UNTAPPED TALENT: BRIAN EWING

WHAT DO THE ROCK POSTER INDUSTRY, CLERGY PEDOPHILIA, HUMILITY, HUSTLER, AND DC COMICS HAVE IN COMMON? DOY! THEY'RE ALL BROUGHT UP IN THIS UNTAPPED TALENT INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN EWING BY DEBBIE, YOU SILLY TART!
Brian: I'm not gonna find this on eBay, am I? "A live recording of some guy named Brian Ewing."
Debbie: No, no. Now, you recently won "Poster of the Month" for your Dashboard Confessional piece on gigposters.com. How much of an honor is that for you?
B: It's not a big deal to me. It's like going to art school and having someone say, "Hey, you did a good job." Basically, that's not why I did the poster. I did the poster for financial and personal reasons. Someone hired me to do it. It came out right, and I was happy with it. That was that. Whatever else comes along afterwards is secondary. Popularity contests aren't that big of a deal. As long as I'm happy with what I'm doing, and as long as the bands are happy, that's cool.
D: And has the response from the bands been pretty good?
B: (laughing) No. Actually, I got a "cease and desist" from Dashboard Confessional. They hired me to do the poster, and I gave them half of the print run. But what ended up happening was, I was selling them for $20, but I got down to only ten copies. So I was like, “I'm down to ten. I'm just gonna jack the price up to $40 and get rid of them.” So I got an email from somebody, from somebody from Dashboard Confessional saying that they weren't happy with it.
D: Yikes.
B: I was kind of upset, because they made it sound like I had been taking advantage of people and selling these things for hundreds of dollars. So I emailed the guy and explained, "This is a deal. This is what I did, and I only did this with the last ten posters. It's supply and demand." They weren't even polite enough to respond to the email. I just took the poster off my site and decided not to deal with it.
D: That sucks. Has that sort of thing happened a lot?
B: Presently, no. Just that one time. At first, I took it personally. Then I realized that there's really nothing wrong with what I did. It's getting to a point where, if you put a band's name on something, whether it's licensed or approved or not, you can sell it. So a lot of bands that are starting to be in Spin and Rolling Stone are realizing, "Hey. We're going somewhere, and people are capitalizing off our name. We have to put a halt to all that."
D: It seems like the music industry-- just like they came down on Napster-- now they're gonna come down on underground posters and merchandising. And it's all because it's not technically "legit." All these little art forms that surround music scenes are in trouble now because bands are afraid they're gonna lose a little bit of money. It's not even the bands. It's the management and the record labels.
B: It's crazy. Some bands,.. say Ween, for instance,.. encourage that you go and take tape recorders or a video camera to their shows. There are managers of some bands that trade bootlegs of the shows. But it's weird because everybody just seems so damned crooked in all this.
D: So what's the business side of things like for you?
B: I just like designing the posters. I don't like selling them, because you have to deal with a lot of different types of people. Some people are really cool, and some people are like, "Hey. I know a way we can make more money at this." And I'm just like, "You know, it's not really that important."
D: Do you think you need a manager or an agent?
B: More or less, I want a partner. You couldn't have two creative people trying to run a business, because who would do the business end of it? So I would need someone who's the opposite of me; someone that doesn't want to be a poster artist, but understands the music business and can handle that. It's such a personal thing. You really need to trust somebody, and that's kinda difficult, because everybody's out to get their own. It's weird because people like Frank Kozik, Coop, and Derek Hess paved this really crazy road where you can do posters, but you can take them further. You can create merchandise and properties that can spawn off into cartoons and action figures and model kits.
D: And everything it leads to ends up getting you more royalties. It's a big machine and, as long as there's enough of your stuff out there, the money just keeps coming in.
B: Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are some people who try to design and draw with that in mind. That's fine.
D: In the past few years, things that could be considered as "underground" art forms have been making their way into the mainstream spotlight. Nowadays, you can get a book about graffiti or rock poster art at most major bookstores. Are you happy with that turn in the industry?
B: Well, yeah. Even though you have the Internet, and there's access to so much out there, books are great. Books are like an icon of legitimacy.
D: Now, I heard you used to work in a comic shop. Did that have anything to do with you getting interested in doing poster art?
B: In a way. Actually, I had a friend who was in a band. I just wanted to be a part of it. I didn't want to be a musician, but there were a couple of people in Milwaukee, when I was growing up, who were doing flyers and posters. It was very cool to see that stuff. Also, I had seen a copy of an art rock catalogue, way back when. Seeing Frank Kozik and Coop and Art Chantry's stuff was neat. It was like seeing a comic book and going, "Wow! That is the coolest thing. I wanna draw just like that."
D: I can see your respect for your influences in your artwork but, as far as style goes, it looks like you're doing your own thing. How did you come to that point?
B: I think it was from being in art school. There, you'd see a lot of people that want to be artists, but some of them just want to be a certain artist. They wanna be "so-and-so," you know? Someone had a real big thing for Shepard Fairey. Instead of taking his ideas and running in a different direction, they just wanted to copy exactly what he was doing. I realized right away that I didn't want to be like that. Now I'm just letting things go the way they're going. I quit my job six months ago.
D: Cool.
B: I reached a point where I had to do it and see what happened.The worst thing I would have to do is get another job.
D: If that happens, at least you would have jumped ship and tried your damnedest to swim.
B: Yeah. I'm staying afloat, but I don't know what direction I'm going in. I'm enjoying it though because at my job, emotionally, I just wasn't happy. I would come home depressed. Now I'm not that way. Even though I can complain about all the work I have to do, it's work I want to do. I'm not an elitist about it or anything. I just hated what I had to do for a day job.
D: At least you know that. Day jobs aren't meant for everybody.
B: We're all brought up to think they are.
D: Have you been affected by the market being in the crapper right now?
B: Well, I gave my notice at my job a couple days after September 11th, and I was like, "Aw, man. What the hell am I doing? I'm gonna be in so much trouble." But people want to spend more time talking about how things aren't available, rather than looking for them. There's so much out there. I'm barely scraping the surface with what I'm doing, and I'm really happy. I'm getting by. Everybody says, "It's because you're living in L.A.," but it has nothing to do with that. I think a lot of people don't think that, if you do the hard work, you'll eventually have work come to you. Some people want to draw once in a while, and then expect some big company to come hire them. They don't realize that you've gotta keep working on it and, eventually, people will come to you. I just got hired to do something for DC Comics. I'd never pursued it.
D: You've already had some experience with them through your collaborations with Dave Johnson on those covers for 100 Bullets.
B: Yeah. He saw my website and contacted me. We hung out, got along, and he said, "I don't use the computer that often. Do you wanna color my stuff?" It just kinda led to that. I knew that if I ever said, "Dave, can you get me a job in comics?" he would've just laughed. I didn't want to take advantage of my relationship with him. What ended up happening was, they did a mini-interview with him in Wizard and he mentioned my website. That's what brought DC over to me. They asked me if I was interested in ever doing anything. I said, "Yeah, but I only want to do covers or pinups. I don't want to waste your time by saying I can do all that interior stuff. I can't, and I'll probably just embarrass myself." It's like, you wanna do it because it sounds so cool. But when you have to do it,...
D: It's like, "Whoa. That's a lot of work."
B: Exactly.
D: You don't want to bite off more than you can chew. Then you'd have editors who are expecting you to deliver, wondering why they hired you.
B: Yeah. The Catholic guilt kicks in and it's like the end of the world.
D: Oh God! Don't tell me you went to Catholic school, too.
B: Oh yeah. I was an altar boy and in the choir.
D: Yikes. I swear, Catholic school survivors are everywhere.
B: Yeah, it's brainwashing. Ever since I finished eighth grade, I never went back to church. I remember hearing a joke that the Catholic church is built around guilt. Guilt is what makes you go to church, and guilt is what makes you confess. Then you feel better. That's just not for me.
D: What do you think about this pedophile-priest scandal?
B: I think it's hilarious. In Greek and Roman cultures, way back when, before Christ (and even after Christ), it was kind of a commonplace thing. They were considered pedophiles, but it was just a part of culture. The mentor would have a little boy-toy-- a little slave or student or whatever you want to call it. They didn't want the man going to a prostitute and cheating on his wife.
D: Gee, yeah. You better give him something!
B: It was kind of an unspoken thing. Nowadays, it's nothing like that at all. There's some real crazy shit going on. Honestly, when people hear that I was an altar boy, they assume that I must be in therapy now. But that was never the case. It was always assumed that the pastor of the church was sleeping with some of the kids' moms, but he never touched any of us. Priests are just people. They're not god-like. I think it's funny that it's taken this long for this to come out, because it's always been there. You can't assume that every priest is straight, and you can't fault them for not being straight. There're boys and girls being molested, so it's a crazy thing. I'm actually doing a Melvins poster where I get to poke fun at the Catholic church. Basically, it's a priest and an altar boy. The priest is taller than the altar boy, and he's got his hand on the boy's shoulder. It's gonna say, "Love knows no boundaries-- The Melvins." I'll just let people go with it where they want.
D: Has your artwork led to teenage girls showering you with panties?
B: Um, my girlfriend's probably gonna read this.
D: Oh. So you probably don't want to talk about getting showered with anything.
B: I've had people go, "Here's my number. Let's hang out," or "If you're ever in town, you can crash at my place." And these are people I've never talked to before. I ignore it. Not like, "Oh, I'm better than this." I just don't want this to get to my head.
D: You're humble.
B: Well, I want to be. Some people who aren't humble aren't happy with their work. They're happy with people praising them. That's another reason I don't put my picture on my website; because it's not important. I think, that's why I'm not so gung-ho on becoming a personality for what I do. Meeting people one-on-one is cool, but I don't want to go anywhere beyond that.
D: Mm-hmm.
B: God! I sound like such a hermit-- like I have a really long beard or something!
D: Do you do your work in private? When you go to Kinko's to make copies, do you cover it up?
B: I used to have to, because I used to do work for porno-mags. I didn't have a scanner, so I'd have to scan my stuff at Kinko's. They have it set up so that, no matter what you do, it's on this huge screen. It's just like, "Oh my gosh!" All of a sudden, the music stops. All the copiers stop and you feel like everybody's looking at you. I don't put that stuff on my website now. And it's not because I'm embarrassed by it. That's just not the direction I want to go in with my artwork.
D: Yeah. You want to move on. Last question: what do you aspire for?
B: I don't aspire to make a lot of money. I aspire to excel at what I'm doing. I could be like, "I was talking to so-and-so, and we had lunch." But I don't really live for that stuff. The people that really do talk like that aren't great artists. They're just great at being business people. I don't want to be one of those people. I just want my work to speak for itself.


VIEW MORE OF BRIAN'S ARTWORK HERE.