Hey Will what’s happening in your universe right now?
I’m in the middle of a few things, working on some new drawings inspired by vintage motorbikes and voodoo ceremonies, trying to finish the fourth issue of my comic Tales From Greenfuz, plus I have a few commercial jobs coming up. I just finished a poster for Beyond Fest, for a series of concerts by Goblin at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which was kind of a dream job for me.
If you could be a creature from another planet, what would you be and why?
I guess some kind of psychedelic warlord, cruising the universe in a riff-powered spaceship, discovering new galaxies and getting into adventures, that would suit me.
Hmmm – I think I’m pretty normal really! It seems rational to want to make a living through doing something I love and not to have to go to a 9-5 job every day, that would lead me to insanity!
But aside from that, I’m not all that scientific, my logic is very fuzzy…the music I’m into tends to fuel my drawing, so I guess I would go with the mad artist tag..
What impact have the Cramps had on your art and how did you feel when you first heard this band?
They’ve been a pretty big influence, kind of a touchstone for lots of things that I’m into – garage punk music, rockabilly, exotica, horror films etc. they are a really great conduit for all these things that have been around in underground pop culture for the last 70 years or so…I first got into them when I was about 14 and it was like discovering a missing link between all this weird americana that I was fascinated by…
At what age did you realize that your brain was plugged into an alternative universe?
I’ve been plugging it into alternative universes voluntarily as much as possible, through comics, music, literature etc. I think this quote from Brian Eno kind of touches on this;
‘I thought, and still think, that pop music isn’t primarily about making music in any traditional sense of the word. It’s about creating new, imaginary worlds and inviting people to try them out.’ Brian Eno, 1997.
– I like the idea of trying to do that with my work.
Massively so, many artists, musicians and creative types that I know found like minded people through skating…I’ve never been a skater myself, but when I moved to London I started to hang out with people around Slam City Skates, then I began playing with a band called Headshoppe who were all skaters and I began working for the clothing company Silas. A lot of people around that scene have become hugely influential figures in art, music and underground culture in London, they also tend to represent an independent, non corporate spirit that I find inspiring.
Have you ever thought to yourself that you might have be born in the wrong decade, and that if you were born in the 60’s or 70’s you would make more sense?
Not really, a lot of scenes/creative movements seem to be cooler in retrospect. I’m happy that I was growing up in the last analogue decades – the 80’s and 90’s, I developed my creative skills in the pre ADHD internet era!
As an artist, my childhood still influences me, my subconscious is informed by the images that surrounded me as a kid, so I gravitate to graphics and films from the 70’s and 80’s. If I had been a teenager in the 70’s, perhaps I would have dreamed of images from the 50’s?
Where do you find the color for your art when there are so many grey days in London?
I think an early influence on my colour schemes was watching those Roger Corman Poe films, particularly The Masque of The Red Death, I loved the garish, almost psychedelic colours he used. I think horror is often acheived through vivid colours rather than being limited to gloomy pallettes or monochrome. I’m a big fan of technicolour; many of the Powell & Pressburger films, Suspiria… I love all that Profondo Rosso!
Actually right now in London it’s a beautiful day, we’ve had a really good summer.
But as Uncle Monty says in Withnail & I;
“My boys, we live in a kingdom of rains”
What art movements & artists have been the biggest influence on your work?
At an early age it was Bosch & Breughel, Durer, a lot of old etchings and engravings (my father is a printmaker who specialises in etching), Piranesi, Goya. Later it was comics like 2000AD, then Gilbert Shelton, Surrealism, Dada, Ramallzee, Winston Smith (Dead Kennedys), Zap comics, then Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes. More recently I was inspired by a lot of the artists from Fort Thunder in Rhode Island and many of the cartoonists featured in Kramers Ergot; Ben Jones, CF, Mat Brinkman.
I’m also inspired a lot by friends and colleagues in London; James Jarvis, Fergadelic, Susumu Mukai, French.
Are there any hidden messages in your work that you are trying to get people to see or hear?
I don’t think so, unless I’m hiding them from myself as well.. I like people to interpret my work for themselves, hopefully it can inspire other peoples imaginations and be a kind of catalyst.
Describe your creative energy in terms of a food recipe what would be the ingredients?
Squid Ink, Blood Oranges, fluorescent toadstools and plenty of fresh brains.
If you could direct a video for the Cramps in the 80’s, what song would be and what would be the treatment?
Song – ‘I Can’t Find My Mind’
Treatment – seedy/ baroque lower east side speakeasy/lounge bar, animatronic monster heads, stuffed crocodiles, oil lamps, Voodoo altars, The Cramps playing live to a crowd of freaks, junkies & weirdos….hallucinagenic effects and disorientating camerawork.
Or else maybe an animated video for the song ‘Kizmiaz’ in a kind of exotica meets psychedelia style, illustrating the lyrics – ‘take a magic carpet to the olden days, to a mystical land where everybody lays, around in a daze for days and days in Kiz – miaz….Kiz – miaz’. I love that tune, it would be nice to subvert some psychedelic clichés.
Why Alakazam as the name of your clothing brand?
The original concept was ‘magical artworks’. In my mind Alakazam is like a password to another dimension.
What can we expect to see from Will Sweeney in 2014?
A collaboration between Alakazam & Altamont clothing is due in Spring, The next episode(s) of Tales From Greenfuzz, some drawings exploring ancient civilisations and their extra terrestrial influences, hopefully an exhibition or two later in the year.
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