I don't really know how it happened... It's like being pulled by a magnet toward these things you feel. I heard Hendrix in a car commercial, I got Nirvana CDs, but I could tell I was searching for something deeper, I just couldn't imagine what it was. Around age 10 I had some drum sticks and would bang around on different objects like I was playing a drumset. All these little pieces started falling into place when I was 12 or 13 years old, hearing murmurs of an underground world. A few friends and I started digging, showing each other information we got from zines or the internet (as rudimentary as it was back then). There were great resources like Extreme Noise Records in Minneapolis and I could take the bus there and buy CDs or get tapes from the free bin, which is where I first heard Confuse and Gauze. I went to lots of warehouse shows and basement shows in high school and the police would come and hundreds of people would scatter and it was perfect. I think one of the shows that really cemented my love was seeing the final State Of Fear show in a warehouse next to the police station. It was like being in a different world. Over time I started bands that played these underground shows too and toured Europe early on, seeing the squatter scene and the international DIY community really pulled me in deeper and formed my love and passion.

I always felt it was important that the vandalism meant something more than the surface appearance. It's a coded message letting others know what is possible in this world. It's like peeling back reality and showing the cracks in society. Inspiring freedom inherently through the act. That's why I think it's important to climb, to go paint in really bizarre places, to leave bread crumbs for people who might walk the same paths as you. To add some creativity and absurd letter structures is a bonus but I think all the best graffiti has an implicit purpose that's beyond the individual ego and more about a mission of defiance and inspiration. That sounds completely ridiculous but it's true. When I started painting it was really just about freeing myself. I felt trapped and slowly got more and more comfortable, doing marker tags then slowly spray paint and finally climbing and painting or doing street fills. Running across a 4 lane freeway for the first time was extremely liberating.

Yes I remember very clearly seeing graffiti on the highways and wondering HOW, WHY, WHAT? How many people did it take to paint these pieces in crazy places? Why would anyone choose to do this? What am I looking at and what does it mean? It helped peel back my reality and demonstrate there's more to life than blank grey walls and obedience. Similar to the punk world I'd discovered, this was like a forbidden realm that I felt drawn to and very lucky to experience. I also remember exploring abandoned buildings (there were many at the time in my hometown) and finding hundreds of burners and being in awe. The idea of going to these degraded, fucked up, monuments of industrial society and painting colorful wildstyle pieces was extremely inspiring. Like messages only there for those who dared explore.

Graffiti didn't feel "cool" when I was young doing it so I didn't want to advertise it much. Plus yes, I love the anonymity and back then if people asked if you write I thought you were supposed to lie and say no. I thought it was important to be secretive, and I think this was also because I felt like graffiti and DIY punk were precious things not to be telling everyone about, it's not for everyone when done right. I think I also wanted to focus on each in a pure way and I don't feel the need to tell everyone all my secrets and actions.

I started doing designs and drawings for bands I was playing in. Then doing some flyers for friends. It was just DIY band activities honestly. I think my graffiti work ethic helped push myself and take things seriously, knowing I was representing a music scene or my friends bands. A lot of the stuff I did back in the day was pretty bad but I just figured if I kept trying I'd find my voice like I did with graff. People put trust in me and I honored that. I did tons of work for free and still do if I believe in it.

Yes thank you for noticing that. I read the news a lot and am always bewildered by the madness happening in the world. I love sci-fi and fantasy for the stories they tell about our reality that can only be told through analogy. So I guess I'm always trying to comment on our reality through some absurd imagery. My roommate played in PMS 84 and she has a tour flyer I made for them on the wall- at the time I was shocked by the xenophobia in the USA and the fact that so many people here continue to think of it as a white christian country. So I drew a ship going off the edge of the earth, as though it's flat, falling into a pile of old monsters like people believed would happen if you sailed too far before America was "discovered". Commentary on these fables about America and how rampant ignorance remains. I've drawn Pikachu distracting someone from witnessing police violence when Pokemon Go was big, people playing video games that are drone bombing controls, hands tapping photos on a phone giving it likes that are pulling a face apart with hooks- all ideas that were explored in John Carpenter movies, Hellraiser, and books like Ender's Game, just to name a few...

I do things a few ways. Sometimes people just get what they get! I can tell when a band wants something more standard, like black and white with skulls and classic ideas. Sometimes people send me pictures of flyers and albums I've done and say they want stuff like that. Other times I'll do a few sketches and send them to get some ideas going. I think a lot of bands just want cool looking images without too much real thought or plot behind it, but in my opinion the built-in ideas effect people subconsciously and trying to add some real meaning sets something apart. I'd rather do a weird composition thats off kilter and a bit wrong, with some nuanced meaning, than just make something that looks sick and sleek. But of course there's always a middle ground. I am not interested in doing work for people who exploit the DIY community for personal gain, or at least they have to pay up for this culture we lend them! The fact is that I didn't start doing this for money, but for the love. I turn lots of things down but also I do a lot of different things in my life so sometimes I just don't have time to spend a few days drawing something for a band that wouldn't lend a hand in the same way with their personal time to boost someone else's creative endeavor. Of course I'm also not interested in working with people who have ideals that are in opposition to mine on a fundamental level either.

I think about concepts when I'm falling asleep and waking up, trying to capture energy from the realm between states of consciousness. I think a lot about what's happening to humanity and our experience as technology and industrialization increases its grip, about the bizarre conditions we accept, and then I use all that to try to tell little stories. I don't do any animal sacrifices or blood rituals, sorry if that's a letdown.

I love stuff like Druillet, Giger, Beksinski, Jack Kirby, Roger Dean, Sugi, classic Pushead, Noriyoshi Ohrai, etc. All classic stuff. I love art and I have hundreds of other influences, those are just some that come to mind immediately, I'm not great at pulling information like that up on the spot. I must say these days I'm also really into all the nameless forgotten punk art in the darker crust world I grew up in. There's so many cool old flyers by people that didn't need to attach their name to it, album art thats ripped up photos and crude drawings, all types of DIY non-monetized art that builds an amazing world to look at as a whole. I think that's my biggest influence and my biggest goal is to be part of that.

Movie covers, neon signs, rust, concrete walls that have been painted a million times til they start to close in on you, scifi and horror b-movies, 90s video games, a misty night over the city, an amazing meal, friends and peers who don't have an active daily practice but make a sick drawing once a year, ambient music, all the writers in ICBM with their unique styles and work ethics... the list goes on...

Thanks, I'd love to find the time to make pure art. That's the goal, but I feel like I need to churn away with the punk art side of things for a while and then bring the punk shit, scifi, graffiti, and pure art ideas together when the timer goes off. We have talked about being in bands, painting graffiti... I also work as a screen printer and have human relationships, so it literally comes down to the time and the financial ability to take time to work on art. It's something I want very much.

Take it seriously, push yourself, don't copy directly, get off instagram, be creative, have fun, don't do it for money, ask yourself your motivations, stay humble, all that shit you always hear haha