Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 1

by Carnell, Thom

  You have played with a lot of really great musicians and you’ve made a lot of phenomenal music in your career. Is there something left that you still want to accomplish?

  The next album that we are going to do is going to be a concept album. That’s the one thing I really haven’t done yet. So, that’s quite an undertaking because I think Tommy will always be the greatest concept album ever made. Queensryche did Operation Mindcrime, which is another great one. So, that’s the thing I haven’t done musically. As far as the rest of the world goes and the rest of the things that can be done in the world, I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of insular when it comes to what I do. It all seems to revolve around music, because it’s the thing I like the best and the thing I’m the best at. The only other thing I ever wanted to do was to do some film work. I always felt that I would be good within that genre, but it’s like anything else, you have to start at the bottom. I think to be involved in film you can’t just take some success that you have from another field, although some people have done it, not very well, but you can’t just take that success and transfer to film and say, ‘Ok, I’m going to be a director.’ You have to paint scenery. You have to go to acting classes and learn your trade on the set. Then, maybe, you can be good enough to do that. I’ve always hated people who are say the best gardener in the world and they say, ‘Here he is! Let’s make him the best chef.’ Let’s take Wolfgang Puck. Everybody knows who he is, so he says, ‘I’m going to make a record!’ What gives you the right to do that? I don’t go into your place and make food. So, I think you have to learn it from the bottom up to be good at what you do. Again, you can see quality and consistency is my goal. The only way you get that is to learn all the fundamentals of everything and then you can get to that point. Film would be something I would love to do, but I think I’m a bit long in the tooth for that. I’m not ready to go out and be a prop boy at this particular time. But, that’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do other than music was film or video.

  Tell me about the decision to release a live album and where you recorded it.

  Well, we’ve been trying for years and years and years to do a live album. I’d gone to Warner Brothers after our second album, Last in Line and said, ‘Look, we’ve got two blockbuster albums, Last in Line and Holy Diver. This is a great time to do a live record. The band is great and everything is going along very well.’ ‘Naw, we want a studio album.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, we’ll make more money that way.’ ‘Ok, I see…it’s always on the money.’ So, every time we mentioned it, we got nothing until, finally, now, with the new record company, Mayhem Records, we went to them and said, ‘Look, we’re going to be on the road for about a year and a half these two years, we think it would be great to do a live album.’ They went, ‘Yes, let’s do it!’ and there it was. We recorded them in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Bremen Germany, and in Tokyo and we chose songs from those places, but the bulk of them were chosen from this show in Chicago. So, we did a track here, track there, track from the other places. It could have all been from that show in Chicago because it was such a great show, such a great audience. I mean, unbelievable. After waiting seven or eight hours for two other bands to be on before them and it was in a place where you could drink. You can imagine seven hours of that, but they were amazing. It was just as intense at the beginning of our show as they were at the end. And it shows within the live album. Without them, it wouldn’t have been half the album it is.

  It’s definitely a good album. I like it. I was so excited to get it. The other thing that caught my eye was that you toured part of the way with My Dying Bride. How did those shows go over?

  Those were great. Believe me, it’s a tough row to hoe for anybody whose hasn’t had a lot of success to have to open for a band like ourselves because we have such adamant fans. They’re there for one thing and, most of the time, when any other band opens for us, the poor guys are greeted with [chants of] ‘Dio! Dio!’ throughout their entire set. They’ll stop their song and, instead of applause, they get ‘Dio! Dio!’ That’s very disconcerting, but, hey, I’ve been in positions like that before in the early days and I know what it’s like. It’s great [for us] to have people doing that. I felt bad for the bands that had to suffer. But, My Dying Bride was a very pleasant exception. They went down really, really well. They were accepted very, very well. Everybody liked them. We liked them a lot. We thought they were a hell of a good band and great attitudes and really nice guys. So, touring with them was really special.

  Can you tell me about your involvement with the Children of the Night organization?

  Well, Children of the Night is something that I was introduced to by 60 Minutes. They did a program about the founder of Children of the Night, Dr. Lois Lee. Having seen that, both Wendy, my manager, and I said, ‘Wow.’ We were looking for some charity to be a part of because we wanted to give something back again. After seeing that, we both went, ‘Wow. What a great person. The things that she’s done and the difficulty she’s had to do it.’ We called her and told her we wanted to offer our services. So, we were luckily able to be a part of four or five other artists who have been able to build a home here in Los Angeles for Children of the Night. It has a teaching center and a living center and it’s just carried on. We’ve continued to do whatever we can for children of the night and for Dr. Lee who happens to be one of our dearest friends now. In fact, she lives just around the corner from me. It was a real opportunity to give something back. It was a perfect charity because the kids are people who, most of them, were heavy metal hard rock fans whose lives went slightly astray here and there. Actually, we’re talking some serious child abuse here. I mean, both physically and mentally from these kids who were forced to run away. The difference between Children of the Night and government services is that within a government service, if you are taken in by the government, you must be sent back to your parents or guardian and isn’t that like chucking them back into the lion’s den? Certainly it is. You’re going right back to the abusive situation they were in before. With Children of the Night, they can’t do that. These kids can stay until they’re eighteen years old. After eighteen years old, they have to go, but they can stay from nine years old to eighteen years old. They have a place to go. I mean, a lot of these kids are infected with HIV and that’s from the fact that, when these kids come to a place like Los Angeles, they are immediately met by the sharks that are there at the bus station get these kids and – bang – into prostitution and we all know where that leads. So, these are some real troubled kids, but, I’ll tell you, they’re the nicest kids I’ve ever met. They’re so warm and just occasionally revert back to what got them there, the abuse and what not. It’s just such an eye opener just being involved with the kids. It really puts your life back into perspective which, again, is another reason why I don’t have this kind of an ego because I look around me and I see what’s happened to these poor people. I mean, there but for the grace of god, go I. I could be walking in those shoes myself. I just wanted to try to give something back to them. Whatever we can do for Lois and whatever we can do for Children of the Night we did then and we continue to do now because it’s an ongoing thing. We continue to do things for children and I always will continue to do things as long as it stays a viable organization and as long as Dr. Lee is there, of course, it will. We’ve gained great support throughout all these years from other people like Roseanne, for example, who is a very big contributor now. Other people have gotten attracted to it. One of the other ones, and I don’t know if this is oddly enough or maybe not oddly enough, was Tracy Lords, the young actress. She’s a great person, I must tell you. Another person who got into that situation she was in before because she was abused and is now trying to give something back to it. It’s great that someone can do that. Someone who had that kind of affiliation before, which seems to be so sleazy, can pull herself up by her bootstraps and do something like this. So, it’s attracted enough people to keep it a very, very viable entity and it carr
ies on to this day. It’s [about] awareness, too. It keeps people aware that there are these problems in our society, because, for the longest time, we tended to sweep them under the carpet and no one ever knew and the abuse continued. So, the awareness factor is really good.

  Is there anything else you would want people to know?

  Well, we’re going to be going on the road. We’re starting next Tuesday, as a matter of fact. We’re starting in Bakersfield, California and warming up a little bit because we’re to do a tour with Iron Maiden ourselves and WASP are supposed to be going on the road in the middle of June and that goes to the end of July. It’s not quite written in stone that one yet, but we’ve been dealing with it for the last three months and it looks like it’s going to happen. So, we’ll be in your town on our own and with the Maiden tour.

  If you would like to know more about Children of the Night or would like to contribute, check out www.childrenofthenight.org.

  Tim Bradstreet

  Toward the end of CN’s run, we ran into Tim Bradstreet at San Diego Comic-Con, where we’d been lucky enough to meet many of the artists covered in the magazine. I’d always loved Tim’s work and the opportunity to talk to him was one I was not about to let pass me by. The interview went well and we were all geared up to present Tim and his work to our audience. Sadly, it was about this time that things unraveled for the magazine. For a while, I had the text of this interview up on my web site, but I always promised myself that, if given the chance, we’d get this out there for people to see.

  This one was conducted via email, and includes some great insight into who and what inspires him.

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  Rhapsody in Crimson – Issue 17 (unreleased)

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  His work is immediately identifiable. Tough urban “yout’s” who look as if they’d just as soon slit you from gullet to grin as look at you. Faces that display the wisdom of the ages and the pathos of eternity stare out from his work compelling all who see it to feel something. Tim Bradstreet is an artist who brings so much more than technical proficiency (which he has by the barrel-full) to the table. He brings a sense of drama to all of his characters and shows that there is a lot more to being an artist than drawin’ pretty pictures. Best known for his work with White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade, his work is immediately recognizable to anyone who sees it. His breathtaking covers of such titles as DC Vertigo’s Hellblazer garner him more and more fans every day and now, with his newly released book entitled Maximum Black, he is being given the opportunity to show that there is a lot more going on behind his eyes than merely vampires and role-playing games – a lot more.

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  As a kid, were you the type that was always drawing?

  Yeah, I always drew as a kid, ever since I can remember. I would draw on anything I could get my hands on. When I was about nine or ten, I saw a Frazetta art book at the mall bookstore. It haunted me. I had no money to buy it with. So every time I was at the mall I would go to the bookstore and devour the contents. This went on for like a year. Then, I had a birthday and, lo and behold, Frazetta Book 5. It was mine! Before that, all I would draw was cars, stick man wars, and dinosaurs. And then Star Wars came out. At that point, there was a lot of grist for the mill. I kind of discovered a direction.

  Were you self-taught or did you have formal training?

  I am self-taught, completely, aside from a little direction from the occasional professional comment. Comics, science fiction/horror book covers, TV, film and music has been my school. The great director’s vision and the eye of the cinematographer are my inspiration.

  Who do you consider to be great directors? What do you consider to be a short list of great films?

  Not only do I love the great directors, but I also love directors with a keen visual eye. That doesn’t necessarily make them great, but I like ’em anyway. Here is a short list: William Wyler, John Ford, Anthony Mann, Sidney Lumet, Orson Wells, Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Akira Kurasawa, Fred Zinneman, John Huston, John Sturges, Robert Wise, Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonini, Francois Truffaut, William Friedkin, John Frankenhiemer, John Boorman, F. F. Coppola, Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski, Alan Parker, David Lynch, Martin Scorcese, Richard Attenborough, Roland Joffe, Milos Foreman, Jean Jaques Annaud, Robert Benton, Peter Weir, James Ivory, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Clint Eastwood, Neil Jordan, Mike Leigh, Joel and Ethan Coen, Frank Darabont, and among the newer generation, Alex Proyas, the Wachowski Bros., Guillermo Del Toro, David Fincher, this list could go on for a while. Also Cinematographers like Vittorio Storaro, John Toll, Janusz Kaminski, Chris Menges, Vilmos Zsigmond, Haskell Wexler, Fred A. Young, and Robert L. Surtees.

  My short list of great films would read something like this: Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, The Manchurian Candidate, Bridge on the River Kwai, Vertigo, Papillion, Touch of Evil, Seconds, Point Blank, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 A Space Odyssey, El Cid, The Sand Pebbles, Stalag 17, The French Connection, Hell in the Pacific, Deliverance, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, Paths of Glory, The Conversation, Taxi Driver, The Marathon Man, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, Midnight Express, The Killing Fields, The Mission, The Elephant Man, Raging Bull, Breaker Morant, The Duelists, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Das Boot, The Right Stuff, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Seven Samurai, Three Days of the Condor, Blue Velvet, Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ, Pelle the Conqueror, The Grifters, Miller’s Crossing, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Braveheart, Rob Roy, 12 Monkeys, The Usual Suspects, Seven, The English Patient, Fargo, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain, Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann), Leon (The Professional) Another list that could go on for days.

  Have you ever considered doing an ongoing comic series? Is that what you’re working on with Penny Farthing Press?

  Ongoing series are impossible for me at this time. It simply takes too much time. Logistically, it’s a motherfucker. Here is what I do. I get a script. I break that down to thumbnail sketches. Upon approval, I cast the entire story. Meaning: I find models to portray all of the principal characters. Then, there is scheduling the photo shoots. Add to that, finding locations. Exterior and interior locations must be found and permissions received from property owners for me to shoot. If I need a police car, I call the police and try to convince them that this would be a cool thing to help me out with, etc. On top of all that, there are props to be found and costumes to be had or created. Starting to get the picture? I shoot ninety per cent of what you see, sometimes less. So, I get all of these things together and then I shoot it. Then, I get the shots processed and then I go into the darkroom. At that point, I start to draw the book. Easily two-four weeks of prep for a twenty-two page book and then three-four weeks for drawing and finishing. If it’s a 44-48 page book, the prep time would be similar, and the drawing time doubled. Penny Farthing would like me to illustrate a 48 page book for them. I’d love to do it. But a lot of the material is Victorian era stuff, which means costumes. I just finished an issue of Hellblazer for DC/Vertigo issue 141. I did all of the interiors. This is something that over the next year you will be seeing me do more of. I didn’t really do sequential for about six or seven years after the graphic novel I illustrated for Eclipse was never published. Slowly, I have gotten back to it. Axel Alonso at Vertigo had a lot to do with that. Next, I will probably be doing a story for Flinch from Vertigo and then maybe an Unknown Soldier one shot. There are also plans for another Hellblazer story. Beyond that, Warren Ellis and I are going to collaborate on a three issue mini series for Wildstorm under Warren’s imprint. Most recently, there has been talk of Brian Azzarello and me doing a story for the next Batman black and white. That has me very excited.

  A lot of your work has a distinctly “cyber” edge to it. What is it about that look that appeals to you?

  The cyber edge stuff is a distillation of my love for that retro fit look, like Road Warrior or
Blade Runner. I like to start with a base look and then fuck with it; adding tattoos, electric eye’s, blades under the fingernails, data jacks, form fitting body armor, that stuff just brings it all up a notch. That post-apocalyptic look really boosts my interest. The problem is, I don’t know shit about how this technology works. I just want to make it look cool. I feel like I have a good eye for concept and design. Let the engineers figure out how the bloody stuff works

  A lot of your work that the public has seen has been primarily via White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade line. Did you target these assignments early on or did they just come to you? Why do you think it is that your work has helped to define some of the game playing aesthetic?

  It’s funny that the conception is that most people know me from Vampire. I talk to people all the time at shows that have no idea what that is. Most of that stuff was done six-seven years ago. I have done a shitload of stuff since then. I never targeted them. They came to me. I had been illustrating a game called Shadowrun from Fasa. It was one of those Cyberpunk games mixed with fantasy. It was while doing Shadowrun that I began illustrating the style you see me doing today. White Wolf thought I’d be ideal to do their Vampire game and I agreed with them. It was the kind of a job that was kind of lurking around, waiting for me. I had a ball doing the work and I felt that it was special. When that book came out, people just freaked. It was huge. It seemed almost everyone acknowledged the work as something special with the exception of White Wolf. They got huge overnight. I felt that I had a hand in that. But really, I was just another freelancer. White Wolf made that very clear to me. They were so completely unprofessional. Early on, I wrote it off to their fast growth, but it never got any better. In fact it got worse to the point that I refuse to ever work for them again. It’s a real shame. If they would have treated me fairly, what a run it could have been. That aside, I think what was accomplished was a standard of Illustration in a body of work that had never been seen in games to that point. The fantastic cover painter Brom paid me a wonderful compliment when he wrote his quote for my art book, Maximum Black. He said, “The man responsible for making the gaming genre hip.” That kind of comment almost makes up for all the negative shit. I think the reason people like the work is because it is accessible to them. The photo real style makes the characters more real. It is a live action game. If the characters are realistic, I think it makes it more believable that anyone could be something or somebody different. This stuff is very real and special to the people who get into it. In a nutshell, Vampire hit, Goth hit, it was just perfect timing all around.