Salt & Sounds: Kassia Meador on Why the Violent Femmes’ 1983 Debut Album Changed the Game

Songs change your life. Maybe it was a record spinning in sleepy coastal town on a trip to Europe, a dubbed cassette you used to listen to each morning on dawn patrols or a surf journey detoured to catch a band on tour, that changed the way you heard music and saw the world.

SURFER wanted to explore how influential wave riders were influenced by music – the vibrations that moved them, where they were – who tuned them in and turned them on to Jamaican roots, wild electro sound or three aggressive chords.

We started our conversation with the enigmatic mistress of grace, Kassia Meador, an icon of longboarding who helped divert logging from “sport” back to an art form. Meador started surfing Malibu at 14 and quickly became one a queen of the Queen. She had a fruitful competitive career but has had far more influence through her creativity, her KASSIA+SURF wetsuits and apparel, as well as her signature immersion retreats.

Kassia Meador Talks Violent Femmes 1983, Self-Titled debut album

I grew up in Augora Hills. At that time, I was obsessed with skateboarding, a suburban kid in the cul-de-sac. Skateboarding, movement and space really made sense to me. Friends obviously made sense to me. I remember watching skateboarding on TV, any access that we could get, making flip books of skateboarding cutting up skate mags. My first ever skateboard was actually a Natas Kaupas a fuller outline with the skeleton doing a handplant on a mini ramp graphic and big rail guards. But then came the transition with the popsicle stick and the smaller board for flip tricks. We were cruising around the neighborhood with the gang, trying to do stairs and handrails. Skateboarding is super creative, connected to the body … flow and movement and understanding third dimensional reality.

I was the oldest so I didn’t have like older brothers and sisters to hand me stuff.  I just had my friends, figuring it out together.  I would go to the record store and flip through it all. The first record that really moved me was the Violent Femmes Self-Titled.  I went to a store and found it on tape. I’ve always been visually stimulated and I remember flipping through all the cassettes, CD’s and records and being drawn to the album cover. I’d never seen anything like that. It’s a young girl looking through a window. She’s barefoot. What is she checking out? Like, what’s through that window? And it had me intrigued to find out what was on the other side.

So, I bought that cassette. I took it home and when I heard it, I remember being like, “Oh my God this is the greatest thing ever.” Everything that you discover at that age, you feel like you’ve discovered something that no one has ever heard before.

I skated down to the park with my stereo and met up with a couple friends. We listened to it and skated. There was something that felt really like nostalgic to me, and at that time I didn’t know what nostalgia was, but it was also like romance – a lot of space with edge, like skateboarding or taking that one wave that feels so good. And then you’re always chasing that feeling.

“Blister In the Sun” was more energized. And I love “Kiss Off” like it’s like an F-you, but softly. There’s this edge to it, which I feel like really resonated with me at the time and still actually does today.

I started surfing at 14 and carried over the music with me.  I worked my ass off to get this little Toyota pickup truck for $5K to drive to the beach. I would get notes on my car all the time from gardeners who wanted to buy it from me. I’m like so grateful I had that. That was my ride for years, with basically four cassettes in the truck – The Violent Femmes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead.

I love Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. My friend’s older brother had a video and we would cut school and go over there to watch it. There was this kind of like nostalgic energy to it. And again I was picking stuff based off of the artwork. Dark Side of the Moon really spoke to me. My favorite surf film was “5 Summer Stories.” I love that time period, the light and the texture of the film, this kind of like light-hearted, nostalgia, feeling super connected and thinking I was probably a hippie in another life … even to the point where I wouldn’t wear shoes to school. My parents actually had to sign a note saying if I stepped on some shit, that we couldn’t go after the school because it was my own damn fault.

I was super into surfing. I had my truck. I worked at a bagel store and on my days off would sleep in my truck at the beach or all of us would sleep in the caves at Leo Carillo. I’m so grateful to have grown up at the time. All of that time at the beach from sunrise to sunset would be spent dreaming, surfing or talking, watching the light change throughout the day and thinking about weird shit that you could do on a surfboard.

And I remember later in life, being with friends and having the Violent Femmes on my first iPod. I got my first sound bath from a buy named Tron who was a surfer from Topanga. I was walking down the street and saw a sound bowl and bought it.  I took it back to my where I was staying at the time. I was doing l a lot of creative stuff that was giving me a lot of inspiration, designing ads for Roxy, working very closely with Art Director Mark Tesi, shooting photos. I was part of a performance art group called UFO 2012 and we did a split EP with a band called OHWOW. That was super cool. We played the Great American Music Hall and opened for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

I do a lot of work right now with sound and vibrational therapy.  It’s going back to that really familiar feeling like surfing does or the freedom of skateboarding as a kid with the Violent Femmes. It’s flow that’s not timed or to a pace but like has like a lot of like natural organic movement and you don’t really know where to go. There’s nowhere to follow. You’re just kind of in it.