian would make me anything I could come up with. If I told him I wanted a six-channel Allan Byrne-type board, Brian would do it. When Brian was getting his boards glassed at Anderson’s shop, I reconnected with him there. We collaborated on The Hot Generation model, which became part of the Putnam Hilber Designs or PHD. 

How do you feel about the popular interest in retro boards?

I was stoked when Joel Tudor and Thomas Campbell’s films brought the whole retro thing back. And with that an interest in riding functional boards when the surf isn’t all that great. The interest in retro boards just kept going. People thought, “If that works, why not a Bonzer? Or hulls or Simmons boards, etc.” All these different ideas make surfing way more fun and more interesting.

The idea behind doing the retro boards is that we all felt that era went by too fast. We asked ourselves how come we can’t remake those boards? They work great in small California surf. And how can we make them better? You have to understand, back in 1975, everyone in California had “Island Fever.” Everybody wanted to be Gerry Lopez. But Gerry Lopez pintails don’t work well in shitty beachbreak in the summertime in Santa Barbara. But an 8-foot 1968 stringerless V-Bottom will. There was no intention to dominate the surfboard industry or make hipster boards. We just wanted to ride something fun.

“The idea behind doing the retro boards is that we all felt that era went by too fast. We asked ourselves how come we can’t remake those boards? They work great in small California surf. And how can we make them better? You have to understand, back in 1975, everyone in California had “Island Fever.” Everybody wanted to be Gerry Lopez.”

Tell us about your interest in displacement hulls

With a hull, you get to feel the natural flow line of the wave and how they fit into the wave. You get addicted to that feeling. Nat Young was one of the best surfers that ever lived. When he surfed, everybody just stopped in their tracks. It was revolutionary. He was off the bottom; off the top. Something that nobody had seen before. Greg Liddle said, “That's how I want to surf.”  The first Liddle roundtails were taken off from what he'd seen Nat do. The roundtail board displacement hull just got refined from that moment on. 

What do you look for in a hull surfboard?

The whole thing has to be made together as a unit – the round bottom, the way the rail is shaped, the rocker and the fin. They all work together to let you drive into a turn with both the rail and hull.  

Any specifics on how to ride one?

Figure out how to ride it with your front foot forward, not back on the tail. You drive the board into a turn and come up and bank it into the natural curl line of the wave. You use the rail and the fin to generate speed. The board will stick to the wave and go at the speed of the wave. If the wave is going fast, you go fast. If it is slow, you bank it up and it will follow the natural curl line of the wave. This is the opposite of how boards are ridden today. 

How is this different than today’s standard shortboard?

The guys that surf today are incredible athletes. They rip. I don't have anything negative to say about that type of surfing. Riding a hull is just a different style of surfing – it's just not for everybody. It's kind of like fly fishing – you either get it or you don't. 

Of all the places you have traveled to, what place in particular stands out? 

I lived in Maui in the early 1980s after I got out of the skateboard business. Later I  got into pool building and construction with my brother-in-laws. I can’t say I am well traveled as a person. But then again, I was living in Santa Barbara in the 1970s. I had access to Hollister Ranch. There simply wasn’t a reason to travel for me. 

What do you love about surfing?

Gosh, I’ve built my whole life around it. I’m just looking to ride a wave and get that feeling that I got from my very first time. I’m just chasing the trim. For me, it’s all about the whole experience – being with friends and riding good waves. Any kind of clean wave with good shape and a nice offshore wind. I don’t care if it’s two feet or ten feet. I’m still stoked.

What are you most proud of?

It's been a blessing to be able to raise my kids. Raising them was a life lesson in itself. They grew up in the punk rock scene. My son was in the Coast Guard for seven years and he is now attending nursing school. My daughter has her teachers degree and teaches in Lennox behind the LA Airport. They're both great kids and I'm super proud of them.

What's your favorite surfboard?

Look, I'm a surfboard hound. I've had more surfboards than anybody should be allowed to have. I’ve ridden just about every board. I’ve ridden Renny's vintage boards when I wasn't supposed to. I've been able to make and ride a lot of good surfboards. I can walk around a surfboard show all day long and I'll literally stop to look at only three or four boards. It takes something special for a board to catch my eye. My favorite surfboard would be any kind of displacement hull. 

Your favorite surfspot?

The Ranch is a very special place for me. Rincon in the 1970's was a big part of why I moved to Santa Barbara. I used to live off Bates Road. I have a huge connection to Hammonds Reef. I lived up the street from there for many years.

What’s your favorite meal?

Either Mexican food or sushi.

What are you currently listening to on your playlist?

I love music. I'm a real music hound. I like Americana, Junior Brown, and Todd Snider. A lot of Country Music like Bob Wills, Hank Sr., and Hank the III. I like Jazz, Blues, Rockabilly, Cajun music. I like it all. 

What are you most grateful for?

Both Marc Andreini and I started gravitating to a Christian way of life. It kept us both out of a lot of trouble when we were young. We skipped the cocaine years – we were teetotalers. If you use drugs and drink, you can't surf in the morning. I wanted to be able to surf. 

What’s next for Kirk Putnam?

Surf with my friends! I love surfing with Marc. It doesn't matter what’s going on, Marc and I will figure out how to have fun. Also just waking up. I’m thankful that I can wake up every morning.  Every once in a while, when I get pissed off, I take a step back and remind myself that I could be pushing up dirt farts. I could be done. I have to remember that.

To learn more about displacement hull surfboards, check out Liddle Surfboards or follow him on Instagram.