Talk The Walk.: 2011

A sun that never sets burns on.
New light is this river's dawn.
When to speak of a word so old
Is to relearn what is known.
A time to think back and move on.
Rebuild the loves of lives long gone.
The blood that flows through me is not my own.
The blood is from the past, not my own.
The blood that leads my life is not my own.
The blood is strength, I'm not alone.

The thing which drew my attention to Didi's artwork in the beginning was Neurosis inspired poster (above) which I found somewhere on the internet googling who knows what... Of course, that's not all and I actually found a truly interesting and talented artist from Indonesia. He does artworks for bands, gig posters, but also amazing drawings and digital art not related to music.

Check out his blog and DeviantArt for some more Painsugar Artworks. There is a lot more great stuff which is still available!

www.painsugar.blogspot.com

www.painsugar.deviantart.com

I'm a huge fan of Extortion, and it's not only because of the fast angry thrashy hardcore they play, but also because of the artwork which has been an important part of the work of this band since the beginning. Extortion has had pretty recognizable disturbed visual identity which distinct them very much from many other bands and there is no way that it's gonna leave you indifferent. All those sick covers, posters and shirts were designed and drawn by the singer, Rohan Harrison...

If you maybe haven't checked out Extortion, be sure to do it, especially if you like bands like Infest, Siege, Crossed Out, Negative Approach, No Comment, DRI... www.myspace.com/extortionextortion

And of course, Rohan's artwork blog: www.weiffenbach.blogspot.com

What have you been doing these days?

-Extortion has just done a short US tour, so i'm working a shitload to keep this trip from sending me broke, homeless and selling my body parts for spare change. Here's hoping.

How did you start doing artwork for bands? Did it start with Extortion or before that?

-I've been drawing for as long as I can remember (parents probably weren't too happy with me scribbling over everything and anything at a young age). When I became involved in the music scene in Perth I started out drawing flyers for shows and when I started playing in bands it just made sense to do the art for whatever releases or shirts we were to produce. From there other bands got in contact and started requesting work.

Hand-drawing or computer or both?

-Most of what I do is hand drawn, then any text/layout is done in Photoshop. Photoshop is also great for fixing all those miniscule mistakes that no one else even notices but make me want to blow my own head off.

I noticed there are only a few works you did in color. Why drawing everything black and white?

-Black and white is generally quicker for obvious reasons. Also, most of my designs are for shirts. The more colours on a shirt, the more expensive it is to print, so if I can draw up a one colour design and still make it look good, I'm saving money. I'm very happy to do colour work, but it does take me a lot longer as I do very little colouring in Photoshop, so most colour is done by hand and I generally make many mistakes haha.

Extortion has had many T shirts designs... How many shirts designs exactly have you printed so far?

-I think around 30 different designs? It seems excessive now that I see the number written down hahah. We generally get smaller runs of shirts made and rarely re-print older designs because, well, I like drawing and its a good excuse to draw up something new.

Who are your main influences except Raymond Pettibone?

-Too many! Franklin Booth, Katsuhiro Otomo, Roberth Crumb, Pushead, Arthur Rackham, Ralph Steadman, Shintaro Kago, Frank Frazetta, plus like a billion more. Realistically, seeing almost any imagery can inspire me to start drawing.

Do people still bother you about coathanger abortion shirt design? What do you think, why people found it so "shocking"?

-Nah, it was only printed twice and the only time I really had to deal with people being offended by it was once or twice when it was on the merchandise table. It was a strange one, they sold steadily, but the people who wanted that design REALLY wanted it.
Not too sure why it was deemed so offensive. I'm aware it's horrible subject matter but so are many of the designs that I draw up. It's in no way graphically explicit and no context is given for the scene apart from whats drawn. The aim was to make something off-putting and a little perverse, but many took it as outright morally repulsive to the point I was being questioned as to why I'd even put it on a shirt. I guess my gauge for whats offensive is a little off.

For which bands did you do artwork except Extortion?

-I've done a lot of work for bands of various styles, though most fall under the punk/hardcore genre I suppose. I've done work for Sick-fucking-o, Suffer, Phantoms, Grim Fandango, Lie Cycle, I Exist, Mindsnare, Rort, Jed Whitey, Agents Of Abhorrence, Sensory Amusia, Taipan, Jaws, Battletruk and tones of other bands. I'm pretty happy to do art for any band that asks.

I read somewhere that you planned to start tattooing. So, did you?

-No, I ended up moving to Melbourne, where there tattoo business is already flooded with many tattooist and a great many of those are extremely talented, so it's pretty hard to get into here unless you have the contacts (which I (as you probably guessed) do not). Maybe in the future I'll look into it again. Currently busy enough with art I've been asked to do for bands, websites etc.

Now, about Extortion... What's going on with Extortion at the moment? I see you played couple of shows in March and April and US tour. How was it?

-As stated in the answer to the first question, we just finished a short tour in the US, including shows at Maryland Deathfest and Chaos in Tejas, the whole trip was great. A lot of fun and I got to see some sick bands. The shows we played here in March and April were great too. Playing sydney is always great. We've got one or two new songs in the set now which is always satisfying as playing the same songs over and over can get a little old.

Are you planning some release or maybe some tour somewhere else outside of Australia?

-We just finished a tour, but always keen to tour overseas again. Not sure where we'll go next, but I'd love to play South East Asia and Japan sometime, so hopefully we can organize that for sometime in the not too distant future. We'd also love to play the US or Europe again of course, as we had a great time last time we toured there.
As for releases, we' currently writing for a few splits and a new LP, but taking our time as I wasn't too happy with the last two recordings and want to make sure the next releases are of a high quality songwriting and recording-wise.

The next two questions have been asked so many times in Extortion interviews that they became a cliche, so here they are too...
You sound angry. What pisses you off?

-I ALWAYS get asked this question in Extortion interviews, it's fucking annoying trying to think of new answers. Saying the same thing in interviews every time makes for boring interviews but recently I've been thinking fuck it, maybe I should keep a big database of answers to questions that are commonly asked and then just cut and pasting the relevant answer. You'll probably see this answer verbatim in a stack of zines in the future.

Do you hate babies?

-Babies are odd. I personally find them a little weird looking, rather than cute. It's like looking at humans in larval form. In such a form they're quite useless and to me look strangely disproportionate, which in some way I find intriguing in the way I enjoy weird distorted imagery.
Babies probably feature in a lot of designs I draw up due to this reason coupled with the fact that they're effectively helpless. Therefore working an infant into a scene depicting any sort of violence is going to push the level of aggression implied into absurb territory which is pretty funny really.