Brushfire Records – Surf, music and life

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Only 10 years ago, frustrated surfers Chris Malloy, Jack Johnson and Emmett Malloy just wanted to play good music, make quality surf films and show their ocean-based lifestyle to the world. The result; a record label and film company - Brushfire Records and Woodshed Films respectively. And surfing hasn’t been the same since...

Jack Johnson

All three of them were tired of watching the same repetitive surf movies. Inspired by the movies they had watched as grommets – movies shot on film, not digital camcorders, by creative artists who cared about the product – they banded together under the moniker The Moonshine Conspiracy to develop this new concept; telling stories through interviews, art, spectacular imagery and of course, surfing – all set to an amazing soundtrack. A mix of innovation and simplicity, it was the ingredients that the surf industry needed. But it seemed that these became more than just films, they were promoting their own unique ocean-based lifestyle.

“We are a collective company and we just want the artist to generate something they are comfortable with.”
Janella Fox, Brushfire Record’s visual creative director

Matt Costa

Their first project, Thicker than Water, was a surf movie shot almost entirely in 16 mm film – a habit almost as expensive as heroin. Jack became the ‘official’ musician of the soundtracks as well as contributing to the filmmaking. Chris Malloy was the specialist in surf spots around the world and also the main camera operator. The whole project was edited and directed by Emmett, who brought mainstream ideas from the movie industry into the surfing world. Says Emmett: “Thicker than Water was the first work where we could show that our group was complete not just as friends but as good professionals and that the talent of each one was indispensable.”

Thicker than Water trailer

As it happened, Thicker Than Water turned out to be a particularly expensive movie to make and it was released into a market saturated with surf movies. However, the strength of Thicker Than Water saw it make enough money to finance their second project, another 16mm film entitled September Sessions.

September Sessions trailer

Around that time, Johnson hooked up with surfer-cum-producer JP Plunier to record his musical debut Brushfire Fairytales - in just six days. It was Johnson’s support of Ben Harper on his 2001 tour that helped sell two million copies of this debut.

Johnson stayed true to his roots and although The Moonshine Conspiracy became Woodshed Films and Brushfire signed a distribution deal with Universal Music, they firmly held onto creative control. And they are doing good things with it.

Rather than live ostentatious lives, Chris Malloy was last seen living in an old cowhand shed on a ranch in Central California. Jack Johnson has a modest house in Hawaii when he could just as easily buy an entire island in the South Pacific. Emmett Malloy operates from a studio in Los Angeles that is as green as possible including solar panels on the roof and blue jean material on the walls for soundproofing.

So what do they make of this perceived ‘perfect’ life?
“People think we are always surfing, but it is not true, otherwise we wouldn’t be here,” says Emmett. “It sounds easy but we cannot forget this is a business and we work hard. We cannot sit back and keep putting out the same record over and over. With music and films we have to progress and keep the dynamic and everybody excited.”

Indeed, the creative freedom and Brushfire’s unique nurturing of talent is something that drives Brushfire to succeed. As Janella Fox, Brushfire’s visual creative director claims, “We are a collective company and we just want the artist to generate something they are comfortable with. We believe in their talent and so far we’ve been able to do that successfully.”

Neil Halstead

“Being a family company is great because everything is very harmonious and more simple,” says Emmett. “Of course there are also days when you want to breathe and disappear because you don’t want to discuss anything with your brother or friends. But in general, it is a great vibe. We’ve grown but we are still small, and at the end of the day we are just surfers working together.”

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Brushfire Records – Surf, music and life (text) by Juliana Morais is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.