Archives: Interviews

Greg Interviews Cynosure (2019)

The second of no less than five guitars created by Oliver Andrew aka Cynosure for 2019’s RAM gallery has been inspired by Friday headliners Sabaton.

Q. What were your inspirations for the Sabaton design?

“I’d heard a few songs but I’d never really got a chance to listen to them as such, but they’re one of those bands that are extremely unique in themselves. Their themes are incredible, centred around war and battles and chaos. A sabaton is actually the footwear on a medieval suit of armour, so that was my inspiration along with the war themes. If we have a look at the design itself we can see that around the edge essentially it does feature a sabaton effect which are the plates of metal which create that very particular shape incorporated into the design itself, pretty much all of the left side. The other side is very streamlined and curvaceous because I wanted it to be very comfortable, very ergonomic whilst you’re playing it. It’s semi-hollow, basically a shell of a guitar, the inside is all routed out. It features a perforated metal sheet atop and that obviously encases all the electronics and front-facing hardware. The reason for using the perforated metal sheet was because it’s often used within the military and it’s very industrial. The volume and tone controls are made from real twelve gauge shotgun shells, which I actually shot myself, and the fret markers are from an M4 machine gun, which I also shot. So that’s very much my personal input into the guitar itself.”

Q. The guitar is internally lit which makes for an incredibly striking effect.

“Yes. It’s internally lit with two bands of LED strips on the inside. At night time it’s absolutely incredible because it shines up everything around you. That’s a huge attraction for it to be played on stage. Because of the perforated metal sheet you can see through to the electronics so I just thought, well, I’ve never really seen a guitar like this, and it would look so damn cool lit up.”

Q. You’ve also layered different types of wood within the body creating an interesting sandwich effect.

“That was actually a complete accident! I had spent so much money on the wood and it takes me a long time to source the wood I want for the tone and the theme; I like to choose a type of wood that will go well with the particular theme. With regard to this guitar, the wood was very expensive so I basically used off-cuts from wood I already had. The fretboard is made from wood called Katalox, and I sandwiched that between black walnut, so you get a stripey effect. That effect is used a lot within camouflage, and military and danger warning signs as well, so that sort of ties in rather well. I basically did it to use wood and not purchase more stuff, but I think it worked out pretty well. And several pieces laminated together actually creates a stronger bond.”

Q. The shape is simultaneously familiar yet somewhat unusual.

“I find that more bass guitars tend to have unique shapes than guitars generally. So I was partly inspired by a lot of Warwick basses, which is a German manufacturer. They have some really wacky designs. But the sabaton aspect then took over to make it really individualized.”

Q. Tell us about the hardware and the electronics.

“It’s a 25.5 inch scale. The electronics are fairly simple, it’s one volume and one tone, and a three-way pick-up switch. However, the volume control does have a push-pull potentiometer. It activates the lights, acting as a switch as well as a volume control. It’s a Tune-o-matic bridge like a Les Paul bridge. It’s a string-through body, so the strings make contact with the body, as opposed to a tailpiece. That’s the main structure behind it, very simple. It’s got a medium to high output, and I’d say it’s more of a shred guitar. The pick-ups are extremely metal, we’re talking a thrashy sound. And because it’s semi-hollow, there is a hell of a lot of reverberation on the inside which amplifies the metal sound. It’s very distinctive. The pick-ups create the sound which reverberates and then is picked up by the pick-ups as well, so it’s extremely metal!”

“The build was absolutely amazing and this is one of my favourite designs ever and such a pleasure to create. I have to say, though, that carving the sabaton plates or flaps was such a pain in the ass! It was so very labour intensive. I had to re-do the lacquering on it so all in all it was about five weeks work just for that. I could have built another guitar within that time!”

www.cynosureguitars.com

24th July 2019
Greg Interviews Cynosure (2019)

The third of five guitars created by Oliver Andrew aka Cynosure for 2019’s RAM gallery has been inspired by Bloodstock’s Saturday headliners Parkway Drive.

Q. You weren’t really familiar with Parkway Drive before commencing work on this guitar. Did you find this ‘blank slate’ approach liberating or intimidating or perhaps a bit of both?

“I had only heard the name but almost didn’t realise that the band existed. I’d never heard their music, didn’t know what they looked like, didn’t know their imagery, or anything. To be honest, it was such an effort. I have to say, in terms of the design process, it was the most arduous, lengthy time I ever spent designing a guitar. It wasn’t just that I had no prior knowledge, it seemed like all my research just fell into a void because of the fact that there was no consistent theme. For example, they have no specific logo as such. It seemed like every album had a different font, a different artistry within it. For me there was no consistency, so it was very difficult. I submitted a few different designs. I tried to create a play on words with the band’s name, trying to feature it within a Monopoly game as with ‘Park Lane’. That was one concept that didn’t work. It was, as you say, a complete blank slate.”

Q. How did you eventually find a way around this creative impasse?

“I researched a few of their interviews to see what their personal comments on their albums and imagery were, but it didn’t really amount to much. There was a lot of focus on darkness and a lot of repetition of the word ‘darkness’, so I ended up designing a guitar which was very simplistic in nature but which was completely black. However, it was to feature several pinholes through which internal lights shine, like light shining through abyssal darkness. That wasn’t quite the right result either, so I ended up looking up their latest album ‘Reverence’ which essentially features an image of hell, and I took most of the inspiration from that. So, I wanted to create a vision of hell within a guitar ha ha! I took the obvious example of something from within the earth – lava, volcanoes – this fitted what I was going for. It ties in with the medieval idea of the centre of the earth as the dominion of hell and up where the clouds are is the elevation of heaven. These ideas have fuelled a lot of history and beliefs.”

Q. The finish on the completed guitar certainly looks hellish. You could almost say that in a way it looks destroyed.

“One of the ideas I had was to put a blow torch to it but what I noticed was that because it’s a multi-laminate, several pieces of wood together, if you blow torch it the woods tend to separate as the glue melts. The idea to get over that was to use black paint but something very tangible with texture you could feel, the bumps and undulations in the landscape of the guitar itself. The way I achieved that was to essentially use a sort of resin composite, pour it all over the guitar, and then turn it on its edge so it would create a sort of drip and sagging effect. From that point the lava idea definitely took hold and confirmed the intention of the guitar itself. From that point I carved into the wood creating channels and valleys consistent with a lava flow. I used an airbrush gun to spray oranges and yellows and reds, as you would expect, followed by more black to highlight very prominent areas. The oranges, yellows and reds define what is lit from underneath.”

Q. Does the guitar sounds as hellish as it looks?

“It’s a two humbucker, one volume control creation, with a three-way pick-up switch, so there’s no crazy electrics aspect aside from the internal lights. Like all my guitars this year it’s a 25.5 inch scale, and it features Seymour Duncan ‘Invader’ pick-ups, so it absolutely screams! It sounds like it looks – the infernal screaming of the dark abyss! The pick-ups themselves are black, so it’s a very black guitar ha ha!”

Q. You brought none of your own pre-conceived ideas about Parkway Drive to this design, but do you think it would work if one of them just walked out on stage with it?

“Yeah, absolutely, I think so. Judging by the way the guitar sounds, I think it would work with their overall sound for sure. Not just aesthetically, but musically of course. It’s my take on the band and I what I think are their concepts, their overall package. Maybe it wouldn’t 100 per cent fill their criteria or what they think they’re about. However, it might. It’s just my creative perspective.”

www.cynosureguitars.com

24th July 2019
Greg Interviews Peter Sallai (2019)

Making his RAM Gallery debut in 2019, we are pleased to welcome Peter Sallai of Mortpaint Graphics. Peter is a Hungarian artist who has worked with many bands including the likes of WASP, Kataklysm, Korpiklaani, Crematory, Annihilator, Tyr, Mayhem, Powerwolf, Satyricon, Kreator and, most notably, Sabaton. Peter is also a member of black metal band Bornholm.

Q. How did you get started in both metal music and art?

“Back in my teenage years when I was in high school, around 1994, I started listening to rock music and it changed my whole life. Then I started at college studying visual arts. I wanted to contact two things – music and art. After I finished my exams and started work I tried to design some album covers, at first for local bands, but later, I don’t know how, when I moved to Budapest it became my full time job. Designing album covers for Hungarian bands but also of course, worldwide.”

Q. What was your first album cover job and the first that you really felt was significant?

“Maybe it was a Hungarian band called green Division, the first official one. The first big job I think was maybe a Kreator t-shirt, or something for Annihilator, I don’t remember clearly, but it was some merchandise. The first bigger album cover was maybe Memory Garden.”

Q. Sabaton is the band you’ve done the most high-profile work for – how did your relationship with them begin?

“It’s a strange story. I met them for the first time in 2007. They weren’t such a big band back then. We played together in Transylvania at a festival. We said hello after the show, nothing more, but after two years or something I got an email from them. They were looking for somebody to design their merchandise and that’s where the whole thing started. The ‘Primo Victoria’ t-shirt was my first job for them and a lot of other things followed.”

Q. How does the creative process for an album cover usually work?

“Often bands give me the album title and a small brief. The music is mostly secret before it’s released, so I almost never get to listen to any. But they’ll tell me the general direction they want to go, and Sabaton is one of the bands who totally trust me to do what I want. It’s so good for me and it’s so rare because most of the bands have specific ideas of their own.”

Q. What medium(s) do you work in?

“I work mostly digital but I like painting analogue, on canvas. But I don’t have enough space to do it. That’s why now I am working fully digitally. It’s faster and it’s easier to fix things or change things.”

Q. Most people would never guess that your work is completely digital.

“The reason is the software. Nowadays we have amazing software. Fifteen years ago there was only some photo-montage stuff and you couldn’t paint like in reality with a paintbrush. It’s so much better and so much closer to real life now.”

Q. Do you ever have time to create artwork purely for yourself?

“I would like to but I don’t have much time. I have tons of work but sometimes I do something for myself, but not so often because of work. It’s so strange. When I started I would draw what was in my mind for my own pleasure, but now I make almost everything for someone else.”

Q. What do you feel makes a great album cover?

“If it’s just an illustration of the music I think it’s kinda boring. If you look back in time, for example, Judas Priest covers, they were a piece of art. It’s an artist’s work and an artist’s world and not a musician’s world. So it was the artist’s job to do the album cover and sometimes it was just a picture, an iconic picture. Led Zeppelin covers, Deep Purple covers… it was not just an illustration of the music. It was almost a separate thing. It’s good when there’s contact between them but I like better that it stands on its own.”

Q. What’s the first album cover that you remember seeing?

“The first cover I saw in my life I remember clearly and it was Iron Maiden’s ‘Somewhere in Time’. It was on a postcard which I still have today. I was only a little child when I got it. I was so amazed! What could it be? After I saw the ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’ album design I was hooked on Iron Maiden.”

Q. What do you feel is your best work so far?

“People always say it’s the last one but I think ‘The Great War’ by Sabaton. It’s the biggest work in my life and I think it’s the best.”

www.mortpaintgraphics.net

24th July 2019
Greg Interviews Cynosure (2019)

The final two of the five guitars created by Oliver Andrew aka Cynosure for 2019’s RAM gallery have been inspired by one of Bloodstock’s festival partners Hobgoblin.

Q. Where did the inspiration for these guitars come from?

“These guitars were an idea from [Bloodstock founder] Paul [Raymond Gregory] to help involve Hobgoblin in another aspect of the festival. Hobgoblin are a perfect match for Bloodstock with their overall themes, the characteristics of their brand. Their artwork also ties in very well with the RAM Gallery and Paul’s artwork as well. It resonates harmoniously and works perfectly.”

Q. You have two very distinct designs: The ‘Hobgoblin Head’ obviously inspired by the company’s branding, and the ‘Claw’ design which is both more conventional and abstract. How did the designs develop?

“One of the wonderful things about Paul is that he allows me to have full creative liberty to create whatever design I want and with whatever features I can incorporate into the overall aesthetic. For me that’s wonderful. Obviously he does approve the designs, the concepts that I come up with, but essentially the main design aspect is mine entirely. The ‘Claw’ shape is a completely unique one I came up with. I can’t remember exactly what I was inspired by – I think it was a couple of Japanese guitar brands – and a guitarist in a Japanese band who had a custom guitar made for him which is very Gothic in nature but with a lot of very pointed angles whilst at the same time being florid and curvaceous. I wanted to emulate that contrast. B.C. Rich are another brand known for their very outrageous guitars and basses, and even though I wasn’t directly inspired by them, the ‘Claw’ resonates with them as well. Their market is the heavier genres but this design is so versatile, and the basic shape is simplistic enough to appeal to a lot of different people. It’s ergonomic, it’s very playable, 100 per cent fret access, it’s everything you want a guitar to be. If I was to become big in the guitar industry then this would probably be one of my signature shapes.”

Q. Give us some of the specifications of the ‘Claw’.

“The main body is black walnut stained with a red oak stain. It’s contrasted by a maple wood banner featuring the Hobgoblin character within which there’s a LED backdrop effect. If you pull the volume control out it activates the switch for the LEDs and illuminates the Hobgoblin. The ‘claws’ are kind of grasping the guitar, almost like a creature trying to escape from within. That was the effect I was going for. All the hardware is gold. We have a wrap-around bridge, two humbuckers, and a three-way switch, and a very simple set-up with one volume and no tone. One of the things I wanted to create deliberately in the design process was the contrast between not only the dark wood and light wood but with the hardware itself. The gold hardware really compliments the natural shading of the wood.”

Q. By necessity the Hobgoblin ‘Head’ guitar design was dictated by the shape of the brand logo.

“The logo is very iconic and the guitar is like a statement piece. In terms of playability, it’s 100 per cent efficient. The nature of the design lends itself to 100 per cent fret access due to the cutaway which melds into the nose area. I can’t say it’s comfortable to play sitting down because you have that nose between your legs ha ha! But like a flying ‘V’, it’s meant to be played standing up. It’s a stage guitar. So it’s highly functional but obviously not as versatile as you might expect with a Stratocaster or something very basic in terms of its shape.”

Q. How do the specifications compare with the ‘Claw’?

“The head is cherry wood which has been stained with the same red oak stain I mentioned earlier. The neck is sycamore interlaced for added strength with goncalo alves which is a Brazilian wood. I wanted to create an essence for this guitar and when I think of sycamore, it’s an English wood, and I think of a medieval time, and you get all these hobgoblin characters from myth and folklore. I wanted to manifest a guitar related to an atmosphere or a landscape in which a hobgoblin would dwell if it were real. Then the colour scheme itself, that’s reflective of the colour of the beer. I even inlaid some tiny red stars into the fretboard which you see on the artwork of the label on the beer bottle. Everything ties in conceptually. The hardware is standard chrome like you see on most guitars. It’s a hard tail bridge which basically means that the neck doesn’t have to be angled, so it’s perfectly flat. For the volume control I’ve incorporated a beer bottle cap and part of the bottle neck, so that’s pretty cool and unique, although it was quite a pain in the arse. I broke quite a few bottles just trying to extract the top part of it. Hopefully it’ll warrant a few free beers at least!”

www.cynosureguitars.com

24th July 2019
Interview with Danny Edwards (2019)

Making his RAM Gallery debut in 2019 is artist Danny Edwards. Although currently best known as a tattooist, Danny has drawn and painted since childhood, and the selection of his work on display this year marks his first ever exhibition.

Q. How did you get into art in the first place?

“I’ve pretty much always been drawing, but I got into painting pretty much during the past five years. I’ve always been a big movie fan so I’ve always drawn portraits and characters and stuff. I’ve only just recently started promoting my paintings. I pretty much do them and stick them in a cupboard, but now my missus, she scans them and makes art prints of them. Prior to that I just painted for myself and tattooing was my day to day job where I get to do art for other people.”

Q. Both your tattoo work and your paintings feature a great deal of portraiture. What’s your approach to that?

“I draw a lot of caricatures and sometimes before I draw a portrait I’ll do a caricature so I can find that thing that makes them unique. There’s a knack to capturing the essence or expression, and I don’t know if I’ve developed that or trained myself over time to find it. Some people do a portrait kinda photo perfect but I find that quite boring and always try to find that thing that just makes them pop, makes their character stand out. Not finding something and exaggerating it for the sake of it, but maybe a look or a glance or something. Like Jack Nicholson’s eyebrows or whatever.”

Q. Both your tattoo work and your paintings also feature many themes of horror and the macabre. Where do you draw your inspiration?

“It started with my Nan, weirdly enough. I was brought up by my grandparents and my Nan had a morbid curiosity. Every weekend we would go to graveyards, she had a fascination. When I was about ten she took me to see a car being pulled out of the local river where some woman had committed suicide. They dragged this woman out and I’m there with my Nan who just thought it was completely normal. Things like that stayed with me. She’d tell me stories about when they used to live near graveyards and my uncle dug up a load of skeletons and they used to hide them in the cupboard. I was like, wow, fascinating! And I then went on to horror movies and stuff like that.”

Q. Your work shows a strong interest in serial killers and the ‘real life’ horrors in society.

“Yeah. Nowadays we’re just overwhelmed with stuff, but back in the day when my Nan would say something about Myra Hindley or Ian Huntley… My Nan was quite religious and she would cut out images of the missing girls and put them on her wall, put a cross next to it, and pray to it every night that they be found. She did that so many times throughout her whole life. Inevitably, at the end of the story, they’re dead, but those sort of things stuck with me and I was fascinated as a teenager.”

Q. Where did your interest in tattoos come from?

“Again it stems from my Nan who had a couple of secret tattoos, like little hidden roses and things like that. My grandad was military and was totally anti tattoos or anything like that. Later on when I started to get into metal music, I’d see guys from Sepultura or Slayer or Pantera with tattoos, and one of my first tattoos was ‘unscarred’ across my stomach like Phil Anselmo. The whole metal thing and tattoos went together for me.”

Q. Tell us about the work you’ll be showing in the RAM Gallery.

“They’re all portraits. They’re all actually in different styles. I don’t think I’ve got a particular style because every time I go to do a painting, I kind of go to it like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m trying to find my way through the painting, experiment, and see what happens. I’ll go over it however many times it takes. There’s no one method I’ve got. Amongst others, there’s a Hannibal Lecter one, a Marilyn Manson one, there’s a Chester Bennington one – I’m trying to sell some prints and raise money for a mental health charity. If I’d had more time I was going to try to paint some of the bands that are playing this year, but I’ve got my wedding the week after Bloodstock!”

www.instagram.com/danslayer666

23rd July 2019
Greg Interviews Cynosure (2018)

Guitar designer and maker Oliver Andrew aka Cynosure has been part of the RAM gallery every year since the inaugural exhibition at the Bloodstock festival in 2014, contributing some of the most visually arresting and technically accomplished pieces thus far. Already half way through the work set to debut at Bloodstock 2018, he reflects on the past, present, and future of the gallery.

Q. You’ve talked in the past about how the RAM gallery work has forced you to up your game as a luthier. Presumably that has also been the case with your creations for 2018?

“When I first started out building guitars they were simplistic. They did incorporate different elements of technology like LEDs and other gadgets which separated them from regular guitars. There were steampunk aspects and other weird intricacies. But I remember when

Paul [Raymond Gregory] had this idea for me to create a guitar that would represent the RAM gallery – essentially a human skull with ram’s horns – I had no idea how to create that. But at first it was just about designing it to make it as interesting but at the same time as specific and visually encapsulating as possible. It took me several weeks to figure out how to create it because for a start I didn’t even have the tools to make it. I had to work around that and come up with different techniques and methods. It’s a learning curve each and every time.”

Q. Your work reminds us that art isn’t just something that hangs in a frame, and also that when one places objects which people take for granted within a gallery context, it literally and figuratively sheds new light on them.

“I definitely think that when you bring all these elements together, whether it’s my guitars and paintings or books, you see them very much in relation to each other, dichotomised with the music itself, or in my case, functionality as an instrument. Having it all in this context makes you realise how symbiotic everything is together, but also allows you to see the individuality. It highlights different things in my work. I’ve sold guitars before, but as instruments as opposed to an art piece. But that is my whole platform of creating guitars – they are dichotomies of instruments and art. So the RAM gallery really allows us to appreciate the artistry behind all this, for sure.”

Q. The professional gallery context also emphasises that, as much as heavy metal – often over-the-top and hyper-real – has a sense of humour and irony and doesn’t take itself too seriously, it is not a joke.

“There are over-the-top elements and fantastical elements in my work but sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the piece, not just for what it is, but what it represents and the concept behind it. Creating them actually allows me to proceed with life. My everyday stress and frustration goes into the wood. They have a very specific purpose. Ultimately, when you see people’s faces light up when they look at that instrument or that artwork, it makes it all worthwhile. And yes, it emphasises the artistry in this genre.”

Q. Is it too big a statement to say that getting the RAM gallery gig has changed your life?

“Ha ha! For sure. I think without it I’d still be creating guitars. However, it’s allowed me to connect with so many different people on so many levels, both professionally and personally, and follow a new path in life within the work itself. I’ve become a lot more extreme in terms of the designs, and the contemplation of the concepts behind albums or whatever which help inspire these creations. For me in that sense it’s definitely life changing. Bloodstock is all about community, and it really does bring all these different people together. I can go to a guitar festival but my work is then brought back to the idea that it’s just a guitar. Whereas what I think Paul’s trying to do is bring all these different artists together and present it in such a way that the work is more that what it first appears as just a book or just paint on a canvas. It’s something that can change your life. When you look at a painting, say Rembrandt, it’s a painting, but it’s beyond that. It can create a new way of thinking and the same can be said of books or guitars, which can help unleash emotions and new ideas into the world.”

Q. In general, the feedback about the gallery has been extremely positive right across the board. How have your conversations with fellow exhibitors been?

“The feedback I’ve gotten from all the exhibitors has been that it’s such a very momentous occasion to be asked to showcase their work in one place amongst other like-minded artists. It’s extremely important that we’re able to meet like-minded people whose work may be different but that still represents heavy metal and rock music in a certain light, a very professional light. My experiences with the other artists have always been interesting in that they talk about community a lot. More than just having your work displayed, it’s about connecting with people.”

Q. Paul Raymond Gregory has once again commissioned bespoke instruments from you. As always, everything is kept under wraps until the gallery opens, but can you give us any hints about what you’re currently working on?

“I have a total of four commissions for Paul. I’m at probably the most exciting time, the stage where the necks and bodies have been created and it’s just the fine details now, like the inlays and electronics. One of the guitars is directly inspired by an album of a particular band, representing the concept and the visual imagery. I’m also inspired by some of the lyrics, and the more you look at it, the more you’ll see that. It also focusses on the specifications of one of the guitarist’s personal guitars.”

Q. You seem to feel that with each passing year the gallery takes a step closer to realising its ambition of a permanent stand-alone presence.

“The RAM gallery is very unique in itself. I don’t think there’s anything like it at all. As far as I know, Bloodstock started as a conversation among a group of friends in a pub around the idea that there was a lack of a certain kind of metal festival in the UK, so why not create that? Fast forward a few years and look at the progress. So I don’t see any reason to hold back. It’s thinking individually and creatively that creates new things. So much thought has already gone into the gallery, so I don’t think there’s any limit to what could be exhibited in there as long as it all links to rock and metal. There aren’t any other parameters. My job is just a very small part of the overall thing, but I’m very happy to be part of it.”

www.cynosureguitars.com

18th August 2018
Paul Raymond Gregory 2018

RAM Gallery and Bloodstock Festival founder Paul Raymond Gregory discusses plans for this year’s exhibition.

Q. One aspect of the gallery this year which will be a little different from previous years is that you won’t have any of your own huge monolithic Tolkien pieces on display.

“With the Priest Wall being a specific size it meant that one wall was taken up and we had to work the gallery out differently this year. But the Bloodstock artwork wall – what I call the ‘history wall’ – that’s now extended beyond one wall. So what I thought I’d do with that is add the artwork for 2017 to another wall with Cynosure’s ‘Infernus’ guitar next to that and then go along with guitars – there are twelve this year – with images in between. Although because of the Priest Wall and having all the guitars means that I don’t have any large pieces this year, I will have some work there including a Molly Hatchet image which will go in between Cynosure’s Molly Hatchet guitars. I might bring back a painting I did of Lemmy to sit between the Motörhead guitars. The problem I have now is that I have so many pieces of artwork and I haven’t decided exactly what I’m taking. The space just isn’t big enough. I’ll be bringing back the Saxon ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ painting – that’ll be between the Saxon guitars – and I’ll have prints available of that this year, as well as prints of Molly Hatchet’s ‘Devil’s Canyon’ which was the first album cover I did for them. There’s also a new Molly Hatchet painting. It’s a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the band’s first album and it’ll be available as a limited edition print.”

Q. Each year you create a unique piece of artwork for Bloodstock. What was the inspiration behind the piece for 2018?

“The inspiration for this year was Judas Priest. If you look at the background and the church and the more gothic aura to it. When I have an idea for a painting it doesn’t always have to be definitive. It’s a bit like lyrics in a song – what people interpret isn’t necessarily a fact but it is for them, and it’s the same with the artwork. For quite a while now I’ve done something that works in relation to the headliner. But obviously when you’re using something that is a logo – which is effectively what it is now and Stan is pretty much the same year on year – it’s the background and the circle which makes the difference. I may go back to doing something different but at the minute it’s a branding thing.”

Q. You commissioned six guitars from Cynosure this year – two Judas Priest guitars, two Molly Hatchet guitars, and one each from Bloodstock 2018 headliners Gojira and Nightwish. What were your first impressions of the finished pieces?

“I’ve only seen the Priest guitars. I was absolutely blown away. I saw some sketches beforehand but it’s totally different when you see something three dimensional. When you see the real thing and how he creates them, it’s just brilliant. The management, the record label and everybody that’s seen them has been blown away. It’s the same thing that happened with his Motorhead guitars. The other 2018 guitars are on their way but I won’t see them till we get them for the gallery and open the cases! But Oliver [Cynosure] actually took the Molly Hatchet guitars to the studio with the band and they thought they looked great. As an artist I have done things like illustrations for books and at one point decided to pull away from that because I became rather bored with dealing with people who had no idea what they were talking about in relation to the book. I forget which book it was, but I was doing illustrations and sent some of them over but they said ‘Can you do this? Can you do that?’ and I said ‘Have you actually read the book?’ They said ‘no’ so I said ‘Then why are you telling me what to do?’ What I tend to do illustration wise is what the book’s about. So when I commissioned Oliver to do the guitars, I gave him free reign. They’re not my creation, they’re his, and I think that’s the best way forward. It enables him to create something that inspires him and that’s worked really well. I’m a great believer in trying to provide a platform for other people – it happened for me when I was a kid with a teacher who was very passionate about art – and it inspires you, and it’s very much like we do with bands and Metal 2 The Masses with Bloodstock.”

Q. The line-up for the gallery this year is once again quite diverse with some new names in there too.

“Well, Krusher’s designs I think are brilliant and I really like him as an individual. He’s a bright lad and very passionate. I think his design for [Black Sabbath’s] ‘Born Again’ is brilliant, I love it. It’s a great image. It worked really well and I think it surprised him. It’s a bit like Mario Duplantier’s stuff in a way – you look at it and think ‘I really like that but I have no idea why!’ It’s primitive in a way but it really works. We have very different styles on display and I think it’s good to have that difference. Ester [Segarra] really deserves space because I think her work is brilliant. I have a camera but I have no idea what to do with it ha ha! Working these things out is a work of art itself. It’s good to have these different disciplines in there and photography is a major part of the music industry. For me it’s about artists being creative for themselves. Like I said earlier – them creating something, not me telling them what to do. I’m giving people the space to actually exhibit their work and for the fans to look at it and I think they’ll be blown away.”

Q. Your own work, particularly the large Tolkien pieces, is very rarely seen in public, but there are plans for a possible exhibition in Japan next year.

“The problem with most of the work is that it’s so huge. It can only be shown in museums and 2007 was the last major exhibition. A few pieces are shown here and there but to have a major exhibition it’s costly to get them shipped and insured and curated. But the people who are doing this in Japan are passionate about the work and about Tolkien and are working towards a March 2019 schedule. If it happens it will be the biggest one to date. It would be great to have all that work together.”

www.studio54.co.uk

6th August 2018
GREG INTERVIEWS MARK WILKINSON

Mark Wilkinson has been working as a freelance illustrator for over thirty years. Most of his current work is in the realm of fantasy, and he has seen his illustrations used in a wide variety of formats, from book jackets, magazines, record sleeves, and posters to stamp designs, advertising, and film merchandise. His big break in the music industry came when he was commissioned to create cover artwork for Marillion’s 1983 debut album ‘Script for a Jester’s Tear’ which was an overnight success. Mark went on to design the covers for the band’s next three albums which were also very successful and this opened up a career which has included work for Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, The Darkness ande many others. Mark has also created a string of album sleeves for Bloodstock 2018 headliners Judas Priest and curated a special section of this year’s RAM Gallery devoted to Priest.

Q. How did come to work with Judas Priest in the first place?

“Jayne Andrews their manager saw the posters for the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington which I used to do every year and contacted me via the festival promoter. I went to the management offices and met with Jayne. She’d spoken to the band and shown them my work and they really loved the Monsters of Rock stuff in particular. That was probably the only stuff I’d really done with metal subject matter, although a few years earlier I did a heavy metal compilation album called ‘Hot Shower’. It’s bloody awful! Basically they wanted a guitarist in an asbestos suit in a shower and instead of water coming out of the nozzle there were flames ha ha! It’s pure Spinal Tap. On the other side was just the shower head so presumably the guitarist had expired. The first one I did for Priest was ‘Ram It Down’ in 1988. There was an idea to have a metal fist striking an anvil but in the end we kept the fist and got rid of the anvil.”

Q. Were you already aware of some of the artists and artwork Priest had used on past releases?

“Oh yeah, yeah. ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ is one of my favourite album covers of all time. It’s a lovely piece and it was really one of those signature pieces that made me want to get into doing artwork for album covers. I actually got to meet the artist Patrick Woodroffe a few years ago although sadly he died in 2014. We were taking part in an exhibition in Denmark, so that was a real thrill to meet him. I also loved the Doug Johnson ones. ‘Screaming For Vengeance’ was classic. He worked in a very stylised way with flat colour. I couldn’t do that so if I was to work for the band I decided to hark back to the worship I had for ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’.”

Q. After ‘Ram It Down’ your next album cover for Priest was 1990’s ‘Painkiller’ which is widely regarded as one of their best. The artwork really captures the sheer energy and exuberance of the music.

“I love that album, it’s fantastic. I remember reading reviews at the time saying that if only punk music had half the energy of this album. It was getting incredible reviews everywhere so that was a real thrill. There’s an element of bringing the Angel character back from ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ but changing it in some way. Updating him as maybe a metal character, a cyborg character. There was talk it would maybe be a guy on a motorbike with the metallic angel behind him but I couldn’t make that work. So it was the Angel actually riding the bike. At the time my studio was above a hardware store and I had to walk through the store to get to the stairs to go up to my studio. I just happened to see these circular saw blades hanging up. I was just stood staring at them and the guy I knew in the shop said ‘Are you gonna buy one of those?’ and I said ‘No, but can I borrow one for reference? I’ve got an idea!’ So I took it upstairs and did some drawings and the idea to make the bike wheels as saw blades came out. It just worked. The idea was to develop a character that could carry on forwards and link up throughout the next few albums. I later came back to the idea with ‘Angel of Retribution’ and that carried the character a littler bit further. The idea with ‘Angel of Retribution’ was to have it quite simple – no explosions or anything like that and think ‘Angel of the North’. I don’t know why but that cropped up in one of the conversations. Something very iconic and simpler with a very plain background. One of the drawings I did actually had the Angel in a volcanic environment with lots of fire spitting, but we’d kind of done that before so we decided to keep it simple as the Angel was such a strong figure.”

Q. Your work for 2008’s ‘Nostradamus’ was quite different from anything you’d created for Priest up to that point.

“I worked on that one in tandem with The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There was always a plan to have the Four Horsemen but I don’t think that was a cover particularly. So they asked to keep working on that concept but also on a portrait of Nostradamus but make it more dynamic in some way. Because that album was a real departure – a metal opera if you will – we also didn’t use the Priest logo.”

Q. 2014’s ‘Redeemer of Souls’ was definitely much more in the traditional style.

“The ideas around that were let’s keep the Angel in some way and find a different way of approaching it. Maybe a Mad Max vibe. That was pretty much the brief that I had. I found that a little difficult to envisage and I always think of Mad Max as the costume and a long, tattered Clint Eastwood-style coat. Then I had to imagine what the body of this cyborg character would look like. It couldn’t be the same as anything I’d done before so I took almost like an organic approach to the metal. In the end I really enjoyed doing that one.”

Q. You were asked to come up with concepts for the band’s latest album ‘Firepower’, but the job of actually creating the cover ended up going to Claudio Bergamin. However, your work can be seen all over the rest of the packaging.

“I did everything on it apart from the front cover. I did the back cover with the emblem on fire which Rob [Halford] really liked. He said it reminded him of Excalibur, like a sword. That was just one of many ideas floating around from the band. They weren’t absolutely sure what they wanted and it sort of changed and developed. I put in three or four different proposals for the cover but they didn’t really feel it was quite right. I think Richie [Faulkner] knew Claudio and just asked him to come up with some ideas and he came up with a rough version of what you see as the final album cover. They sent it to me and said ‘What do you think?’ and I said ‘That’s it! It’s brilliant. Use that.’ I think they were quite surprised that I would say that ha ha! But I’d reached a point where I was a bit stuck for ideas and when I saw that I thought it just works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Q. In some ways ‘Firepower’ is like a blend of your style for Priest and that of Doug Johnson who did ‘Defenders of the Faith’, ‘Turbo’ and, as you mentioned, ‘Screaming For Vengeance’.

“It is quite stylised and I love the way it has the logo at that same angle. It’s a perfect representation of what they were after. They were talking about having some sort of metallic creature but forget the wings, we’re not going for wings this time. They weren’t worried about developing that character any more. They just wanted some machine, some huge metallic monster with all guns blazing.”

Q. You were tasked with designing a ‘Priest Wall’ in the RAM Gallery for Bloodstock this year. Tell us about that.

“When the news broke that they’d managed to get Priest to headline Bloodstock, Paul [Gregory] rang me up and said that he had commissioned not one but two Priest guitars and what he would like to do is devote one side of the gallery to the history of Priest, with the guitars either centrally or either side of the artwork. When you go back in time and see how many albums they’ve done, it was gonna make them quite small if we tried to get them all in. So, it’s a selection and some are slightly larger than others. There’s emphasis on the real signature albums like ‘British Steel’ and ‘Painkiller’ and obviously the new one ‘Firepower’. I think it’s going to be a really impressive display especially with the guitars which from what I’ve seen look incredible. [Guitar builder] Cynosure got the saw blade in there which I was really pleased with ha ha!”

www.the-masque.com

5th August 2018
Greg Interviews Steve ‘Krusher’ Joule (2018)

Steve ‘Krusher’ Joule is a rock legend. Former art director for Kerrang!, creator of many iconic album cover designs, TV and radio presenter, author, photographer, DJ and MC – most famously for Ozzfest – his life has been one of rock’n’roll excess and overdrive. His Ozzfest appearances aside, Krusher is perhaps best known for his notorious cover for Black Sabbath’s 1983 album ‘Born Again’. Amongst other things, 2018 marks his debut as an exhibitor at the RAM Gallery, showing a selection of some of his best-known work.

Q. Was your drive to create album covers born of your own appreciation of them?

“Yes. I always loved the twelve-inch album cover and the gatefold sleeve especially. It was just part and parcel. I mean, I’m 65 next year and I remember when you bought an album you got it home, you put it on the record player, and you’d sit there and stare at the cover. Back then they didn’t have inner sleeves with the lyrics printed on, they had inner sleeves advertising other albums that were on that record label. It was a whole world investigating the cover and what’s inside the cover.”

Q. Did you ever decide to buy an album based solely on the sleeve?

“Absolutely! I knew it was going to be great anyway but one of the first I did that with was Jimi Hendrix and ‘Electric Ladyland’ which had the cover he actually hated with all the nudes on it. It was a double album so it was a gatefold sleeve. It had loads of naked ladies on it so I bought that because I was a young, impressionable teenager!”

Q. What makes a great album cover?

“That’s a very good question! Obviously it’s got to be arresting. Back in the day you would flick through the racks in a record shop and if you saw something that made you actually stop and investigate a little bit more then the album cover has done half of its job. The cover is there very much as a selling point for the album.”

Q. Of all the album coversand other artwork you’ve created over the years, what’s your favourite?

“I guess it would be Ozzy’s ‘Diary of a Madman’. I’m very proud of that because it was my first big step up. I’d done some covers for compilation albums and a cover for Hawkwind, but Ozzy was like taking a step up the ladder and Fin Costello, the photographer, interpreted my ideas very well. And then you have the inner sleeve with hand-written lyrics and the ‘satanic scribble’ which was just a scribble. There was nothing satanic about it at all although some idiot in America decided that it was the hand of Satan. I also did ‘Speak of the Devil’ for Ozzy and that was a monster. I don’t know why but I decided that I was going to hand-letter absolutely everything. I’ve still got all the original hand lettering and it’s like ‘How the fuck did I actually manage to do this?’ It was all done on a much larger scale than the actual album sleeve and on probably 30 or 40 different pieces of paper. I must have been quite together at the time in order to get all that done! Because at the time, life was pretty crazy for me, it really was.”

Q. Tell us a bit about the work you’ll be showing at the RAM Gallery this year.

“First of all, there’ll be the ‘Born Again’ print with the lettering taken off it. I’ve also actually made some minor changes to it, some little bits and pieces on it that I wasn’t really that happy with, and I’ve made the colours a little more vibrant as well. Then there’s the ‘Happy Samhain’ design which is adapted from the back cover of ‘Born Again’. Those two will be on sale. I’m showing my hand lettering for ‘Diary of a Madman’ and ‘Speak of the Devil’ plus the circle that went of the back of ‘Speak of the Devil’ around the live picture which has some runes and more satanic scribble. I’ve got the original bat for ‘Speak of the Devil’ which was quite small but you’ll see it quite large as there’s actually quite a lot of detail. And, nothing to do with my artwork, but somehow I managed to have Lemmy’s original lyrics from ‘All the Aces’ from ‘Bomber’. I designed Motörhead’s ‘Bomber’ tour programme and if I remember rightly Doug Smith their manager gave me the lyrics and asked me to try and incorporate them into the design. When I showed the final design to Doug I hadn’t incorporated them but he thought it was great and never asked for the lyrics back. I’d forgotten about them but I found them about ten years ago when I was rummaging through some stuff.”

Q. Did you ever have a chance to show the lyrics to Lemmy?

“No, I didn’t. Every time I saw Lemmy I never remembered that I had it! Me and Lemmy always had more interesting things to discuss. I do remember though talking to Lemmy about writing lyrics and asking him how he went about it. He said ‘I come up with a title, we do the music in the studio, and when it comes to the final crunch I take a load of speed and write lyrics on the spot.’ That’s exactly what you can see on those lyrics. Even though they were written very shortly before he recorded them, he did change the final version before it came to singing them. I can’t think of any exhibition where Lemmy’s hand-written lyrics have been shown.”

Q. You’ve been coming to Bloodstock for many years and have MC’d many times. As an artist, what were your impressions of the RAM Gallery?

“I was incredibly impressed by it. I thought it was a brilliant idea and a very brave idea. When I first heard about it I had no idea exactly what it would be like, how it would look. Considering it’s based in a marquee, Paul has done an incredible thing. It’s always worth a visit and it’s something different. Very different for a festival to have a gallery. And Paul’s artwork is quite astounding to behold, from actual album artwork to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ pieces. I just stand back in awe. People think I’m an artist but when it comes down to it Paul is hands down the master.”

www.krusher.co.uk

5th August 2018
Greg Interviews Paul Harries (2018)

Paul Harries is a renowned British photographer best known for his work with rock and metal bands. Over the course of more than two decades, he has amassed a portfolio to rival the best snappers in the business. He has risen to become leading lensman for Kerrang! magazine and shot luminaries such as Nirvana, Green Day, Metallica, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, and Slipknot. Paul made his RAM Gallery debut in 2017 and a selection of his work will once again form part of this year’s exhibition.

Q. It’s been a year since your inaugural appearance at the RAM Gallery – what’s been new for you during the last twelve months?

“The major change in the last year is that I’ve started working for Music Week magazine which has put me in front of a lot of artists that I wouldn’t normally shoot, like Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, [rapper] Tinie Tempah, and [The Smiths guitarist] Johnny Marr, people completely outside the rock genre. Very different from working at Kerrang!. Michael Ball and Alfie Boe were probably more rock’n’roll than anyone I’ve worked with in the rock’n’roll business ha ha! It’s been pretty interesting but how interesting to a Bloodstock audience, I don’t know!”

Q. Any highlights within the rock and metal field?

“I shot Metallica last year for a magazine cover and one of those will be in the exhibition this year. It’s always cool working face to face with Metallica.”

Q. What were your impressions of last year’s exhibition?

“I was on holiday last year but I got sent some photos and it looked really impressive. It looked like it was in a proper gallery rather than at a festival site. It looked really amazing.”

Q. What work will you be showing this year?

“Well, I had six pictures up last year and I’ll have nine this year. There’s a couple of pictures of Slipknot – one of Corey Taylor from 2012, which is quite nice, looking quite creepy in his red boiler suit and the mask he had at the time. Then there’s one of Chris Fehn and Kerry King together. It’s quite a funny shot of Kerry shouting at Chris. There’s a picture of Rob Zombie which I took in 2011, I think, and that was backstage at Brixton Academy and he had on a big Union Jack coat that he had made for the British shows. It was just taken in a dressing room but my friend Steve Horsfall, who’s a digital artist, has put that shot into an environment where it’s sort of overlooking London. There’s a very atmospheric sky in the background and you can see the London Eye and the river. That’s a bit of a collaboration and I do quite a lot of work with Steve, but I just thought this particular shot would be good for Bloodstock.”

Q. Have you shot any of this year’s Bloodstock headliners?

“I’ve shot all of them! I first shot Gojira when they first came over to the UK way back and I’ve shot them quite a few times since. There’s actually a picture of Gojira I took in this year’s exhibition. I’ve also shot Nightwish quite a few times. I’ve shot them back when Tarja was in the band – 2005 I suppose was the first time – and obviously they’ve been through a few singers since then. I also shot them recently in Tallinn in Estonia. I’d never been there before so we went out to see them live and shoot the new show, which is amazing. Lots of fire, which was cool. And I did some portraits of them as well. As for Priest, Rob [Halford] is a really, really lovely guy, really easy to work with. I’ve done a few shoots with Rob on his own, I’ve shot Priest live quite a few times as well, and there’s a live shot of them in the exhibition.”

Q. You and one of your fellow exhibitors for 2018 – Stephen ‘Krusher’ Joule – go back a long way I believe.

“Yeah, I used to work with Krusher when he was at Kerrang!. He used to call me ‘dream boy’ ha ha! He had a packet of ‘love heart’ sweets. He gave me one and said ‘Let’s see what it says!’ and it said ‘dream boy’ and he’s called me that ever since! Even if I contact him now I’ll always say it’s dream boy.”

www.paulharries.com

5th August 2018