Grant Noble Is On His Way Up

Surfer: What is the Daydream Case Study series all about?
Kyle Kennelly: The Case Study series is my favorite project, and we have a lot of projects, here at Daydream. This is our chance to tell the stories behind the shapers that make up our roster of board builders. Humanizing the experience of buying anything is a core axiom of Daydream, we want you to know as much as you’re willing to know about everything that exists in our shop. So when we get a chance to tell you a little more about our favorite shapers and what makes them special it’s a real joy for us. In this case, Grant Noble is taking over our shop with a massive 12 board drop, we’ll have six demos and six new boards on our racks. We held a Meet The Shaper night, October 18th, where folks could swing by, grab a beer, hang out, meet Grant, and talk shop. We also had his friends playing some live tunes - The Real Big Bad. Overall, it’s a way to get people together and get to know Grant who’s been such an epic member of our surf community. We'll also have his boards available in Japan 10/26 & 27 at our Daydream Surf Shop Pop Up in Tokyo as well as 10/29-10/31 at the invitational surf demo somewhere in Chiba, Japan (tbd based on swell).

Surfer: When did you meet Grant?
Kyle Kennelly: I’ve been aware of Grant since he zoomed past me one day at Blackies with his heels hanging off the nose, that’s usually how it goes to be honest. All of a sudden some grom starts developing a style and charisma that’s impossible not to notice and you’re like, where did that kid come from? Oh that’s Grant. How old is he, like 12? Every ripping grom looks like their 12 for some reason but they’re actually like 16 and smoking weed already. I was living in Berkeley finishing college at the time but would come down to visit friends and family and would love watching the next batch of shredders coming of age, they were like little puppy dogs running around in shitty broken down cars, seemingly not having any care in the world about a job, education, or money - something that I as a now graduating college student couldn’t help but feel this philosophical dilemma consuming my thoughts on repeat at all hours of the day. 

There’s Grant jumping up and down on his log, wax-side down in the Blackies parking lot. Back to school. There’s Grant in a tube. Back to the Bay Area for my first “real” job. There’s Grant doing an air at 56th St. Back to New York for job training. These seasonal sightings would continue until I officially moved back home to Newport Beach. I didn’t really get to know Grant until my designs for opening up a surf shop came online. I think it was when I announced that we were going to have a demo program filled with sick boards for our community to try that we started talking on instagram. Grant was frothing on the idea.

Now Grant has grown out of the puppy dog phase and has matured into a young man with a strong foundational style to his surfboard designs. His talent in and out of the water continues to build towards exponential growth. It’s insane to watch someone breaking the scale of good surfing year after year and that’s what’s informing his shaping to continue to reach new heights. All this growth is juxtaposed by the continuity of the same old wow factor that first caught my eye as Grant continues to get blown out of tubes and pull off switch noserides here in Newport, it seems like that will never change.