FUN Artists: Can you introduce yourself?

Jimmy Fontaine: Jimmy Fontaine, I live here in New York, and I’ve been here about five years. I’m originally from San Diego, and I lived in Portland, Oregon for about three years ‘cause I was shooting snowboarding, and then I came out here and have been shooting photos the last few years.

FUN Artists: How did you first get involved with photography?

Jimmy Fontaine: When I was in high school we had a journalism program, not a photo program, but we had a couple cameras to use and I kinda took the class just to—I had friends who were involved in skating, snowboarding and BMX at the time, so we could just rent the cameras at our leisure and I would take them out and shoot friends. You know, we’d get to publish them in the school paper which felt good at the time and it kind of went from there; it was just a total hobby at first.

From there I started working at a skate shop for about seven years, so I was just surrounded by really talented athletes – snowboarders and skateboarders. Started shooting them all the time, then it started to click that this might be something I want to do; I’m shooting film because there wasn’t really digital at the time, so I started to get a little bit better and kind of have a technique that came about. It just kind of went from there. But for the first few years shooting I was just strictly doing snowboarding and skating. I shot music and live bands just for personal stuff. But yeah, until I moved to New York I wasn’t really making a profession out of it; I mean I was getting stuff published here and there, but not enough to make a living or anything.

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FUN Artists: How long have you been living in New York?

Jimmy Fontaine: About five years. I was in Brooklyn for a year and I’ve been in Manhattan for a little less than four.

FUN Artists: Did you skate at the time too?

Jimmy Fontaine: It was actually snowboarding. I never got into skating as much, which is weird because I worked at skate shop for so long, but I’ve been snowboarding for like 13 years; started when I was like in eighth grade. I think another reason I started shooting was that I just never progressed to the level that my friends were at so I definitely wasn’t going to make any money off the athletic side of it. So just shooting and being around such talented people, I just started getting access to great writers and being able to go to great locations. I stuck with that for a long time, then I got hurt, so I wasn’t able to do the things I needed to do: get into terrain that I needed to get in, and kind of a lot of things happened that forced me out of it. It’s probably a good thing because it’s such a narrow window that people can get into to make money on an industry. It’s hard to do portraiture and fashion, but there’s a lot more opportunity just because it’s such a larger market.

FUN Artists: What kind of photographer do you consider yourself, professionally?

Jimmy Fontaine: At this point, I guess I’m still a portrait photographer—I mean a lot of my work is portraiture, but in the last few years my fashion books have gotten a lot stronger and a lot of the jobs I’ve been getting lately are fashion work. Ideally, at some point I’d like to say firmly, like, “I’m a fashion photographer, this is what I’m gonna get hired for, this is what I want to be known as,” but I guess I can’t really label myself until I get that one certain niche.

FUN Artists: Do you do landscape as well as portraiture?

Jimmy Fontaine: No, not really. I mean, I get hired a lot to do bands, actors, personalities, stuff like that. A lot of my work is shot very … shot like a documentary. Style; I think that just comes from shooting skateboarding and snowboarding and just being very spontaneous with the way I shoot. So that, coming from the kind of youth culture of skating and snowboarding really transferred over to portraiture. My setups and the way I shoot isn’t very structured at all; it’s very loose, almost like documenting a few hours of a person’s life – very casual, very spur of the moment.

FUN Artists: Why do you think you want to photograph people more than nature, or detailed shots of things, or…?

Jimmy Fontaine: It got to a point where I’m comfortable with what I do and so I’m able to get a lot of emotion out of people. It’s just so much more interesting. Especially when you really connect with the person you’re shooting with. I mean obviously sometimes it doesn’t work – sometimes you shoot someone and it’s like pulling teeth. Other times, I think just people in general – their personalities – once you get it out of them… I mean don’t get me wrong, there’s something really great about landscape or architectural photography, it’s just not the way I grew up and my background – it doesn’t really fit for me. I just don’t have an interest or passion for it.

FUN Artists: How does New York inspire you?

Jimmy Fontaine: It inspires me because there are just so many good people out here, so many talented people and it kind of forces me to try to stay ontop of my game, to always be – not learning something knew – but finessing what I already know how to do, to work harder, to be better at it, just to kind of not fall behind. Also financially too, in order to get by you have to work really hard and through working hard you become better at your skills. And there’s so much stimulation out here; everywhere you go there are interesting people, there are interesting places to go. I mean through the people you get to work with and shoot you’re always meeting people who are doing great things – cool things – and that inspires you to be better at what you do. It’s kind of endless. I mean you walk out the door and there’s something that makes you think. All the other places I’ve lived too, there’s obviously great things going on, like when I was in Portland, there are so many talented people there, but it’s such a slow pace of life. It’s really easy to get comfortable and kind of plateau, and that’s fine but it’s just … I get, when I’m slow or when I’m not working, I get into a rut. I get really, not depressed, but just like the feeling of laziness and not doing anything really wears me flat. Being here it’s hard to feel like that because there’s always so much going on, and even if you’re not doing anything it forces you to want to do something because you see all the other things people are doing. It’s hard to let yourself get comfortable here.

FUN Artists: What have been some of the biggest obstacles for you career wise?

Jimmy Fontaine: Definitely not going to school has had its disadvantages on the business side of things. I mean you can teach yourself a creative talent through trial and error, but it’s a lot harder to teach yourself the business aspect of anything if you don’t have formal training in it. So definitely, like when I first started working: doing editorials, getting odd jobs, that was a huge obstacle. I mean I knew I could take the photographs, but like everything leading up to it was—I didn’t really know how to handle myself as a business. So that was big to get through. And you can learn that through trial and error eventually, but it’s a lot harder when it involves money because you miss out on things and you want to come across professional on every level, and then you have to learn from your mistakes that way; it becomes tough.

FUN Artists: Who would you love to photograph?

Jimmy Fontaine: Well obviously you have your favorite bands. I’d love to photograph Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs just because I’ve loved his music for so long. Not only would I love to sit down and talk to him about things, but to be able to photograph someone I’ve admired for so long. There are so many people, sometimes you get to photograph someone that you never would have thought twice about and then they end up being one of your favorites.

Growing up, there are all the bands that I listened to and still admire and enjoy listening to to this day – I’d really like to photograph some of them. The Afghan Whigs for sure. And, being from Southern California and growing up in the pop-punk skate scene, bands like Blink-182 – and I know it’s kind of silly – but they were just so relevant in my life back then. For nostalgic purposes I think it’d be great to shoot bands like that.

FUN Artists: Do you think that you get excited to photograph people in terms of like the physical structure of their face, or are you trying to bring out certain features — or maybe it depends if it’s a model or a personality”

Jimmy Fontaine: I think visually my work has definitely developed a style at this point and I think a lot of the reason why I’m working more towards fashion now is because you can kind of have more control over the overall image, like what the person’s wearing, what the person looks like, the theme of the shoot, the overall structure of everything. You can try to a certain extent to make that happen when shooting a person, but in the end they are going to have their look and their image that they are going to want to stick with, to a point. If you connect with someone you can kind of get them to work with you on how you want the image to look and to a certain extent they’ll work with you, but sometimes you just get what you get.

FUN Artists: Do you want to photograph just random people in the street or do you just do stuff for work now?

Jimmy Fontaine: Not really. For a long time whenever I went out I brought a little point and shoot camera with me. I feel like I have so much of that now. For personal purposes it’s great to have, great to look back on – to have, to have this documentary and repertoire of your life and your friends. Not that I’m tired of it, but I’ve just done so much of that. I’m pretty focused on the hired out work; every now and then I’ll come up with a personal project that I want to work on that I can be excited about. But for the most part it’s just commission work that I focus on now.

FUN Artists: What do you think about the digital vs. film debate? Do you even care?

Jimmy Fontaine: Yeah I care because it definitely affects me at this point; growing up I learned entirely on film. Not going to school, I was literally just buying different types of film; I didn’t have a light meter – I was just kind of learning as I went: writing down exposures, getting film back that was completely useless, having to figure of what I did wrong with that roll. It was expensive. I mean it wasn’t like I could take a million photos and put them on my computer and adjust exposure; I didn’t even have a computer that I could even put photos on ‘til I was like 22. So I had just books of slides and negatives…

I didn’t really know what I was doing, just shooting, shooting, shooting, sometimes stuff would come out great, other times it was just complete garbage. And so now with digital, and I mean I think it’s great because everybody should be able to take photographs of what they love, but professionally you have a lot of people now who have the means and finances to go out and buy a great camera set up, people who shoot whatever they want and are able to fix their mistakes immediately. Part of me, I get a little – not upset –  but a little bit of a snob about it because I feel I had to learn the hard way, but at the same time a lot of people did, and it doesn’t make me any different.

Shooting film, the way film looks, is a part of my aesthetic. Because I shoot film my images look a certain way. Obviously for certain jobs you have to shoot digital; I mean it’s just the way it is now. The turn over needs to be faster, budgets are a lot less than they used to be, you just kind of have to adapt to it. There are ways to make it look the way you want it to look, but I’ll keep shooting film ‘til they stop making it, even if it’s on a personal level. Same with Polaroid, it was such a shame when they went out of business, but there are still companies that manufacture types of Polaroid like Fuji, and there’s a group called the Impossible Project that’s taken hold of Polaroid factories and they’re manufacturing something similar. I mean it’s really hard for me to let go of that completely, and even if I’m shooting digital on some jobs I’ll still have film for me or for backup. It’s something I just won’t let go of completely.

FUN Artists: Where do you see photography heading?

Jimmy Fontaine: It kind of goes back to digital; now with a lot of these new cameras you can do HD video on them. And then with Red camera you’re able to literally film your entire sitting with a subject and pull stills off of this video, and it looks amazing. And the things people are doing with graphic design, the things you can do in Post and PhotoShop and Illustrator and all that stuff; it’s kind of taking it to a much more graphic level than it once was. But I still think there’s always going to be a place for traditional photography – a traditional way of capturing images. And I don’t think it’s bad – all these things happening – I mean it’s inevitable, there’s always going to be progress, but it depends on how you use it. As long as you keep your aesthetic similar to your own, I don’t think the process really matters in the end.

FUN Artists: What do you do in the city besides working and taking photos?

Jimmy Fontaine: I don’t do much. Its weird, people are always like, “Well, what do you mean there’s not a whole lot to do in New York?” Coming from California and Portland where I could get in my car and I could go to the mountains in an hour, and I was never real big on the beach but you could go to the beach in an hour too, it was kind of an adjustment. I mean you could do all these things outdoors; you could just get in your car and just drive. I kind of had a physical sense of a lot more freedom, and here, outside of working, you’re kind of landlocked. There are great places to eat, great places to drink, great places to shop, but when you’re here 365 days a year, you’re not shopping all the time, not going out to nice dinners all the time. Some people can do it, but I can’t drink every night; I’m much more of a homebody more now than ever. When I’m home I try to work on things whether it’s images or updating a website or blog. I drink a lot of coffee. I have my route; I walk around, go to the dog park, spend time with my girlfriend, you know, stuff old men do.

FUN Artists: How old are you?

Jimmy Fontaine: I’m almost 30.

FUN Artists: When I was looking at your photos there are tons of black and white images, and if you do color it’s pretty muted.

Jimmy Fontaine: Yeah, I like black and white. A lot of my inspiration comes from old films. I’m a huge fan of Audrey Hepburn, French new wave – that’s pretty generic to say, but I mean the way Godard shot his films, it was very … a lot of black and white. I feel like in a lot of my photos there’s a cinematic aspect to it; they’re not very structured, they’re very loose. A lot of the good moments in my favorite photos come from the in between moments; like it’s shooting, shooting, shooting and then getting that moment when the person is looking down or lighting a cigarette. The best shots usually aren’t the ones where I’m giving direction. I feel like that gives a cinematic feel – it’s always like the camera is rolling all the time and you get those really special intimate moments. And I think black and white really conveys that a lot stronger than color. I think it just ended up complimenting my style a little bit. It gets across – [laughs] I sound like an artist – it gets across better what I’m trying to say when I shoot black and white.

FUN Artists: Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you want to keep doing what your doing?

Jimmy Fontaine: Yeah, hopefully in five years I’m still doing this ‘cause I really don’t know – I kind of put all my eggs in one basket. So if this doesn’t work I really don’t know what I’m going to do. But I think when you work so long at something, it could be ten years, but it will eventually pay off as long as you keep adapting and progressing and working hard at it. But yeah, I don’t see myself doing anything else. I see myself in New York for a long time.

FUN Artists: Why is working with FUN Artists important?

Jimmy Fontaine: I think it’s very important for a few reasons. I think progressing with friends is really important; I think being loyal to people that supported you when you weren’t doing as much, I think that’s a really important thing. You know working with Chris [Chris Nunez, owner of FUN Artists] when they first started the company, it was years ago and neither of us were—we were both kind of trying to figure what we were gonna do and we were both really scraping by. I think when you progress with friends, and you keep in touch with people that are doing creative things nothing  but good can come out of it. And they are doing really well, and they’ve been really great about putting my work out there. It’s also great to see your peers doing things and succeeding at what they want to do – seeing things starting from the ground up.

FUN Artists: Do you feel you have more to master in your craft?

Jimmy Fontaine: Oh definitely. I mean I’m pretty stable with my technique, but there are always new things to learn. There are always new ways to apply it. Especially shooting fashion; I mean concepts and working with different stylists and really creating—the thing about fashion is you’re not just taking a photograph; you’re working with a team of people to really create this illusion, this fantasy, so people look at it and it takes them to a different place. You can always better at that, whether it’s the clothes you’re shooting, the way you shoot the model, location, the hair, the make-up, concept—there’s always somewhere up to go. It’s really just time. As long as you keep working and you don’t really let up, you stay on top.

FUN Artists: An introduction perhaps?

Gavin McInnes: Hello, my name is Gavin McInnes; I live in Brooklyn, and I recently completed a very serious book called Street Boners: 1,764 Hipster Fashion Jokes. I started Street Carnage with my friend Derrick Beckles. I do these fashion things – these little joke things where we take a picture of someone and talk about their attire, and that’s called Street Boners. My friend Derrick amalgamates hundreds of hours of bad T.V. and those compilations are called TV Carnage. So the name of the site is Street Boners and TV Carnage, but that’s a lone email address so we just call it Street carnage.

FUN Artists: Why do the book?

Gavin McInnes: I wanted to do it for the kids, and when I say the kids I mean all the orphans and starving children around the world. Because when you see these kids, especially in the third world, they’ll have flies crawling on their face, and that’s cause they’re fucking bored, and they haven’t had a laugh in God knows how long. And this was just a way for children: fatherless children, poor children, the under privileged around the world to just take a timeout from suffering and just have a laugh.

FUN Artists: Why are Street Boners so popular?

Gavin McInnes: Because they are hilarious; I think people like eye candy. Its like Fruits, that Japanese photo book – a bunch of these books – they don’t usually do hilarious quips, but this has got that eye candy factor and it sort of has this one line stand-up comedy thing. So it’s like Twitter meets Pretty Girls, but just funny.

FUN Artists: So tell let me hear the story of how Vice’s DOs & DON’Ts came about.

Gavin McInnes: You have to do fashion if you are doing a magazine, but were punks and we didn’t even know about that. So I’d put our advertisers on one page and say “That’s a ‘do,’ get that out of the way,” and I felt bad because that was like advertorial, so I’d have people dress ridiculous. The first one ever I said, “That’s a nice shirt but it makes you look like you have penis-tits” … Some shirts can do that even if your tits are great … I actually like droopers. But I remember she told me, this is Canadians too, “When I saw that I was mad.” Then her boyfriend calls me and he goes “I was upset,” and I’m like, “…Ah yeah”. In Canada that’s considered a big deal; “… I don’t think you know this, I was upset” – “I don’t care; that’s the point. It’s called a razz.” It’s like Nelson from The Simpsons said to Bart, “If nobody’s getting mad are you really being bad?” Nelson is surprisingly profound for a cartoon bully; he’s got a lot to say. So anyways, that’s how it started. Montreal is full of freaks. French-Canadians are spoiled and they wear court-jester hats to go to work, and they just love themselves. Imagine if a bunch of trailer park trash won the lottery – that’s Quebec. And then we came to New York where it’s a different but equally interesting story where people all act like they are going to die and, I was just saying to someone else earlier, it’s like in Israel where they max out their credit cards cause they think they might not live ‘til tomorrow. I feel like New Yorkers are just here for a blip so the women have nine-inch high stilettos and face paint on at eight in the morning. They don’t even do the walk of shame, they’re proud, and then they go out that day, to a day club. So that makes for some unique looks.

FUN Artists: How did you go about choosing the celebrities contributors for Street Boners?

Gavin McInnes: I would like to pretend that I just had a big book of famous people, A People magazine, and I just randomly chose them with post-it notes, but I just chose every famous person I could possibly get. I met Debbie Harry [Blondie] once. I don’t know her; she was totally out of left field, but the rest of the people I met or am acquainted with, and I just milked it and milked it. That’s a bummer when you know famous people because you want to call in favors but you don’t want to be ‘that guy.’ So my rule is, “I’ll get you in the book, but I’m not gonna nag you to help promote the book.” That’s when you go too far and when you start loosing friends. Or you keep nagging them for a forward or a review – that’s when you become a pain. But, you know, they got some publicity out of it; no, it was just a favor to me. So yeah, I just got the most famous people I could possibly get.

FUN Artists: There’s some pseudos out there trying to jock your style eh?

Gavin McInnes: Look At This Fucking Hipster, and all these books, like the puppy book, they’re just really ripping off my shit. And I used to not care, but I’m starting to care in my old age about that kind of thing. I just started a genre of comedy – I mean it’s a funny way to have a joke; it’s ironic that I’m not being funny as I describe it. I think Look At This Fucking Hipster is a very thin, sort of pamphlet compared to this book. Its been going on forever, I remember The Face was a magazine that tried to rip off the DOs & DON’Ts and it was so bad. I mean, I didn’t think these were so great that it was such a unique talent until I saw other people doing it. There was one, there was a guy with camouflage pants on and he had a cell phone, and they said [spoken with a British accent] “You cannot be an eco warrior and have a fucking cell phone, you might as well have a sandwich board around you that says ‘I am Insane.’” The Face went bankrupt soon after that. But yeah, Blender did them for a while, NME gave it a whirl. So people have been trying to rip this off since it began really, and I go back and forth, sometimes it makes me furious and sometimes I could give a shit. If any of these imitators makes more money than me or gets a bigger book deal then I am going to kill them. Cause it won’t be like a bullet wound; I’ll use razors and I’ll peal their face off, but they’ll be alive and screaming.

FUN Artists: What is good style?

Gavin McInnes: I don’t know. You should maybe smoke a joint and have a hot bath to think about it. I’ve been trying to find that magical answer for 15 years now. But basically I think it’s someone going out on a limb, taking a risk, being brave, respecting the classics, and not wearing Skechers but having Chuck’s, but maybe the Chuck’s are yellow and she’s wearing a dress with it, some sort of spin. It’s like music you know, you gotta know what the rules are before you break them. So to me I would give someone 10 kitties [Gavin’s rating system falls on a 1 through 10 kitties line] if they were doing something that was well respected within the parameters of style, but buzzing!, they zinged it out at the last second with a … scarf.

FUN Artists: Do you have good style?

Gavin McInnes: I’m old; I like Yoda – I don’t have to be sexy, no one masturbates thinking of Yoda, but they do respect his opinion as a Jedi. So with my style I just do what I’m supposed to do which is: grow old gracefully, not have logos or band names on my shirts, not try to hide the fact that I’m balding, or wear big sunglasses or flip flops, or anything too casual, that’s my goal. But your goal as a young person should be participating. You’re only at courting age for 10 to 20 years, that’s a blip in a life so you might as well just go balls out.

FUN Artists: What is the 10 kitties rating system all about?

Gavin McInnes: It’s a very magical, unscientific thing, that’s just sort of happens out of the sky. You know the great Chinese calligraphers, if they did a good character they’d keep going, keep painting them until they’d collapse, but if they did one bad one they’d stop for three days. So that’s what I do with these fashion critiques; I sort of get in touch with the earth – the fashion earth, and feel that energy come into my fingertips, and then I retain the energy like one of the Fantastic Four, get to a key board, make the joke for as long as it’s magic, and then when the glitter starts fading – stand back.

FUN Artists: What else comes with age?

Gavin McInnes: Also when you get older you start caring about construction. Like when you see guys working when you’re young you go “Ahh, what a racket”, when you get to be 39 you go, “What are they doing? Oh that’s that plastic that’s recycled bags … Oh, so they’re drilling that into the cement, but they’re gonna need some kind of a tarp to go beneath that and the wood … Oh they’re using, that’s not plastic though, they’re using polyurethane – that’s interesting, I guess it will be weather proof…” We care about that. And lawns … and what is it about men when they become dads they start wearing bathrobes with their penis hanging out and giving a shit about their lawn? I remember as a kid going “that’s never going to be me” – but cut dew da la do – that’s me; penis out, lawn, slippers, “Fuck, that bald patch is still there!”

FUN Artists: What bands are you stoked on right now?

Gavin McInnes: I have young people go out and train me, so they sift through the shit. Um I just made probably the most exciting party mix that has ever been made; and that was having all these youngsters go out and do all the dirty work and then amalgamating it. It starts out with the Cults, and then goes to Yeasayer, then the new LCD Soundsystem – “Drunk Girls”, this new band called Dom that Pitchfork is really excited about, then Cerebral Ballzy a great hardcore band from East New York, Ninjasonik redoing Matt & Kim’s “Daylight”, which is about this street right here [motions to the street behind him], DJ’ing at Savalas down there, I really like BBU, I love Sleigh Bells … I’ve always really liked contemporary music. The new M.I.A., I don’t care about a suicide sample, isn’t that what they all do now? I like Young Money; I like really cheesy mainstream rap like Three 6 Mafia, there’s an office sample mashup with a hip-hop band called Clockwork. I like Gaslight Orchestra, Neon Indian … shit like that – really contemporary music.

At Vice I was opening a new box of CDs everyday, so it was a real kind of gift in that it stopped this instinct we all have to say “When I was 18 that was the best; music sucks now.” Even old people, “There’s no guitarist like Jimi Hendrix, that was the end.” Even my dad; he’s listening to fuckin’ Annie Lennox doing Motown classics, and he goes [in a British/Scottish accent] “See that, that is finished now. No need to make new music, perfection has been achieved so why make a new song?” I’m like, “First of all dad, it’s not a new song, it’s just a cover of fucking 60s music, and second it sucks shit.” So yeah, I’ve always been a fan of ridiculously contemporary music cause I think music is getting better. My friend had a 70s disco party recently and we’re dancing to “Ring My Bell” and I’m just sitting there [shifts his hips side to side in a manner that one would do if he were dancing and bored], this song is like eight minutes long and it’s one big terrible chorus. Compare that to contemporary stuff…

FUN Artists: Do you consider having a legacy, or is that even an issue?

Gavin McInnes: I’ll tell you what I do have, wanna talk about legacy [start un-buckling his pants, drops his pants], look at these legs. I don’t have much of an upper body, but my legs, they look like Spiderman’s. Breathtaking right? But that’s a curse cause when you have skinny arms and no shoulders it looks like Superman’s bottom with Grover’s top. So I guess my greatest legacy would be my legs…

Actually, when you get old and you start caring about things you never cared about before. Penny Rimbaud from the anarcho punk band Crass, that no one who is watching this will have ever heard of [ERIN INSERT SOME SORT OF “FUCK YOU GAVIN” HERE, AND CAUSE FUCK YEAH WEVE HEAD OF CRASS, AND LORD KNOWS WE WERE BUMPIN CRASS WHEN THIS FUCKER WAS JUST STARTED BUMPIN CRASS EVEN THOUGH HES 9 YEARS OUR ELDER], he almost died recently in a motorcycle accident, and all of a sudden he started worrying about the fact that he hadn’t put his name on any of his songs, and I kind of feel the same way. Vice is responsible for Williamsburg, DOs & DON’Ts is responsible for the word “hipster,” we kind of invented this whole phenomenon the same way Paul Weller was the kind of mods, Malcolm McLaren sort of invented punk. So that’s my legacy … Ha ha, what a fuckin’ legacy. My dad ended communism, he built sonar for reading submarines and it was so exact he could tell you how many people were in the sub, how many missiles it had; it was like an x-ray of the submarine. And at that time, back in ‘80s when Regan was really bucking horns with Russia, their trump card was their nuclear subs, and my dad found a way to call them on their bluff and see that there’s nothing there, and that was the thread that unraveled the whole sweater. So his legacy is ending communism; my legacy is a bunch of jokes and a tiny blip in the history of youth sub-culture.

FUN Artists: How do you like to be viewed as an artist, a funny guy, and an entertainer? Thought provoking?

Albert Reyes: All of the above; why not.

FUN Artists: Is there any aspect you enjoy more than the others? I would feel like it might be the spit art since you are able to feed off the crowd…

Albert Reyes: Yeah, that’s fun, but I really don’t do it anymore because I just felt like it got to a point where that’s all people wanted me to do. I want to do other things. I don’t want to be known for spitting water out of my mouth on the concrete for the rest of my life; that’s not how I want to be remembered.

FUN Artists: Is there any other sort of art that you have been thinking that you’d like to do that you haven’t gotten around to yet?

Albert Reyes: I’m hoping to get an opportunity to build the maze that I build in my backyard for Halloween parties and stuff in a gallery setting or a warehouse or something.

FUN Artists: When do you feel your the most dialed in for work (re: you’re drunk, happy, pissed off at your neighbors, etc.)?

Albert Reyes: I’m never mad at my neighbors. If anything my neighbors are mad at me because I play my music too loud, and I’m always hitting on their sisters and mothers and stuff; they’re not cool with that. So, my neighbors are mad at me – I’m not mad at my neighbors. And the best time to be creative, for me, is the hours between three in the morning and six in the morning when everyone’s sleeping. There’s a certain calm; you just kind of have your own energy – everyone else’s energy is off – and you just work.

FUN Artists: How do you go about choosing your work? Do you say ‘Tonight I’m going to work on this,’ or do you have eight things lying around you could do?

Albert Reyes: Well I’m usually—I have a sleeping disorder, so I cant sleep. I like to be outside in the daytime working on my maze and stuff, just always switching it around. It’s like a giant LEGO kit but for an adult who still likes to pretend he’s a kid. But I’ll just go through the day and it will start getting late and it will be too cold or too dark to go outside. I don’t want to party or go to a bar, so I’ll just start working until the early morning. But I start working around two or three at night.

FUN Artists: Are you the kind of guy who has a few projects going on at once or do you start and not move on until you complete that one?

Albert Reyes: I just pick an image from a magazine or a photograph and then I ust kind of go until I’m finished with it. I try to do one drawing a day, and once it’s done I’m onto the next thing.

FUN Artists: Can you give us a verbal timeline of your life?

Albert Reyes: A verbal timeline …wow that’s a crazy question. How do you do that –  are you fucking with me?

FUN Artists: Like, ‘I enjoyed drawing snails when I was 10-years-old, then I went to summer camp at 13 and drew a bear eating a fish…’

Albert Reyes: Ok so, as a kid I liked to draw cars and stuff like that, and Star Wars! Seeing Star Wars as a kid – I was born in 1971 – so I’m 39-years-old. And when I was a kid and Star Wars came out it was huge. So I’d draw the storm troopers or Darth Vader; I couldn’t draw any of the spaceships though. That stuff was too complicated – my X-Wing fighters looked like crap.

So I did that kind of stuff when I was a kid and then in high school I mostly just did bad stuff; you know like vandalism, not going to class, skateboarding, breaking into abandoned buildings, starting fires in the fields and buildings, and that was not good, but I never got caught so that was cool. I took a lot of drawing classes in high school and that’s the only thing I was really happy with. ‘Cause when I was in high school, I was in special ed. and I was not cool with that – that was not fun, but it’s just because I had learning disabilities, and I don’t like listening to authority or having people tell me what to do. I couldn’t do that. I’d rather flip the desk over and fight adults and stuff, just bad shit, but that didn’t work out – I guess it doesn’t work out when you do bad things.

After that I just had a job after high school working and stuff. I met a girlfriend, and she said like, ‘You really need to do something with your talent. You have a talent, you should do something with it.’ And I was like ‘Well, what can you do?’ I didn’t think you could really do anything with art; I didn’t think you could make a living or make money from it. But she believed in me and convinced me to go to art school; I went there for four years and I had the time of my life. A lot of the other students and the teachers encouraged me: ‘What your doing is good,’ and ‘There’s something about what your doing that’s cool so keep doing it,” and that gave me self-confidence in my artwork and in myself which I never had before. After art school I decide to just go for art; I’m just gonna quit my job. I was working all kinds of odd jobs from pizza places and video stores to movie theaters and title services.

So then I just decided in 2004, after I graduated three years earlier – 2004 I would say – I really decided to focus on my artwork totally and completely. I moved back here to LA and have been doing that ever since. Having small shows in galleries, and group shows, and that’s what I’ve been doing, and I’m going to continue doing that until someone kills me.

FUN Artists: You have appeared in a shit-ton of publications, have shown in LA, NY, Paris, and your work has hung alongside the likes of Picasso. What has been your proudest moment to date?

Albert Reyes: I don’t know; I don’t really feel proud of anything I’ve done. I feel like I haven’t done anything and like I have to keep doing stuff, and I don’t really feel like—I mean, I’m happy with everything I’ve done – I wouldn’t change anything – but I wouldn’t use the word ‘proud.’

FUN Artists: Theres nothing that you’ve done or got that when you found out, or finished or whatever, you went and called your mom right away?

Albert Reyes: Well, I was really excited when—I wouldn’t say proud, but real excited when Jimmy Kimmel invited me onto his show to do spit art, but also, in a way, it kind of killed it. It kind of killed spit art for me. Television reaches a lot of people and I don’t think there’s any other spit drawings I can do that will reach that many people. I mean, I could maybe do it again on television, but I already did that.

Reaching a large audience is a cool thing: bigger art shows, more people, getting more people to see your art work—that’s why I like doing T-shirts too because it gets around a lot, a lot of different people see it. They might not necessarily know who made the shirt or who is the artist, but the fact is that the work is getting out there and people are seeing it. To me that’s very important – that the people see the work – that it’s not just up in my garage and no one knows what it’s doing; I like it to be out in public places.

FUN Artists: What is the most enjoyable artistic exploit you do: portraits, shows, shirts?

Albert Reyes: I really like doing shows. It brings a lot of people out, and people check out your work. It’s fun—it’s like a big party environment. I like meeting people; I’m a people person and it brings out a lot of people you wouldn’t normally meet in everyday life, but they’ll come to an art show. And I think what my work is, is pretty fucked up; you probably don’t want to put the ‘F word’ on there, but it comes from a crazy place. Everyone has been through their own shit and stuff like that; everyone is a little bit damaged, but then people can relate – people can see my work and they relate to it. They’ve probably been through some of the same experiences I have, so that’s cool – it’s like common ground. And it doesn’t matter what race or ethnicity or sexual preference or religion or anything like that—it’s just a human connection through artwork and I like that.

FUN Artists: In writing about you people run the gamut in labeling you things ranging from thought-provoking and serious to comical and simple sketches. Is there any one style you prefer, or do you enjoy mixing it up?

Albert Reyes: I like mixing it up because, depending on what you’re drawing, the style that your using to convey that drawing…

If you’re doing something serious than you might want to make it more of a serious drawing; or actually the opposite, you can do a serious drawing and spend a lot of time on it but have the whole thing just a joke. But to me it’s fun; I think it’s a way to communicate and to reach a lot of people. People can see that I can still draw like a kid, but that I can I try to draw like an adult too. I try to focus; I try to do realism, but its not anywhere near realism – I’m trying to get to that level and I think that’s what an adult would do, as opposed to a cartoon that a kid would do,  and I just think that a kid can relate to that and adults will appreciate that. I think it’s just a way to bring in more people into what I’m doing – different styles. And if people see I do stuff like this [points to a simple sketch that he drew] maybe they’re not as intimidated by my artwork. They shouldn’t be though because anybody can draw the way I draw; it just takes practice. Practice at it everyday.

FUN Artists: So I’m seeing a lot of Michael Jackson in your work.

Albert Reyes: Yeah, I always drew Michael Jackson. As a kid when I was in school they stopped all the school to show us the Thriller video [laughs], they were like ‘Everyone come down to the auditorium, we’re gonna show you a new video by Michael Jackson.’ So you know as a kid growing up Michael Jackson was huge and it was crazy, we used to run around school with a white glove with glitter on. Half the kids wanted to be like Prince, half the kids wanted to be like Michael Jackson.

I don’t know, just a big impact: his music, his style. He’s a very unique character and a very American character. It’s horrific what he did to himself, or what we did to him – you could say it that way too – he was the most famous person on earth and he had to deal with all that – all that pressure and everything. You know they say he’s a child molester and all that; I don’t know, I can’t say that; those are alleged things. I just thought he was really cool and admired his music. And he’s an interesting person to draw.

If you draw Michael Jackson, there’s just so much stuff that goes ontop of that because of who he is. A Christian person can be like, ‘Oh that guy!’ and look at it and talk shit about him, or you can talk about his music. One image of one guy, like this one [motions to a drawing of MJ where Michael's finger is up to his lip like he is thinking], can provoke so many different feelings or different emotions for different people just because of who he – his story. So I try to do stuff like that where I’m able to manipulate the viewer’s feelings and emotions and Michael Jackson is a really easy way to do that.

FUN Artists: As far as selling stuff like that, do you run into any copyright issues due to the celebrities in your art?

Albert Reyes: I haven’t had any problems with that. I think it’s because I sell my work for such a small amount that I’m under the wire. I’m sure if I tried to sell it for a million dollars then somebody in the Jackson family might want to get a piece of it, but I sell it for around $200 and its like ‘They aren’t gonna care.’ But if I start putting it on T-shirts and getting it way out there and making a lot of money off it then they’d probably want their share.

And I think that’s what it comes down to: any kind of images an artist uses, if your not making money off of it then no one cares, but as soon as you start making money off of it, and a lot, then they’re gonna want their money. And it’s all about money; it’s not about using their image and they’re mad because it’s like ‘Oh, that’s my uncle,’ or ‘Oh that’s my family member.’ Its about money, so fuck it. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll just draw whatever I want to draw.

FUN Artists: How does living in San Fransisco provide you with your fodder for creating art, or does Harvey Levin act as the key muse for you?

Aiyana Udesen: San Francisco is inspiring because of the beauty, diversity, and open-mindedness. But the best part is that you don’t have to have a car. I don’t know how to drive. I like Harvey because he’s on The People’s Court. That tabloid show he does is pretty lame.

FUN Artists: You’re originally from Hawaii, went to the San Francisco Art Institute and are living there now. What role do you think geography plays in the creative process?

Aiyana Udesen: My parents were from SF, but I was born on a year long Hawaiian vacation. I lived in Orange County for a few years as a kid and I was heavily influenced by TV and the show-biz industry of southern California. I think that I would be less interested in pop culture if I had only been in SF. I’m constantly reminiscing about 80’s entertainment through my artwork. That’s the part of my childhood that makes me laugh when I bring it back. When I was at SFAI, I noticed that most people in that environment were completely out of touch with popular culture. I dressed like Britney Spears on Halloween one year and not one person knew who I was. But walking downtown people were screaming from the streets, ‘Hey Britney!’

FUN Artists: You have been blessed to have your art show all over the place, what were the circumstances of the most notable show you were a part of?

Aiyana Udesen: I always feel lucky to have shows. I only do it when I am personally asked to be a part of something. It’s kind of a lazy approach, but I figure that if I’m doing a good job I won’t have to ask. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.

FUN Artists: You are often commissioned to visually capture, by way off portraits, people and their pets, is it hard to get those little critters to sit still?

Aiyana Udesen: Not if they’re in a photograph. I need several photos of people and their pets so I can figure out how to draw them. If I did a sitting, I think I’d charge a lot more money.

FUN Artists: Have you ever really botched a portrait bad enough to where the subject was like ‘What the hell Aiyana?’

Aiyana Udesen: I’ve done a few paintings that have made me say that to myself. I’ve had band members tell me to please make them cuter. I try to make everyone look attractive. I make their receding hairlines less noticeable and stuff. That’s the trick.

FUN Artists: What proves to be the most lucrative in your artistic exploits, and are there some you enjoy more than others?

Aiyana Udesen: I’ve made a pretty penny off of drawing Britney. It’s good because her face is the most fun face in the world to draw. You’d have to try it to believe me. I just want to be a portrait artist, but sometimes illustrations that require a little cartooning is what pays the bills.

FUN Artists: Have you come across any imitators trying to jock your steeze?

Aiyana Udesen: The only one who dares to copy my style is Albert Reyes. And he’ll never be able to! I like to talk shit to him about it.

FUN Artists: A lot of your work is pretty funny, do you ever look at any of it and laugh out loud because that shit is funny?

Aiyana Udesen: I laugh at it all. But it’s getting others to laugh that’s not as easy.

FUN Artists: Have anyone of these famous folks come across your works?

Aiyana Udesen: The only one I know for sure is Nelly. I like to think that they’ve all come across something from Googling themselves – I wish they would email me.

FUN Artists: It’s a stock question, but what would be the most practical advice you could give a young, aspiring artist?

Aiyana Udesen: A mix between practicing your craft, and working on good social skills is what I recommend. If you’re a good person, people will want to support you more because they think you deserve it. It’s good to hang out with other artists that you respect. Gets you to work harder.

FUN Artists: Do you think people actually heed your words and your directions of how to draw as highlighted in your zines, or do you think they take them as a sort of tongue and cheek deal?

Aiyana Udesen: I wonder if anyone actually uses the directions in any how-to-draw books. They’re usually so ridiculous. Mine would make more sense if I called them How-Aiyana-draws books.

FUN Artists: Do you have a biggest fan/collector?

Aiyana Udesen: I wish! I love fanatics.

FUN Artists: What happens with a less than perfect piece of art work?

Aiyana Udesen: It goes on sale. Or it ends up on the back of another work.

FUN Artists: Does one either have the skill to be an artist or not, or can you practice until your perfect? What if someone loves doing art but they just suck at it?

Aiyana Udesen: Everyone has critics. The more you do it, the better you get. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Eventually you stumble upon something that you don’t suck at. Drawing is such a primal form of communication. Be a caveman!

FUN Artists: Is there a thing or two that Matt Furie could take a lesson on from you?

Aiyana Udesen: I’ve taught him a few things. And vice versa. I give him instant feedback throughout his process because I’m always sitting two feet away. He could benefit from a proper dish-washing lesson.

FUN Artists: If you were to change your style, how would you?

Aiyana Udesen: Abstract shapes, colors, and space paintings.

FUN Artists: If you weren’t on the art tip what would you be up to?

Aiyana Udesen: I’d still be a cocktail waitress……AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!

FUN Artists: Who is the most proud of Aiyana Udesen the artist?

Aiyana Udesen: My mom and dad are super proud. My dad considers my attempt at being an artist for a living to be very brave and noble. [Laughs]

FUN Artists: How’d it all start?

Edward Colver: I got a hold of a real cheap 35mm camera and started taking it to shows at the end of 1978, and I got a photo published three months later in Bam Magazine. So that was pretty cool, I got one published three months after I started taking photos, and I thought ‘this is cool.’ I never imagined myself taking photos per se; I was always interested in applied art, but photography seemed to happen.

I shot all that stuff with 35mm camera, 50mm lens, and Tri-X film. Then I had a little cheap PopShot camera. I had been missing stuff – I’d see guys with a paparazzi setup and its like ‘wow, I never bought anything like that,’ but it was like ‘that would sure be sweet to take like five photos in two seconds flat.’ My camera flash was broken; I had duct tape from one side of my camera up over this little mounted flash, because something was broken. Somebody had jumped off stage and hit me or something, and I had duct tape over the top to both sides of the camera. I would take it off carefully in the pit and change the film there, and then get the tape back on with my stupid flash to keep shooting. It was pretty funny.

FUN Artists: Do you still have that camera?

Edward Colver: Yeah, I’ve even got that Yashica one somewhere. I used to think about making a business card out of it by putting a nail through the lens into a board and photograph it, but I didn’t do it.

FUN Artists: The people in your photographs look so comfortable, how were you able to put them at ease like that?

Edward Colver: I guess the people in the photographs I took were comfortable because they knew me. I mean, I was always around. I went to shows for like five nights a week for five years running, so anytime anyone went out they’d see me – I was everywhere shooting pictures. And then, like about the end of ’83, I kind of stopped going to punk shows back then; it was kind of all over. I had done like 80 punk record jackets and stuff and it was time to do something different. So I started working a lot with I.R.S. [I.R.S. Records] and shooting bands like Wall of Voodoo, Lords of the New Church, and R.E.M. and a whole different thing.

FUN Artists: How was the atmosphere back then in the punk scene?

Edward Colver: Oh it wasn’t until later there started being backstage passes and all that crap. It was just like little shows in bars and stuff and everybody hanging out together. Then they started doing that three song thing on the photo pass [most shows/concerts now, photographers/media are only allowed to shoot the first three songs], I only did that a couple times and I was like ‘I’m out of here; forget it.’

FUN Artists: Say you got all these old pictures you wanted to use for a shirt, is anyone ever making it hard for you now by not giving you a model release?

Edward Colver: Nah, I haven’t had any problems. All the T-shirts that I’m doing I’m getting all the proper permission and paying royalties. I don’t want to screw anybody. If I can’t do it legit I won’t do it. There’s a lot of crooks in the T-shirt business; its a joke – my ex-wife looked up on every punk rock clothing website she could find, every single site had my stuff on it. Somebody’s made a lot of money off my stuff. My problem with my photos is everyone remembers them but they don’t know that I took them. I kind of hid out and did other stuff and worked on sculptures for the last 20 years. Now that I got around to doing a book people remember the images but don’t remember that I took them anymore –  it’s kind of a drag.

FUN Artists: How did your Blight at the End of the Funnel book come about?

Edward Colver: A graphic designer friend of mine who used to live in the “art complex” where I did said ‘When are you going to do a book?’ So he helped me mock one up, and I kind of started using that as a portfolio for a while and it was all beat up and taped together. Then Cal State Fullerton got interested. They saw the mock ups and wanted to do it, so it got published with Last Gasp and Cal State Fullerton.

FUN Artists: Is it all inclusive of your work?

Edward Colver: No, on the back page it says “Look for volume 2.” Originally, what I had planned on doing was a four volume box set: one of my punk stuff, one of my, kind of, celebrity portraiture stuff, another one of street photos, and then another one of my “artwork.” And it got consolidated to one book, and it was like ‘I’ll be damned if your just gonna cherry pick all my stuff and put it in the first book. Cause I’ve got so much stuff I have to do anther one and there’s just no way in hell I want it to look like outtakes – you know, here’s the second best stuff’ – I’ve got great stuff that didn’t go in the first book. So eventually …

FUN Artists: Where are all these original pictures?

Edward Colver: A lot of them are just in a file cabinet in negative form. Most of them I haven’t digitized yet. I did a lot of stuff when I was working on the book and got a lot of that digitized, but there’s like 10 times more stuff than that.

FUN Artists: Since you stopped shooting shows and stuff, do you still do street stuff?

Edward Colver: Hardly, I use my iPhone sometimes nowadays when I see stuff like that. I got so sick and tired of dragging around a 35 and never using it. I mean, for years I drug it around and never took a picture and finally I got tired of it. What’s annoying about being my stature and stuff, and trying to take photos, is I pull a camera out and everybody goes ‘What’s he doing?’ immediately, and its like ‘Really, I cant wander around and shoot pictures without everyone wondering what the hell I’m doing?’

FUN Artists: Can you talk about the quotes around the artwork?

Edward Colver: It’s a very subjective subject matter. It always cracks me up when somebody says ‘I’m an artist’ and I always want to say ‘Who deemed that?” I always say I take pictures and make things, you know, history will tell if you’re a photographer or artist or whatever.

FUN Artists: In regards to the punk stuff, what catches your eye as you’re looking through the lens and tells you this is the moment to take the picture? Is it something technical or instinct?

Edward Colver: Well, I always photographed music and shot to the rhythm of the music kind of – and I was ready for things that were going to be dramatic; I paid attention to what’s going on with the music. So you have to be pretty fast to catch a lot of that action, and might I say, with no autofocus on my old camera.

FUN Artists: In the punk heyday, how did you become the go-to guy for pictures?

Edward Colver: I was everywhere. People saw my pictures and they knew me, and when they wanted to do something they didn’t look in the yellow pages.

FUN Artists: How did it evolve from hobby to making a livelihood?

Edward Colver: Sort of livelihood. I don’t know; I was just always around the punk scene – like I was saying, I was out five nights a week and I had a little beat up 8 x10 Kodak box that I’d stick photos that I’d printed in and take them to shows. People would see them and like them, maybe wanted to use them, and so they knew because of that. I did the Circle Jerks “Group Sex” album cover and it seemed like everybody else wanted me to do theirs after that.

FUN Artists: A lot of us younger folks weren’t able to experience those days; is there any sentiment you recall that your lens wasn’t able to capture?

Edward Colver: I recently was talking about that. I photographed all those punk shows through a key-hole basically because I was watching through a viewfinder, always ready to take a picture most of the time during live shows and stuff. I watched everything like that. I lost the peripheral and all that kind of stuff, so that was kind of a weird thing.

FUN Artists: You had mentioned that you believed the punk scene to be over in ’83. How did you arrive at that conclusion?

Edward Colver: I think the punk scene arrived at that. I don’t know, the thrash bands started up, all that stuff, I just wasn’t into it. It was all crap. A lot of the early punks, they couldn’t play, but it wasn’t that fast raucous thrash junk – that was like the thing for awhile and I was like, ‘Eh, I’m outta’ here.’

FUN Artists: So then did you stop going to live shows or did you just stop shooting them?

Edward Colver: I went to a lot in the ’60’s, a few in the 70’s, and a whole lot of punk in the punk scene. I go out occasionally and see old punk bands and a few new ones.

FUN Artists: How did it come about that you started shooting rap and non-punk stuff?

Edward Colver: I knew art directors and stuff and got hired to do it cause they liked my stuff. Yeah, it’s pretty funny, I photographed all the guys from N.W.A. separately, and Ice-T, and Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg. I photographed Run-DMC too; I never printed those, and the Watts Prophets actually – they’re like a ’70’s rap group.

FUN Artists: Off all the creative work you’ve done, what are you the most pleased with?

Edward Colver: One of my favorite punk images I created was the Black Flag Damaged album; I like that one a lot, that one’s kind of held up over the years.

FUN Artists: Punk rock has had such a large impact on you; how has it affected you as it has evolved over the years? Did you evolve with it or are you kind of dialed in with that moment you were a part of?

Edward Colver: Yeah, I like that LA hardcore stuff,; that’s kind of primarily … I was there for all that and it’s kind of gone. I like some of the bands that came after that – I just wasn’t hanging out in the scene per se unless I’d go see old friends’ bands and stuff.

FUN Artists: Did something distinctly happen at the end of ’83?

Edward Colver: No, I just thought that I don’t want to do this the rest of my life. I had done so much work it was ridiculous. Been published, done all the major record covers and stuff, and a bunch of other good bands and stuff like that – I started thinking more at the end of the punk scene of making a career out of photography I guess. I never really thought about it or put it into words, but you know, the punk scene wasn’t paying my bills—it’s still not.

FUN Artists: A lot of the photography you did from the punk era felt very documentarian, and after that it feels more … photographic? Like there are different lights used or something.

Edward Colver: I evolved. It was pretty artsy documentarian all that early stuff. I had that “art training” as a background which really helped. I don’t think most photographers are ever trained in art, you know what composition is, etc. Photography is all about manipulating light and composition, and that’s basically what it boils down to in my estimation; composing it properly and getting the light to do what you need it to do to get the exposure. It’s a fun thing playing with light.

FUN Artists: What was the extent of your formal education?

Edward Colver: Never got a degree in anything, I could say that. I think your only limited by your own self doubt, if you think you can’t do something you probably can’t.

FUN Artists: What’s the story behind your famous picture of the kid flipping through the air?

Edward Colver: I shot the, what has become to be known as  “The Wasted Youth Flip Shot,”  at the Perkins Palace in Pasadena Juy 4, 1981. D.O.A., the Adolescents, and Stiff Little Fingers were playing. I’m not sure, I think it was the Adolescents, who were playing at the time I took that. And the guy jumping is a skateboarder named Chuck Burke. He was landing on his feet, the crowd was separating, and he’d land on his feet. It was a pretty chaotic night; there was a guy named Tar that I knew, who grabbed a fire extinguisher from a bouncer and turned it on. There was a balck guy that would go right up to the edge of the stage and right before the bouncers would get him he would do a back flip off. It was a pretty funny night.

FUN Artists: Are there any outtakes from that photo?

Edward Colver: I have another outtake of that photo; I think it was used on the back of that Slam Chops record. Where it’s Chuck just kind of coming into a vertical frame before he’s flipped in the air all the way.

FUN Artists: When you were working with all these punks, and time went by, and fame took root with many of them, did any of them start becoming divas and difficult to work with or became too cool?

Edward Colver: I can’t think of anybody offhand. I mean, I’ve known these guys since they were teenagers so they have no attitude with me. There’s no reason to – I grew up with them.

FUN Artists: How did you first get involved in the punk scene?

Edward Colver: Actually back when I watched television I saw a news report on Madame Wong’s which was like a new wave club. I went down and checked it out, and the Hong Kong Cafe opened up across the way, and I started going to punk shows. You know there’s a big distinction between the two in my opinion, but they’re always getting lumped together. Ha, you might as well put country & western with punk as putting punk and new wave together.

FUN Artists: How have the technological advances in photography affected you?

Edward Colver: I don’t follow them. I don’t have any new gear; I haven’t changed what I do. I’ll get a digital camera before too long, but only because they’re making it almost impossible to shoot film anymore. They’re phasing out the main Kodak film I’ve used forever and ever – they’re not even going to make it anymore.

FUN Artists: Clearly you’re known for your photography, but how did you start with installation pieces?

Edward Colver: I started making sculptures in the mid ’80’s once I got an “art loft” and had the space and all the stuff around. The first sculpture I made incorporated a bunch of antique things like a monkey skull and stuff that that I had lying around. I had all this stuff that I had been collecting to start drawing from, and I had an art background and all that so I started using it doing assemblages – which wasn’t a household name until the last 5-10 years.

FUN Artists: How much is your home environment an art project for you?

Edward Colver: My home environment is kind of a huge thing to me; that’s one of the reasons I don’t watch television or listen to the radio. No commercials will come into my home, the only commercials that make it in my door are through the LA Times in the ads and I don’t read them. I stopped watching television years ago and I like to cite the fact that they used that song “Heard it Through the Grapevine” in a commercial and I was like ‘Fuck you, I’m not going to think of some hamburger when I hear some song I grew up liking.’ I just turned my television off and never went back. You know I’m really happy I did that. I talked to one guy, he figured he’d watched 26,000 hours of television in his lifetime and I said, ‘Thats a lifetime.’ Television to me is like people living their lives vicariously, needing to escape and stuff and that’s a sad thing. I like my house, it’s a nice environment. I’ve always sort of created environments where I’ve lived; actually I had a place when I was a teenager that had a half an orange tree in it and all these roots that I had gotten out of the mountains winding across the ceiling; I sort of always build an environment.

FUN Artists: What are some of the favorite items, antiques, decor that you have?

Edward Colver: I don’t know. I collect all kinds of different stuff; I collect stuff that some people consider total trash, a lot of the stuff I collect has got an intrinsic value – it’s basically worthless but I’ve paid a fortune for certain objects just because of what they are. I like to use real objects in the sculptures that I do and it kind of takes them to a different level when you go ‘Look, that’s a real fuckin’ bear trap!’ It makes a piece that much better to have real, tangible objects incorporated into them instead of just some version that you fabricate or some plastic thing. I try not to use any plastic in anything at all that I make.

FUN Artists: Do you ever have friends or family who find something and think it’s obscure and that you’d love it so they give it to you and you feel obligated to put it in your house somewhere?

Edward Colver: No. I’ve had friends give me amazing, really incredible things. One time a friend of mine brought me this rat skeleton that had its head clamped down in a rat trap from underneath the house; I put a dollar bill in its teeth.

FUN Artists: How did your apparel line come about?

Edward Colver: I think the T-shirts came about because of my desire to do something marketable with my photos, and other people have been selling them for years; why shouldn’t I?

FUN Artists: It would seem like the photographs speak for themselves, but is placement of the photographs on the shirt a big deal to you?

Edward Colver: I started doing the all over prints because I like the way it looks and I didn’t want to do a T-shirt with a ‘Hey, look at my cool photo right here on the chest of my T,’ you know, that’s everywhere. I license my stuff to other companies and I’m not too concerned with what they do with it – that’s their deal – if I use the same picture it’s not going to look like what they are doing and I like that.

FUN Artists: Will there ever be a time that your original photographs will be for sale?

Edward Colver: Well all my pictures are for sale right now if somebody wants to buy a copy. I was just in a show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that opened up last October called “Who Shot Rock & Roll” and I’m actually going to be in one in Western Germany opening up in October of this year. It’s basically the same thing, I think it’s called “Rock & Roll Photography Since Elvis.” I love the fact that they didn’t include my stuff in the book because the graphic designer thought that it would be too much dark stuff or something. I should have gotten those punks to smile dammit.

FUN Artists: Which of your exploits are you most proud of?

Edward Colver: It was an underground scene when I started going, it wasn’t until probably ’82 or ’83 they started drawing big crowds at the shows and it got larger and larger from that point. I’m real proud of the fact that I did all those bands first album covers. That’s what I like about it, it wasn’t their tenth album or anything like that, I did their first record. You know, like the Chili Peppers first album and all those: Black Flag, T.S.O.L., Social Distortion, Christian Death, Wasted Youth, Bad Religion… I did all those bands first record, I like that; I was paying attention to them when nobody else was.

FUN Artists: Who else, besides punks have you shot?

Edward Colver: I’ve photographed Timothy Leary and Andy Warhol… I shot pictures of Caesar Chavez that I don’t have that I have been trying to get back for years; a really nice warm tone portrait in a church in South Central LA.

FUN Artists: When you were sitting with Andy Warhol what was he like, did he live up to his own mystique – Warhol as an artist or Warhol as a character?

Edward Colver: Warhol was both. He was just real quiet. I didn’t really talk to him much. I don’t like to bother people a lot of times that people consider celebrities or something. You know, we’re here to do a job, not that I’m strictly professional by any means. I have a famous saying: ‘I’m always late and they can’t start without me.’ That’s pretty bad. My mom said I’d be late to my own funeral and I said that’s fine by me.

FUN Artists: Do you ever have a moment where you choose to put the camera down and not shoot?

Edward Colver: Back then I wasn’t into not shooting. I think the last live photographs I’d taken were of R.E.M. in ’85 and that was the last live stuff. It’s been 25 years since I did any live stuff; it’s kind of a thankless job.

FUN Artists: What does the future hold for you, more shots for labels?

Edward Colver: If they call me. I’ve been doing photography for 33 years. I never advertise, I don’t solicit work, and my phone number is unpublished. If they want to use me they can call me up.