Mason Barnes
D
50
WBM august 2013
M
Chase Evans C suffered a few knee injuries
that sidelined his surfing activity.
Now he studies filmmaking at Cape Fear
Community College.
C E : Back then I could surf every single day. Now, it has to be super
good for me to get the urge to go. I feel like it’s more fun now because
I do it less. When I do get out I cherish it more and it’s more exciting.
WBM: How has growing up at WB affected your current life and
maybe your future life?
C E : I kind of look at Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach as a super small
town, everyone knows each other and will know each other. Everyone keeps
the same friends for a long time. If I hadn’t grown up here I don’t know
what I’d be doing. I’d be a way different person if I didn’t grow up here.
WBM: And you wouldn’t be surfing, either.
C E : Probably not, no. — Matt Corpening
Now in Tahiti, Mason Barnes is
sponsored by Hurley and travels
to surf California and Hawaii eight
months out of the year.
MB: I just got back from Hawaii where I spent the entire
winter surfing and videoing, working on a short film. It’s
called “Albino Summer.” … It’s me and Logan Beam, who
I travel with. …We drove cross-country two months before
that and got some cool landscapes. Then contest-wise, I have
the US Open of Surfing at the end of the summer, and
that’s all I really have planned for now. While I’m at home,
since there’s no waves I’ve been just making clothes out of the
back of The Annex Surf Supply and just kinda messing up
T-shirts. I go in there on my free time, just make clothes and
then put them in the store and hopefully they sell. It’s very
unique, everything’s single, one of a kind.
WBM: What’s your relationship with surfing now as compared to eight years ago?
MB: Still the same; still get just as excited to go surfing as I did when I was that age. When the waves are good here, I get more. ... There’s
nothing that gets me more psyched. All I wanted to do was surf and travel, and I guess now it’s more a part of my life, like career-wise
cause I’m actually trying to do something with it. So there’s a work aspect to it I guess. That’s the difference: a little bit more seriousness.
WBM: How would you say growing up in WB affected your current life and more specifically your future?
MB: When I’m somewhere else people notice that the way people from North Carolina act is just so much more courteous than the
average human, but it’s just normal to us. People in Hawaii love people from North Carolina because it’s kinda the same country vibe
over there and they love the Southern hospitality. Hawaii is pretty much a tropical version of us.
WBM: We interviewed you eight years ago. Eight years from now what would you like to be doing?
MB: I’d like to be doing the same exact thing that I’m doing right now, which is the same thing I was doing eight years ago. I wouldn’t
really want my life to be any different, it’s kinda perfect in my eyes, I love it. I’m very thankful. …This is where I want to live, nowhere
else. It’s my favorite place out of anywhere in the entire world. — Alex Constantinou
Chase Evans
E
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM MINCHER