Despite his success and popularity, he remained one of the most affable and well-regarded surfers on the tour, a trait he attributed to his "Christian faith and belief in God".
He was born in the San Fernando Valley, but spent some of his childhood in the southern Riverside County city of Temecula.
Temecula is roughly an hour from the ocean, so at age 5 his father started driving him to the beach every weekend and taught him to surf.
He is considered to be the pioneer of surfing's "Aerial Revolution" of the late 1990s[citation needed], and is famous for completing a full rotation, upside-down flip in two-foot surf at Rocky Point in Hawaii during winter of 2005.
The song "Daylights Comin'" was featured in the second episode of the 2011 TV series Charlie's Angels.