John Baizley is a painter and musician based in Savannah, Georgia. He is notable for his album cover and t-shirt art for bands including Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, Darkest Hour, Daughters, Skeletonwitch, Torche, Cursed, Black Tusk, Kvelertak, Vitamin X, Flight of the Conchords and his own band, Baroness for which he is the singer and rhythm guitarist. He has also begun doing art work for monthly guitar publication Guitar World.
Here is an interview with John from the website crustcake.com. I’m only going to post the questions that pertain more to his visual arts rather than his music.
How/when did you get your start in visual art? Did you take lessons?
I think it was a natural inclination of mine when I was young that both of my parents sort of fostered and encouraged in many ways. I took– never really anything too formal. When I was in, like, I’d say middle school I would, from time to time, go take lessons with a teacher and a number of students but I don’t think that was anything that had any lasting effects on it. It was primarily self-motivated up until college.
You started doing visual art before music?
Yeah, I would say I’ve definitely always– I’ve– when I was younger I favored visual arts– it was just more immediate and a little easier to grasp onto I didn’t start actually having and actively participated interest in music until I was like nine or ten. But, I mean if you look through my parents’ photo albums there’s art that pre-dates that by many years, you know?
How do your surroundings affect your work? I’ve noticed a lot of plant life in your illustrations– is there a connection there?
There’s a total connection. Everything that I do is sort of a reaction or an intuition based on, you know, like a present time situation. So, you know, if you’ve ever been to Savannah, you’d know– it’s a fairly lush environment compared to most cities. There’s trees everywhere, and they’re mostly a live oak, which means they’re like deciduous trees that never lose their leaves and there’s, you know, Spanish moss hanging from everything.
Who are some of your influences as a visual artist?
As a visual artist– I have more, I mean I would say there are more than I can even list. It’s difficult for me to name specific people because it’s like, you know, every day, every time I find a new book it’s like, you know, there’s potentially some new inspiration for me, but as a kid growing up in punk rock and metal obviously and, you know, this has definitely been brought to my attention before, and I won’t deny it, but, you know, somebody like Pushead where when I was in middle school and just a total freak for Metallica and that’s what, you know– those were my favorite T-shirts and those were my favorite designs and illustrations.
So somebody like that and then somebody like Roger Dean who did all the Yes covers– he was also one of my favorite album cover artists. So, that tradition in terms of music, but then traditional fine artists, you know, I can pretty much run the gamut. You know, everybody from master craftsmen like Caravaggio up to the present. A lot of contemporary artists too I’m constantly inspired and impressed by.
What about Art Nouveau, any connection there?
Yeah, there’s definitely a connection there too– that was something that I really got a lot of influence on, well I would say about a year and a half ago we we’re touring Europe for two months and over here you have a lot more access to that type of stuff be it actual museums or the art books or what have you so I came back with a pretty extensive library of art books and magazines and, you know, we saw a few museums when we were over so that kind of stuff definitely rubs off on me and that’s something– again, I embrace that type of thing with open arms as well where, if I’m in a museum and something moves me or if I see something in a book that moves me that– there’s inspiration there and there’s reference material for me.
What other things influence you? Books, literature, films… is there anything specific that you can name that maybe when you were a kid inspired you, like a movie that freaked you out, or…
Honestly, nothing really jumps to mind. Because I’ve always been so open with that, anything is great source material for me. So, when I was growing up if it was like the sci-fi stuff like some of the Star Wars or Indiana Jones– that kind of stuff, like, you know, a lot of the Tim Burton movies– when I was younger there was certainly an artistic influence from films.
And then, on the literature side of things, even though it’s not a pictorial medium, the written word is chock full of visual imagery– often times more so than I think something that is visual, you know, where the interpretation is open to the reader, something like that, and that type of stuff is critical to my process. Being able to immerse myself in a language of images or metaphors or icons– something like that– can only be to the betterment of my art.
I love his style and the colors he chooses to use, they truly set the dark and ominousness mood, yet he integrates beautiful blues and reds to offset the more earthy tones.
If you are interested in looking at the whole interview, here is the link! http://www.crustcake.com/2008/05/crustcake-interviews-john-baizley.html
