Rock & Roll.

The entrants for the Waves Black Knight Freesurfing competition are slowing beginning to piece together their first clips. We’ve already seen a bunch of Jack Freestone’s second-grade clips and now we’ve just been handed Heath Joske’s. Aptly named the ‘B-Rolls,’ Heath’s looking to replace these with more bangers from around the globe. We caught up with Heath while he was in Hawaii to chat about the Black Knight, bagging clips and his recent result at Haleiwa.

Your ‘B-Roll’ clips are pretty banging, where did you head to bag footage?
“I was heading off on a 5 week WQS bender through Canada, Santa Cruz, the Canaries Islands and finally Haleiwa. Also my two of best mates from home were living in Puerto Escondido in Mexico for 8 months. I spent a week there before Canada. I hoped to stumble on some waves along the way so I dragged my mate Harry along to capture the fun. Mexico was rainy and windy, Canada was freezing and bucketing rain the whole time, but from Santa Cruz things brightened up. In the Canaries we stumbled upon an epic little right on our doorstep and I started to find some form in the contests.”

Your currently in Hawaii, are you trying to nail clips over there?
“My old man is filming me in Hawaii for a month during the Triple Crown. We’ve had our troubles though. The waves are ridiculously crowded as always but u can sneak a few fun scraps here and there.”

What have you got in store for your actual entry?
“The first clip will be made of clips at home and in the Canaries. We had a week of fun waves just before I left for the WQS binge at home. The right that we scored in the canaries saved us at the end of the comp stint as well. The second clip will have some Hawaii goodness and some more filming around oz between now and February.”

What’s it like to make the final at Haleiwa?
“Haleiwa was after the Canaries and I was feeling confident after my last result. My mum and dad came over here to help me get footage for BK3 and to watch me compete. I had four first round loses in Europe so to get to a final with them watching felt pretty amazing. It was also pretty epic to stand on the podium next to Julian, Parko and Joel Centeio. I was feeling about as warm and fuzzy as you possibly can. After watching so many Triple Crown contests as a kid, I was coming in after every heat pinching myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. It was just a shame there were only three sets in the final and I didn’t get close to catching one. The result has definitely given me confidence and I’m really excited for next year on the WQS.”

Has anything gnarly happened to you while you’re in Hawaii?
“I’ve been pretty careful not to stamp on the locals toes. Apart from the obvious abuse of seeing perfect waves all day and being denied entry into any, I can’t complain too much. So long as you don’t come here and start burning the locals they put up with the circus pretty well.”

What would winning the Black Knight award mean to you?
“I think a lot of people only see me competing and not free surfing. Pursuing the Black Knight has allowed me to film regularly and put more time into putting together little clips. Doing the little web clips with Harry has been super fun and I’d love to be doing that along with competing for as long as I can. Filming everyday has really pushed my surfing and it’s helped me to enjoy my surfing more than ever. I think even if you are competing it’s really important to be recognised as being a top free surfer as well. Winning the black Knight would be epic, I’d be stoked to get the cover and just getting the recognition of winning would be amazing. I really want to travel to some different, more undiscovered and exotic places and to get epic footage. That is the dream; winning BK3 would get that dream a lot closer, that’s for sure.”

Tags: Black Knight 3, Heath Joske