Kassia Meador makes us Sweat: Exclusive Interview

We recently had the great pleasure of sitting down for coffee with the lovely Kassia Meador, who was in town promoting her most recent film, Dear and Yonder. She’s magical on the water, beautiful in print and absolutely captivating in person. Kassia weighed in on everything from the correct pronunciation of her name, to surf travel and quiver shuffling, to who she’s currently crushing on. Despite the oppressively steamy summer day, Kassia was every bit the elegant gal we all dream about.  Drop in and check her out.

So what’s the deal with your name? If you ask ten people, each will come up with a different way of saying it.

My parents were in Greece while they were pregnant with me, and they liked Greece so much that they gave me a Greek name. So my first name is Kassia (pronounced Cassy-ah). My last name is Meador like “met-her”, but with a “d”. People call me Kassi (pronounced Cassy) for short, but Kassia is my full name. A lot of people think it’s short for Cassandra or something, but Kassia is the long version and Kassi is the abridged version.

You’re obviously keeping really busy with all of your activities – surfing, photography, art, production company, videos, announcing and hosting events. How do you juggle all these things?

I’ve stopped making videos because I realized I’d rather be in them than make them, because that means that I get to surf more, which is way more fun. Taking photos is something I do on the side and I’m doing it while I’m traveling. I try to stay home for a month or two during the year at a few different times, so I can work on my photography. But obviously, I need to go shoot, so travel is great for that. With the hosting stuff, I kind of just do it when I’m home. I’m probably going to be at the event and hanging with my friends and talking smack anyway, so I might as well do it for Fuel TV. So it all kind of works out. I love working with the people at Fuel. They’ve been so rad and so accommodating. We have a lot of fun, so it’s really a good time.

What’s an average day in your life like?  Are you working hard, having fun, or both?

I’m definitely having fun. When the waves are good, I’m waking up super early. When it’s like an average day when I’m home, I like to take that time to sleep in. Usually, when we’re on the road, I don’t get a chance to sleep in ever. I always get up pretty early anyway and usually never sleep past 7:00 or 8:00. When we’re on the road for a surf trip and need to get somewhere for a shoot, we’ll get up as early as 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I just go with the flow. When I’m home, I usually surf in the morning, come home and do some art stuff or photo stuff, maybe go for a bike ride and then surf again if it’s good. Then I’ll maybe barbeque with friends. I just try to keep it mellow. It seems like I spend a lot of time just driving on the freeway when I’m at home. Whatever I’m doing, I always fit in surfing every day, especially if it’s good.

What’s next on your already busy schedule?

Right now, I’m working on some wetsuits with Roxy. That’s been fun. I’m doing a bike with DiFisso an Italian fixed-gear bike company that’s doing bikes with my buddies from Captain Fin. They want to do a girl’s version, so I helped them design that. I’m doing a couple of fins with Captain Fin, a two plus one center fin and a collaboration with Keep A Breast, Kassi and Captain Fin collaboration that will help raise money for breast cancer, and another fin that is going to be just my fin, like a big long single fin.

What is Dear and Yonder about?

It’s about the ocean and bringing women together through the ocean. It’s got a history section where it talks about where women’s surfing began and where it’s come to. It has longboarding, shortboarding, riding fishes, women’s body surfing, Liz Clark sailing around the world, and women’s skateboarding. It’s a celebration of all that, taking you from the past of what it was to the present and what’s happening now. It’s a really great film. It gives you background, and really makes you want to surfing or skateboarding. It’s all female and it’s amazing.

What does the title mean?

Dear and Yonder, means like close and far. Where we all come from and where surfing takes us all. You can surf in your backyard or find yourself surfing in the middle of Indonesia .

Well, where did filming Dear and Yonder take you?

I got to surf in Zihautenejo, Mexico and the Mentawais. The movie was filmed all over, but those are the places I went to shoot.

Where are you favorite places in the world to visit and to surf?

My favorite places to visit are France, New York and Japan.

Surfing-wise, I love Indonesia, Mexico and New Zealand. New Zealand is so fun for waves… not many people and just tons of left-hand pointbreaks.

I definitely have always wanted to go to Greece. It would be really cool to go to Thailand and check it out. And, I really want to go to Senegal to surf.

Where is your next trip taking you?

I’m going to go home and figure it out. I’m planning a road trip down to Cabo. I’ll surf Cabo and then hit Scorpion Bay on the way back. After that, I’m debating whether to go down to Peru or back to France. One of those two places after that.

Do you have a regular crew you travel with and surf with?

I travel with my friend Jen Smith a lot. She’s another Roxy team rider. I kind of go with whoever. I change it up. If I’m going to a place where I have friends who live there, I’ll usually just hook up with them. I kind of just see who wants to go for an adventure.

I surf with boys a lot at home. My friends Nick, Seth, Timmy and Chance. When I’m home in Oceanside, those are my boys. Everyone’s out of work right now, so they’re surfing all the time. None of them are pro surfers. They’re all great shortboarders, but none of them do it professionally.

Sometimes I surf with Jen, when she drives from Pacific Beach, but we live at the opposite ends of San Diego.

Do you ever ride shortboards?

I shortboard a bit. Not normal shortboards, but I’ll ride an alaia a lot, or a fish. In California, we get a lot of good waves for riding a fish, so I ride a fish a lot. I try to ride everything. I’ll ride everything from a high-performance longboard, to a big single fin, to an alaia. I won’t ride a boogeyboard; I refuse to. However, I do bodysurf a lot. My friend Danny Hess has been making these cool hand guns, so I’ve been using that. I’ll ride my 5’8” Merrick or a Rich Pavel wooden keel fin classic fish. I ride everything. Everything gives you a different feeling and certain boards work on certain waves. It’s good to change it up, because you get so bored and stagnant. When I feel stagnant riding something or when I feel like I’m not learning anything, I’ll just jump on something totally opposite and then I’ll go back to what I was riding and feel like I’m riding it much better. Especially with the alaia. If you only surf an alaia for like a week and then go to any other board, you’ll surf it so much better. Switch it up. I can’t emphasize it enough. People just get such tunnel vision. Ride it all. Sometimes I switch three times in a day.

Do you prefer cold water or warm water?

I like wearing a wetsuit, but I don’t like when the water is super cold. I like when it’s cold enough to wear a wetsuit. My favorite wetsuit is probably a long-armed spring. That’s the most comfortable and means the water is warm and you don’t have to deal with wearing a bathing suit and having the suit torn off. We were just in Indo surfing and it was pretty solid. One of my friends Sophia got her bottoms blown off her completely, twice in one day. It was a tie side. Tie sides are not a good idea. It was pretty funny. We thought she broke her arm because she had her arm all weird but she was just trying to cover herself up because she had no bottoms.

Speaking of bikinis getting blown off, do you get hit on in the water?

I’ve definitely been hit on in the water before. Sometimes it’s great, but other times it’s not so great. It depends on who it is and my situation. Even just being out in the water, whether or not people recognize you, usually surfers or people who are active are all pretty good looking. People go to the gym to pick people up, so why not in the water, when everyone out there is in pretty good shape. It’s a weird reference, but they’re both places where people are active and care about themselves. Usually I don’t mind. You get some random creeps though. That’s why I usually surf with a group of guys.

Any significant other?

No. I’m single and ready to mingle right now. It’s summer.

Do you date surfers or non-surfers?

Either one. I get into different people for different things. I like people who are creative or passionate about something. That’s attractive to me. So if someone is a musician or an artist or a surfer or is even into just riding a bike; as long as they’re into something that they have a passion for, that’s attractive. It’s cool if they surf or not; whatever; surfing is my thing and it’s always going to be my thing that I love to do. If we go surfing together, cool, and if not, whatever. If you have your thing and I have mine, then that’s chill too. It’s just cool to be with people that have something that they do that you’re like, wow, that’s really cool. I have a couple of crushes on some band boys right now. I’m into band boys this summer. I have a big time crush on Alex Knost.

Does he know?

I don’t think he does know, but he will now after this. I totally have a crush on him, but I don’t think he knows. We know each other, but we’ve known each other for like eight years and I don’t think he realizes that I think he’s pretty neat. Maybe one day he will. It’s like the friend thing. I’m a couple of years older than him.

So you’re like the slightly older unattainable hot friend that he doesn’t even try for?

He totally should try. I think he has a girlfriend right now, so I’m staying just the friend part… until he’s single again. Then I’ll make my move.