OTHER & STARS OF THE LID interview each other

OTHER & STARS OF THE LID


>>organised&complied by Jack ~ photographys: Other

>>Other appears in Italic / Adam Wiltzie appears in regular

 

"25 before the windshield factor

with winds gusting up to 20 miles per hour from the north west

and the snot in your nose freezes when you breath in


and your spit shatters when it hits the ground

and the sun hasn't even set yet

but when it does

the streets will be empty

everyone cuddled up at home

and if you know how to bundle up


and go for a walk

the whole city is yours"

This is a collaboration between Stars Of The Lid and the artist Other whose work appears travelling on the sides of boxcars throughout the continent of North America - A hybrid of the hobo signatures that have been carved or drawn since the mid 1800s by transients riding the rails, and aerosol art born on the public transit of New York city and Philadelphia, but using boxcars as a visual diary/sketchbook for thoughts, feelings and anxieties.

"I listen to Stars of the Lid on my walkman when I paint. To me the sounds come close to the sounds made by creeping trains in the distance... train whistles and the click clack heartbeat of freights going along the track"

"I guess it all started as a happy accident.

I was in the hiphop angry thug stage of my life when I came across hobo markings on trains while spray-painting New York style-graffiti. These hobo markings made by train workers and train hoppers intrigued me and had far more mystery than the sideways hats and gold chains of my peers. The more I drew on trains the more I fell in love with the rust and the smell of the diesel and became more introverted and immersed in a folk art than in painting shiny colorful MTV backdrops. I started painting trains in dark empty yards in run-down abandoned areas of cities that don't attract the friendliest people; being chased by workers and strange growling men, heroin addicts shooting up in the yard, guys attacking me with knives, prostitutes at work... One night a man just climbed to the top of an electric tower right next to the yard and started screaming and waving his hands wildly. Another night in LA a bunch of guys ran through the yard with a cardboard box. They stopped to look at us for a second, shocked and then just kept running. What was in that box?"

I can't help but think of a scene from the film 'The Blair Witch Project'; the lost trio happen upon a large tree covered with little hanging stick men. Although it was the open of their pending demise, I found it a beautiful scene...

It is hard to gauge the emotional value of your work mainly because looking at a simple photo doesn't really put what you are doing in its proper context. After doing some fantasy detailing I could imagine coming upon these painted structures could be quite overwhelming for someone.

"Somewhere in the Midwest you are waiting for a train that is slowly crossing the road to pass and this depressed life-sized character is staring back at you. Who knows where the trains will end up and who will see them. They do look ghostly in the dark and can travel from here in Canada all the way to Mexico. On the other hand my work might have no tremendous impact on the " Average Joe " because he might be turning his radio knob or sipping her coffee waiting for the train to cross the road. A lot of people don ' t even know that there are freight train yards in their city. People always say that my work is interesting but where do I paint them? Are there any train yards here? There are about 15 yards that I know of in my city. This is art that you will have to search for."

"There are plenty of creepy stories..."

It's really beautiful here. Dirty, but beautiful.

"The first time I heard stars of the lid it reminded me of being awake late into the night when you are young and not tired. Growing up in a large city I would lay in bed and hear the city muffled and beating outside your window, like the sound of a freight train clanking miles off on a really humid night."

Going to see art, architecture, just living in Brussels with all the beautiful buildings, strangely enough it's things like that which inspire. Just simply having a cup of coffee on my terrace is almost enough to get me through the day. It was such a huge reason for me finally leaving the USA so it is really impossible to understand why unless you have lived there. I am an overly sensitive person, and I am extremely affected by my environment. This is in no way political, but more social. If someone asked you to describe the place you are from, you'd understand it like no one else, and it haunts everything about you as well.

What is more important to you, the process of creating art or the final outcome?

I have never tried to make statements, broad or abstract, sometimes things just are . I suppose the cover came out of recent observations regarding album artwork in the genre that I seem to inhabit. The theme of abstract expressionism continues to be the overriding influence of these kind of records. Because I delve into the realm of ambient structures does this mean I have to make ambient artwork as well? I looked at the Kranky back catalogue and all the artwork had this overriding theme, so I wanted to do something in more of a classic symbolist way that was just a simple statement about me and Christina Vantzou. So when you look at the drawing I made - just me and Christina, I have been thinking about two famous artists of late. Peter Paul Reubens, and Pablo Picasso. Picasso apparently made about 40,000 paintings/pieces of art in his lifetime, When I hear people talk of Picasso as a genius, I don't necessarily agree. People use this term way too often, I presuppose that maybe he was not? He really cranked things out like a factory (whereas in Reubens case, he made about 400 pieces). Years and years go into one painting. When you look at this work you can really get a sense of the mental pain, and anguish, it is just massive!! I find it so strange how much influence this style has over the music world.

 

I was a dishwasher for at least five years of my life...

I had so many terrible jobs. Stocking shelves from 11 at night to eight in the morning.


The worst was in Vancouver; I had to feed a machine all night with adverts for the next day's morning paper, somehow they had invented this giant machine that printed the paper, folded the paper, stapled the paper, wrapped the paper... But they needed a human to load the machine. So all night from 10 to seven in the morning I feed the machine. The same machine every night. No break. If you had to go piss, too bad. My machine faced a loading dock that was always rolled up at night to take deliveries. This loading dock was a frame to the world outside and just happened to look out onto my favourite train yard. Fuck... my favourite train yard... And lines would be rolling in and out all night, and they would stop and I couldn't quite make out the pieces from inside the factory. But I could hear the rumble of the trains, smell the diesel of the engine. I wanted to walk out of the frame of my life and hop on one of those trains and ride it right out of the city and just leave everything behind.