Very few surfers have had the weight of expectation heaped upon their shoulders quite like Taylor Hutchison. At 26, he’s come to terms with being born into a hard-working, surfing devoted family. We caught up with Taylor during one of his recent “work trips” to the Otago coastline.
Back in the ’90s I used to surf Indicators a lot. On the way out I’d call into Manu Bay and Whale Bay to see who was out. If Glenn Campbell or Geoff Hutchison were out, I’d find a nice dry patch of grass and watch them do their thing. They were the best surfers by a long way on that stretch of coast during that time. They had perfected backhand surfing.
So, it felt like a glitch in my mind when, almost 30 years later, I saw Taylor take on a reeling Catlins left in almost identical style. I had to rub my eyes as memories of being a grom again came flooding back.
Taylor laughs and tells me it must be in the genes.
“I actually have a couple of photos – one of him surfing at Manu Bay when he was my age and one of me,” Taylor explains. “We’re both doing the same sort of turn on the same sort of section and it just looks identical – just everything. So, it is definitely a little bit genetic.”
Taylor’s father Geoff, or Hutch, as he is better known, left a job at New Zealand Rail and bought a small surf shop in Hamilton in 1988. He sold just one block of wax on the first day after he took over. These days the Backdoor empire spans almost 25 stores throughout the motu.
“We’re both doing the same sort of turn on the same sort of section and it just looks identical – just everything. So, it is definitely a little bit genetic.”
Growing up in that environment, and with his father still making other surfers pause to take in his waves, Taylor was born into some kind of surfing royalty.
Taylor shrugs his shoulders; “to some extent” it felt like that, he reveals.
“When I first started getting into surfing, I didn’t enjoy it a whole lot to be honest,” Taylor admits. “Well, I loved it, but the old boy loved to push me pretty hard. I’m the type of person who needs to do something for myself.”
“I started competing pretty early and I wasn’t enjoying it,” he adds. “I don’t think I made a heat for my first three years or something. I could feel the heat from my dad. I’ve got two siblings, an older sister Laura, and a younger brother, Noah. Laura wasn’t that into surfing. So, it felt like I was next in line. I was like, ‘All right then, it’s kind of on me’. I felt the pressure a little bit, with a lot of that coming through my own thinking.”
Hutch realised what was happening and backed off.
“Once Dad eased up, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m all frothing about surfing now’,” Taylor recalls. “That’s when I started really enjoying it and the results started coming. And then I started loving it.”
Once he hit 14, Taylor said he never looked back.
“Honestly, I just love competing,” he explains. “It’s such a challenge constantly. There are so many elements and so many things you must do right to get through a heat, or to win a heat. But even one mistake and you can be out. And sometimes you don’t even make a mistake and sometimes things just don’t pan out, but it’s just such a challenge. There are just so many variables involved. I don’t think it’s quite like any other sport. You can have exactly the right game plan, mindset and your boards feel good, your body feels good, and it just doesn’t go your way. That is just part of the challenge, but I think that makes it that much more rewarding when you do win an event or win a heat.”
“I just love competing – it’s such a challenge constantly. There are so many elements and so many things you must do right to get through a heat, or to win a heat. But even one mistake and you can be out. And sometimes you don’t even make a mistake and sometimes things just don’t pan out.”
Taylor has enjoyed a lot of success in surfing – particularly in his Under 20s years.
“My last year in the Under 20s I won five comps which were my keeper results for the series, which was a bit of a highlight,” he explains. “I remember my first year out of the under 20s, I made the Open Men’s final at Nationals and ended up getting second to Billy Stairmand. And I was like, ‘Ah, sweet, that was not too hard of a transition from Junior to the Open’. And then the rest of that year, and the next couple of years, I had a full shocker – a form slump.”
Trying to pinpoint why his run of results had come to an end wasn’t easy for Taylor, now in his early 20s.
“I felt like my surfing was there and my headspace was right,” he shares. “My boards felt good – everything felt good. I just felt like I had a real unlucky run … and for quite a while. There were so many heats that could have gone either way, but they never seemed to go my way.”
Taylor just kept his head down and stuck at it – hoping that eventually his form would return.
“At the end of 2020, there was a contest in Raglan, which I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations for,” Taylor recalls. “I ended up getting second in that. I was like, ‘Okay, that felt pretty good to get on a roll’.”
In 2021, Taylor finished third at Nationals, and then he won the Rip Curl Pro, which had been a huge goal for him. He went on to win the Canterbury Men’s Champs the following weekend. He had finally got back on a roll.
“There were a couple of comps towards the end of the season that I didn’t do that well in, but I felt like I was in a good space,” Taylor admits. “I had quite a bit on both with work and my personal life. And it was almost like competing was a happy place for me. It became very straightforward for me in terms of like, ‘Okay, when the hooter goes, there’s always a clear objective. That’s a part of what I enjoy and it’s just so rewarding when you do well.”
“I had quite a bit on both with work and my personal life. And it was almost like competing was a happy place for me. It became very straightforward for me in terms of like, ‘Okay, when the hooter goes, there’s always a clear objective’.”
Straight out of school, Taylor went to university to pursue a sports science degree.
“I wanted to be a PE teacher,” Taylor explains. “But I wasn’t particularly enjoying it, and just felt like it was more a case of going to uni to get a degree. I made the decision a semester in. I had the realisation, that I’m either going to stick this out the whole way through or I’m going to pull the pin now. So, I ended up jumping full-time into Backdoor then.”
That was six months after finishing school. He has been full-time since then, except for a few Qualifying Series trips.
He said he thought he had been technically employed by Backdoor for more than 10 years.
“It’s cool working in a family business,” Taylor adds. “I’m currently doing all the wetsuits and surf hardware buying for all our stores. We have more than 20 stores now. That’s all very seasonal, and it was hectic with Covid and having to manage orders 12 months in advance. With the shipping delays and supply issues it was very hard to forecast what you think you’ll sell, and what’s good and what’s not. But it has been super interesting and I’m quite enjoying the challenges.”
Taylor finished in the top 100 of the Men’s Junior Tour in 2014 and 2015 and then chased the World Qualifying Series (QS) for two years in 2018 and 2019.
“I didn’t get any good results, but I knew it was going to be a learning curve,” he reflects. “The way it was structured at the time, was that it was important to just be competing and if you’re not getting good results, you need to have a good seed. It’s so hard if you’re just constantly starting two, three, or sometimes four rounds before some people even have to surf. It’s just so hard to get out of that grind.”
He said it was a massive learning curve and something he still had unfinished business with.
“I plan on giving it a real good nudge in the future,” Taylor offers. “If I’m going to gear up and commit to doing that, I want to be in a position where I’m going to them knowing I can do well, to make it worthwhile.”
He said the new Australia/Oceania format made a QS campaign a lot more attractive.
“You’re trying to get top 10 in your region now, which is so much better than the way it was, in terms of trying to qualify for the Challenger Series,” Taylor explains. “It used to be that you could go anywhere and do any contest and you would be competing with so many people – the whole lot, and you had to be in the top hundred to make it into the top QS events. Now it’s just top 10 from each region – it’s probably the easiest it has ever been to get into those top tier QSs. Obviously, it’s still super difficult, but more achievable I think.”
Taylor’s big push came in 2018 with a full season of eight QS events.
“I did the Australian leg, Argentina, Costa Rica, Japan, and I did a couple in the States,” he explains. “It was such an unreal experience getting to travel to do something like that. During COVID I was looking back at it even more and thinking, ‘wow, that was insane – just to travel to that many countries in a year’.”
That experience, with a best result of a 17th, gave Taylor a taste of what was required to perform at that level. He went to work and planned a bigger campaign for 2019.
“I had a full year of QSs lined up,” Taylor explains. “Then I ended up getting glandular fever in the summer of 2018/2019.”
Despite his illness and the long recovery time, Taylor was determined to “give it a good nudge”.
“I went over to the first one on the Gold Coast – the Burleigh Pro and my energy levels were just so low,” Taylor recalls. “Glandular fever really knocked me around … to the point where I was struggling to get out for free surfs in the morning. Just mentally, it was so hard to be there. I lost 10 kilos because I was struggling to eat properly. Everything was out of whack. I ended up pulling the pin, realising that it was not sustainable and that I couldn’t keep competing.”
Since then, Taylor has spent the past few years focusing on the domestic circuit and getting healthy, staying fit and strong.
“I’m sure there will be an opportunity at some point to go chase things internationally,” he adds. “With the way everything’s worked out with COVID, it probably couldn’t have come at a better time. There are always positives to come out of it.”
He said being a little bit older and having a bit more life experience would take away some of the stresses of traveling overseas.
“I’m not in any particular rush, but I know if that’s where I want to go, that I’ll make it happen.”
He said that his surfing had progressed in those intervening years.
“I feel like I put a lot more power into my surfing now,” Taylor shares. “Which is surprising considering I felt like I went backwards with glandular fever and losing weight. I was probably at my worst when I had glandular fever, and I was at Nationals in Taranaki. I remember it was pumping Stent Road and I was in the semis of the Open Men’s. It was pumping Stent Road, and my boards were perfect for me. But since I’d lost weight, and we were in big solid Stent Road, I was really struggling to put it on rail as much as I needed to. And that was gutting. Because it was like, ‘This is just so far out of my control. It was a good wake-up call to just be eating way healthier and sleeping more, and just looking after myself better. I wasn’t doing that too well prior to that. So, like I say, always positives to take away.”
Surfing was a constant, lifelong learning journey according to Taylor.
“You’re never going to perfect it. You’ll constantly find something to work on.”
That sounds a lot like running a business in New Zealand. Taylor said there were a lot of similarities to business.
“For a long time I wasn’t super intentional with my surfing,” he begins. “I’d just go surfing. As fun as that is, you don’t do a whole lot of improving when you just go out and just want to have fun. And it’s important to do that, but you also need to be going out and going, ‘okay, cool, this is what I need to work on’. And that has flowed into the business side of things as well. You have to be intentional – especially around buying. Everything you do, there has to be a reason. And I feel that’s much the same with surfing.”
He added that there was nothing wrong with just doing it for fun.
“When you are at a competitive level, and you’re constantly trying to one-up – do all those little one-percenters that are going to make you better, then it’s important to be on the ball with that progression.”
“For a long time I wasn’t super intentional with my surfing – I’d just go surfing. And it’s important to do that, but you also need to be going out and going, ‘okay, cool, this is what I need to work on’. And that has flowed into the business side of things as well. You have to be intentional – especially around buying. Everything you do, there has to be a reason.”
It helps to have a seasoned pro to guide you through the rocky world of running a surf business in New Zealand. Taylor is quick to acknowledge his father’s hard graft over the years and reveals he doesn’t have any intentions of slowing down any time soon.
“He really enjoys it,” Taylor explains. “It’s pretty inspiring seeing the amount of success as well, coming from a little surf shop that he started in Hamilton.”
Taylor remembers the story of him selling one block of wax on that first day.
“For a bit of a perspective shift, it’s like … man, now it’s grown to what it has,” he smiles. “It’s inspiring to see where it has gone and to be a part of that – I really enjoy working with the family. I think for a lot of people, a job can just be a job, but it has always been more than that for me. I always want to go the extra mile.”
If you sit back and consider the journey of Backdoor, it’s a staggering one. Backdoor existed before the Internet. They rode the bricks and mortar vs online divide. They survived through the globalisation and then the corporatisation of surfing and surf brands. They navigated the treacherous waters of a global financial crisis, then found their way through Covid. And despite all those pitfalls, they haven’t just survived, but always found a way to thrive.
“The global financial crisis was pretty rough for him and the whole family,” recalls Taylor. “At that stage he had put a lot of time and effort, and money into getting the business to something a bit more than what it was. Obviously, there would never be a good time for that type of event, but if something like that happened now, I feel like we would be more prepared than most. But at that point, it was just like, ‘Wow, this is crazy’. To get through that was quite incredible.”
To make things easier with schooling the family moved from Raglan into Hamilton when Taylor was five. Even though they had moved into town, they spent a lot of time in Raglan throughout those school years, and still do.
“We spent a few months out there each summer and just commuted,” Taylor shares. “But the commute gets draining. I did that commute a lot. Once I had my licence, I was out there all the time and then by the end of Year 13, I was living out there on my own.”
He said it became draining driving into Hamilton from Raglan each day.
“It’s not quite an hour, but you’re 45 minutes either side, before you even start or finish work,” he reveals. “I did enjoy it sometimes … it was nice to get a Raglan Roast and settle into the drive and wake up a little bit. I do know people who have done that commute for years and years and years, and many of them really don’t mind it.”
Taylor believes Covid has changed the whole landscape around working from home.
“People have been forced to figure out how to make things work,” he adds. “That has been a good outcome.”
On Backdoor’s radar is a new shop in Dunedin, but Taylor’s not here for that. He’s here to surf the coastline and reconnect with free surfing and to enjoy surf travel with mates.
“I had never spent much time down here, up until the last Nationals,” he confesses. “I was frothing on that trip – a whole bunch of us drove down and I loved it. The whole vibe of the place and how many different waves there are. You pretty much can’t get scammed. And I don’t even think we got good waves for that trip. But we still had some of the most fun sessions.”
We’re chatting in the car on the way back from a fun Otago surf spot and Taylor admits to being surfed out. I take that as a sign of success.
“I’m feeling so fried right now, but in the best way,” he explains. “I haven’t felt like this for such a long time … it’s just so good. Even just coming for a surf trip in general – I haven’t packed my board coffin and suitcase for that long, and even just going to the airport and getting on a plane with my boards was amazing.”
He said a particular marathon surf in the Catlins was the most special.
“I will remember that day for a very long time. It’s just crazy how wave rich the whole area is.”
“I just love surfing different spots and surfing waves that I don’t typically surf,” Taylor continues. “To me, that is so much fun. If I pack up my truck and go away somewhere and get to surf somewhere that I haven’t before, even if it’s not that great, it’s still just like, ‘Yep, that’s that is cool’. And even just to see the set up and go, ‘Okay, it needed a bit more of this, or a bit more of that’.”
“I will remember that day for a very long time. It’s just crazy how wave rich the whole area is.”
And there is the banter of course. Taylor is here with a bunch of mates, including his cousin Caleb Cutmore, Olympic surfer Billy Stairmand, Paul Moretti, Jay Piper-Healion and team manager Darren Celliers. There is a thick stream of banter and Taylor happily contributes with fits of laughter and possibly empty threats.
For the past few days Taylor has been dubbed Kanoa Igarashi.
“They call me that because I’m currently rolling with bleach hair and a gold chain,” Taylor laughs. “So, yes, I acknowledge that as a respectable call from them. But it was not the look I was going for. We’ll deal with the hair when I get home. You can’t get anything past those boys.”
I suggest he has a great opportunity to dish a little bit of dirt on each of them while we’re driving.
“No. I can’t do that to Darren or Caleb,” he laughs. “I could, but I feel like they would get me right back. That’s the problem with us. I could do this even on the low, like now when I’m just in a car with you doing an interview. But it would come out and they’d get me back somehow.”
He said the payback was not worth it.
“You’re just better to do it face-to-face,” he smiles. “That’s probably been one of the highlights of the trip though. There have been an incredible number of shocking calls – so many laughs. It just makes a trip when you’ve got a good crew. It’s special to have a cool crew who are all just frothing on the same thing; wanting to surf their brains out and still joke around. It is quite rare to have a group of mates who are all on the same team and are on a good buzz the whole time.”
Taylor confides in me that he has been through a rough year, that includes a break-up with his wife. He has set some goals but is still dealing with it all.
“We’ve recently broken up, so it’s not been my greatest year so far,” he shares. “But, you know, that’s life.”
Taylor pauses and thinks for a minute before continuing.
“Prior to splitting with my wife, I had been dealing with some ongoing mental health battles, but that felt like the final straw,” he admits. “It was at that point that I started going to therapy and working through everything. I still go every few weeks and I could not recommend it enough as it has been life changing.”
Through opening himself to his mental health struggle and learning to acknowledge it, Taylor has become passionate about helping others going through similar experiences.
“I could go on forever about mental health, particularly for younger males,” Taylor shares. “It’s something I’m so passionate about after being through some really dark times myself.”
“I still have my fair share of battles and I’m still learning to navigate it all – it’s never an overnight fix and it takes intentional time and effort to work through it, but it is possible.”
He said the stigma around mental health was a massive part of the problem.
“There is a massive stigma around mental health – especially for males,” Taylor explains. “There is a stigma about going to therapy, about admitting you aren’t okay, and about appearing ‘weak’, but I’m sick of this being a thing.”
“There is a massive stigma around mental health – especially for males. There is a stigma about going to therapy, about admitting you aren’t okay, and about appearing ‘weak’, but I’m sick of this being a thing.”
Taylor said mental health issues affected everyone to some degree and not always the people you suspected.
“I’m quite an outgoing person, I’m always joking, laughing, and come across happy most of the time, so it was a shock to many of my mates that I wasn’t in a good place,” Taylor reveals. “I let that stigma stop me from talking about it and getting professional help.”
“Spark that chat, check up on your mates, and if you are struggling, take that first step. Talk to your best mate, your mum, your dad, whoever it may be that you feel like you can share with. It’s the best thing you will ever do for yourself. The more we talk about it, the smaller this stigma becomes. It’s normal to struggle – life can be so hard sometimes! It’s a whole lot easier though when the people around you can be there to help.”
“Spark that chat, check up on your mates, and if you are struggling, take that first step. Talk to your best mate, your mum, your dad, whoever it may be that you feel like you can share with. It’s the best thing you will ever do for yourself. The more we talk about it, the smaller this stigma becomes. It’s normal to struggle – life can be so hard sometimes! It’s a whole lot easier though when the people around you can be there to help.”
Taylor said his medium-term goals were to surf his brains out and try to do well domestically. Longer term he hoped to get stuck into some QS events and international travel.
“I can’t wait to travel again – I’m chomping at the bit.”
Taylor won the South Island Surfing Championships held over Easter in Dunedin earlier in the year and said he was feeling very motivated for surfing right now.
“I feel more fired up than I’ve ever been in surfing,” he smiles. “I go through stages of frothing and not frothing on surfing, but the past season I have been so keen to get as much water time as possible.”
After a burst with running, he’s also started to introduce gym sessions for cross-training.
“I’ve been spending a lot more time in the gym and trying to push myself in that area for a bit of an extra edge. I never used to do any training outside of surfing, so this has been something I have really enjoyed learning.”
He admits it was also about preventing injuries.
“I’ve had a couple of long-term injuries over the years, and I wouldn’t wish that on any athlete so I’m just doing my best to stop that happening again and to gain a bit of extra power at the same time. Surfing is always the best training for surfing though.”
Despite working in the industry, Taylor admits that his dad always made him work for his support.
“I remember I was pestering Dad when I was a grom, like, ‘Come on Dad, when are you going to sponsor me?’ And he just wouldn’t … he wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until I started making a few finals that he was like, ‘Okay maybe, you can chuck a Backdoor sticker on your board now’. It was classic – he really made me work for it and so he should.”
“I remember I was pestering Dad when I was a grom, like, ‘Come on Dad, when are you going to sponsor me?’ And he just wouldn’t … he wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until I started making a few finals that he was like, ‘Okay maybe, you can chuck a Backdoor sticker on your board now’.”
Among his other sponsors are some well-developed relationships with leading brands. Taylor is renowned for repping them well – he consistently has the best-looking wax job in the lineup.
“Vissla is my main sponsor and the team there are absolute legends, they’ve been hooking me up with all the gears for a few years now,” Taylor explains. “They are absolute legends, Troy in New Zealand, and Wes and John over in Australia. I always like to stay in touch with them and can’t wait to get over and go surfing with those guys.”
Taylor is also supported by New Zealand company Sticky Johnson.
“Sticky Johnson is an epic crew,” he begins. “They’ve been hooking me up with wax, surf screen, all sorts of little goodies. They are just the coolest guys and a Kiwi company, so I’m proud to represent them. I also have FCS providing all my surf hardware and I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been with them now, it’s been so long.”
He said Channel Islands Surfboards had recently become a big supporter.
“Channel Islands have been putting good boards under my feet for a while now,” Taylor explains. “I haven’t exclusively been with CI for that long. I tried a lot of different brands of boards for quite a few years and just constantly kept coming back to Cis. I’d want other boards to go well, but the CIs just seemed to be working best for me.”
“I owe a big thanks to the guys, Jason and Warren over at CI in South Africa,” Taylor offers. “I’ve been getting my boards through those guys … I have four freshies sitting at home for me right now. So, snapping one yesterday wasn’t too much of a kick in the balls.”
During one of our last sessions in the Catlins, Taylor went for a big fin bust on a nicely pitching wave. It looked like he made the landing sweet but came up with two halves of his board flapping in the breeze.
“I really awkwardly connected with the lip and then came down with it,” he laughs. “I was hooting for Paul on the wave behind, so I didn’t even notice. And then I ducked under that one, popped up and turned around and it was just schralped.”
“It’s always the good ones.”
Taylor’s story highlights yet again that for most surfers and business owners, failure always occupies a bigger part of the pie than success. But the two are interlinked. Thomas Edison put it perfectly when he said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”