213: Thomas Campbell/Sit In The Chair

It’s been a long time coming – five years since I first contacted him – but in July 2023 I finally caught up with artist, director and all-round creative legend Thomas Campbell for this Looking Sideways conversation.

And I’m happy to say that this conversation was everything I hoped it would be, and much more. Sure, Campbell – much as he would balk at such talk – is one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our world.

Thomas is a true omnivorous polymath, as happy to experiment with sewing or his record label as he making era-defining surf flicks, and for whom the act of ’sitting in the chair’ is the point of it all.

But as I discovered, he’s also a thoughtful and generous conversationalist, and our chat covers music, life, art everything in between.

This is already one of my favourite ever LS chats, in which one of our most successful and engaging influences delves right into his process and motivation, and displays the charm, curiosity, and appetite for life that is such a feature of his work.

Listen to our conversation here: