'Way Better Than LSD and Ketamine. It's Fantastic Acid!'

To share more of his story I caught up with Tristan with a few interview questions for the SURFER audience.

SURFER: So when did you start surfing and how did you get into shaping?
Tristan Mausse: I started to get interested with surfing when I was 8 years old, around 1996. One of my young friends was from a family of surfers, his dad was surfing, his older brother, his neighbor… I spent a lot of time there. They were like a tribute and they were embracing the full cliché of surfing, they were in their own world, and it’s what I loved.  I wanted to be part of that tribe. Contemplating their way of living, showed me that real substantial life wasn’t especially the life that family, school and system were offering us.

Surfing had a seed of an alternative life driven not by career and money but by the possibility of an escape from the world, an instinctive absorption within a real existence. As a really young kid I wasn’t putting clear words and thoughts like that on surfing, but I could definitely feel that surfing had that special energy. I was then in an irrational adoration of the subject… So I was not embracing surfing for the sport, but mostly for everything around it, the whole culture of it, and all that poetry aspect that can appear when you surf. I was sensitive to the special lights we’ve got to see at sunset/sunrise sessions, the smell of the sea and wax, and all the emotions of fear and exaltation… That caught me when I was 8 years old and it’s driven my whole life since then. In a good way, and bad too. It’s easy for it to be an unhealthy addiction (surfing) which causes an eternal frustration and which can really destroy the family life–I have a wife and 2 girls–and the really uncertain and precarious financial aspect from it all. All things considered, it’s mostly a good though. So anyway I came naturally to spend my time reading surf magazines when I wasn’t surfing. And this is how I discovered the surfboards shaping culture, which brought me into its own world. 

I was so fascinated by each photo that I saw of a shaping room, a glass shop, or surfboards, of course. I really got into it, because I understood that shaping surfboards was an absolute part of that whole subculture way of life. And it was so fascinating to see that some people were able to make a living by shaping surfboards with designs they developed themselves while surfing everywhere around the world, and that’s so complementary. I could see it like a whole surfing work of art, you spend half of your life working on your stylistic research as a surfer, and the other half of it on the development of your designs (which will increase your stylistic research).

SURFER: What was it like in the beginning?
Tristan Mausse: So when I decided to try, I was 15 years old and I went with my mum to a hardware store, and we bought an insulation square block foam. I shaped that first board in my parent’s garage. I then ordered a few blanks from a French blank manufacturer that was based in Hossegor and which doesn’t exist anymore (roro foam). I did a few for myself, for my brother, and some friends. I was doing the boards from start to finish. And I loved it so much! Especially when I was trying the boards. Then my parents were living not far from a big surfboard company, (U.W.L Surfboards) they were having a lot of international shapers coming, so I started going there. And when I got 17 years old they offered me a full time job for sanding and glassing. And it’s how it’s all started. I learned everything there, and worked there for 3 years before leaving for a world tour to glass in many different glass shops, and that lasted for over 10 years (with some stops back in France) . During that time I wasn’t shaping at all, (except some boards for myself) but I really focus on glassing. I travelled like that for over 10 years, probably 12 years. While I was living in Bali and glassing surfboards for a glass shop there, I started to  commercialize the boards I was shaping for myself, only displacement hulls and bottom shapes. And that’s how I started Fantastic Acid.

SURFER: You have been traveling around the world and shaping in places like Pilgrim NYC, 3rd Stone Hawaii, Japan. Tell me about how you started to gain recognition as a shaper and what keeps you inspired?
Tristan Mausse: With the Fantastic Acid project I kept traveling, but then it was mostly for shaping. I dont’ really know if I got recognition, but I know that I have got so much support from friends I made along my life while working for them as a glasser, I can’t give names because there is so much! But I feel lucky for that. It’s a proof that surfing subculture has a really powerful core and also a group of people trying to support new generation shapers. What’s happened also is I never quite glassing, I opened my factory here in France, that was the  Fantastic Acid factory but I also made it as a glass shop, so we are glassing boards for many different shapers and brands. So the fact I always had that glassing business on the side was still a small financial income and support and it was not pushing me to shape everything, I could really focus on shapes that transcends me, and designs that I only surf. I really tried to see Fantastic Acid as a whole project about those special designs with rounded bottoms and negative tail rockers! Crazy stuffs that nobody wants to buy and only a few are able to ride… but that’s what I surf, and that’s what I love to shape and design. People might have felt that I’m not trying to sell something, I’m just in the pursuit of that experimental way of surfboard variations/reflections, and by the very decomposition of surfing shackles…

Surfing itself keeps me inspired. This is the main thing for me. Surfing should not deviate too much from the act of surfing in the ocean with craft made surfboards. I’m really inspired also by the lyrical aspect present in literature, poetry and music of course. This is inseparable from my work. Traveling in different places to shape custom orders is also a source of inspiration. How could I know how to shape my rails and adjust my rockers if I haven’t surfed that area or that wave. The same model would be shaped totally differently for France than for the Malibu/Rincon area and then the north shore of Hawaii.... we must open this dimension where the design moves according to the territories and locations, and all my reflections are about feeling, and organic knowledge. This is really personal, but that’s how I like to shape a surfboard. So traveling is really important for me, it is the best way to adjust my design and accurately reflect some components depending on localization. Then, the cultural forces of the localization is also mixing up into that design, it’s giving a real powerful source of inspiration for the boards you are shaping in the country...

SURFER: Anything else you've learned through your travels?
Tristan Mausse: For many years I thought French surfing and shaping culture was not as rich as the USA or Australia, so I based most of my surfing history research from overseas cultures. But a few years ago I really dived into French surf history, I found it really singular and unique, really different from any other surf culture. Maybe because it was becoming a more personal experience, and surfing becomes for me much more French than it was.

I see it as a culture made of surfing mixed with the strength of ancient European history which is really intense, painters, philosophers, writers… and it’s giving a whole cultural dimension for surfing, it transgresses surfing not through sporting performances but through art forms and culture.