I had a very typical glorious childhood. When I was 8, my mom and I moved to a brand new building on the outskirts of Vitebsk, right across the road there was a new construction site, where I spent my time playing with my friend most of the time. We used to dig into the ground and find treasures from the war: bomb fragments, boxes and boxes of German leaflets from 1941 urging the soviet troops to give up. One kid found a machine gun, it was rusty but very cool looking, of course our "pioneer vojataja" took it to the "Krasnoyarsk ygolok". When I was around 10-11 we used to go the the video salons, you pay one ruble and you can watch Rambo on a tiny TV screen in a room full of gopniki. I collected the inserts from Turkish made chewing gums: Turbo, Terminator, Donald Duck. We listened to metal in my friend's garage, while everyone else listened to Techno, I still do not like Ace of Base. No internet, no phones, life was dangerous and exciting. Things where getting tough around 1989, there were shortages of food and clothing, people spoke about Civil War, my mom had three jobs at one point, I remember going to the store to buy a loaf of bread and the sales person said that it will arrive soon, I waited in a big line, when the bread arrived people where full on fighting for it, I saw a pensioner with a bloody nose. We had food ration cards for sugar, vodka, cigarettes. The country was in chaos.

It's strange how a small detail can change someone's life, in my case it was a leaflet for a local show. I wanted to draw and that particular image gave me an idea that I don't have to draw cubes and flowers in my local art school, I could draw anything and have a lot of fun doing it. My schoolmates and I started to listen to a few metal bands and we drew a lot of skulls, RoboCop and the Terminator. I was aware that there were other metal dudes walking around but they were like unicorns, very mythical and unapproachable. I do remember all the gossip surrounding the underground metal scene, everyone thought that Metalheads worshiped satan and practiced blood sacrifices, I think it was based on a much talked about murder from the mid 90's, a metal dude killed his friend over some dispute but the general public blew the whole incident out of proportion. I was a bit intimidated at that time to get involved into the scene because of that, and also the rampant drug use, especially huffing glue that was attributed to the metal scene at that time, I didn't go to any metal gigs in Belarus, I do regret it now but there weren't many shows back then and I was a kid.

I moved to Philadelphia in 1996 with my family, the first impression that I got about America was that it was spread out and quite boring. I liked Americans, they were patient with my bad English and they tried to help in any way they could. I wasn't impressed by the food ever, if you read Ilf and Petrov's "One-storied America" they talked about all of that, not much changed since the 1930's. Then I moved to NYC and that was great! I got a job at a local fast food restaurant and I went to Coney Island High (a local music venue) almost every week, also there was C-squat, Continental bar, CBGB's. I went to a lot of gigs, metal, street punk, oi and rock, it was a lot of fun. NYC was a very hectic city but it gives you a lot of energy back, you feel like you have to be out doing things, create, meet new people, it makes your senses sharp.

I attended the illustration department at the Academy and it was run by Chuck Pyle and Barbara Bradley, old school illustrators, all the teachers were great, very professional and good artists. That school gave me work ethic and technical skills. I dropped out because I couldn't continue paying for it. I was very upset for a while but it helped me to get out of my stalemate, I broke up with my girlfriend, quit my job and I moved to a new town, and then I started looking for illustration jobs.

When I moved to San Francisco in 2000, I met a lot of punk rockers, we became best friends and we started a band called Deadfall, thats when I started drawing flyers for local punk and hardcore shows and I worked on some shirt designs. In 2001 my friend Jeff Leppard asked me to draw a cover art for an EP for his band STFU, that was my first real art gig, I worked on it for a long time and in the end he was happy with the result, after that I worked on a few punk releases and on art for my own band.

The first metal band that I did a cover for was Municipal Waste, we knew each other because we toured together and they used to play a lot of shows in Bay Area, we became friends and in 2007 I got a call from them because a dude that was working on their album cover wasn't responding or he was late with turning in the work, I don't quite remember, but anyway ,they asked me to do a sketch and they had a very good concept, I did it right away and they decided to give me the job. That was the cover for "The Art of Partying". After that album, I was getting a lot of work from metal bands.

It's not important at all, it's all about the music, if the tunes are good I am cool with it! It doesn't affect my creative process. I just need to listen to good music and I am ready to slap some paint on the canvas.

I love thrash metal, in a sea of boredom and "norm core" ,thrash is a beacon of awesomeness! I would rather paint nuclear explosions and sharks with lasers than postmodern shit. I love the explosion of colour's and the energy of trash covers. At the same time thrash metal is dealing with the anxieties that we all have about the modern world, not much has changed since the 80's.

Yes, it is always risky to repeat even by mistake something that was done before, I didn't see every album cover or t-shirt design that's out there. One time I made a painting that had a similar theme to someone else's shirt design but i've never seen it before, I based the concept on the old thrash covers, I took the most commonly used designs and I meshed them together and apparently some one had done that before me in a very similar way, whoops! There is always a chance to repeat oneself or someone else but I am trying my best to come up with something different.

First I will ask them if they have a preconceived concept. If they do, I will work on a detailed sketch, if they do not, I will read their lyrics or song titles and I will try to come up with my own concept. We discuss what colour palette to use. After we agree on the drawing, I will paint it, then I will send my customer a photo of a painting, if they ask me to add something I will repaint certain elements but usually when the sketch is approved and I paint what I did in the sketch, the client is happy. It will get scanned and I might touch it up on photoshop. That is it, very straightforward.

I used to do push ups and clean my studio before I start working on a new project, now I roll out of bed and drink a lot of coffee and then I am ready to go. I listen to a lot of music and podcasts, during breaks I go outside and say hello to my pet sheep.

I would have to say, music would be in first place: Nifelheim "Devil's Force", Motorhead "Overkill", Inepsy " Rock n Roll Babylon", Nuclear Assault "Game Over", wacky horror films from 1970's and 80's by Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento, Return of the Blind Dead, Zeiram, Evil Dead etc. I mostly watch old films, new movies are boring and slow, they look like they are done by pretentious college students and all that superhero films are pure rubbish.

Usually those companies give me a lot of freedom, I can do whatever I want as far as concept and composition goes and It's good for me to branch out into "the world" and be seen by non-metal people. I painted a few murals, worked on a couple of Hip hop releases etc. It's good to be seen and to work on something unexpected.

Warren approached me via social media, he asked me if I was interested in working on a shirt design and that is how we started working together. To tell you the truth being an artist is not a glamorous job, there are no tales to tell because you have to work in solitude most of the time, you don't meet too many people or customers face to face, I live in my head, I think of something that is interesting and I put it down on a canvas and that's pretty much it. When I used to show my art in galleries, I met a lot of people and fellow artists but I haven't been doing art shows for years now. Maybe I'll get back to it at some point.

Animal cruelty, unless its a mythical animal.

In my younger days I used to despise people that worked digitally, I thought that they were cheating somehow and digital generated images looked too generic but now I am open to any medium, my friend Eliran Kantor is a very talented digital painter, his art should be in museums! It's digital but it looks like oil paintings. I use photoshop myself from time to time. It depends on the assignment, I rarely use it because I do love working with real paints, the whole process is mesmerizing and therapeutic, you need to know when to apply the next layer of paint and wait for it to dry or use wet technique, seeing the abstract shapes develop into cohesive picture, selecting the colours, maybe even scraping the whole painting and start working on it from the scratch, there is magic in it! Plus I like having a real painting at the end of the day.

It's a tough one, I guess it's all about communication, ask a lot of questions in the beginning so there a no misunderstanding after you have done the sketches or the painting, one time I finished the painting and the guys from the band told me that the they wanted different colours, but we didn't discuss the color combinations in an initial emails. Ask questions!