swama07的部落格

前一陣子 Fergadelic (Tonite 創始人) 接受 Mash Kulture 採訪,

採訪當中探討了 Fergadelic 一路走來創作的過程,

以及深深影響他創作的各界藝術家 (尤其以音樂影響他最多),

另外, 也探討了他常用的元素以及由來 (龐克,迷幻風,卡通,漫畫風格等),

採訪最後 Fergadelic 也發表了他對於時下潮流和藝術的意見,

喜歡 Tonite 的朋友絕對可以去看一看這一篇採訪 (英文),

另外 Tonite 官網在近期也會有大動作喔! 近請期待!

mashKULTURE: When did you first realize you wanted to become an artist? Did you have any specific direction you wanted to take with your art back then? Has this direction changed since then? How many times? In which directions?

Fergadelic: I always only ever wanted to draw, but I had very little awareness of how this could become a job. My drawing was an act of escape & quite the opposite of a vocational pursuit. It was only when I did Art Foundation that I saw a glimpse of what could be a life in Art…& my short-term response to this was to sign up for art school for a further 3 years of freedom.

Having said that, it was on Foundation that I fell in love with the idea of making T-Shirts & resolved one day to have my own T-Shirt company (which would also be “Big in Japan”!), but I had no idea of how to implement this. My time at St. Martins was spent trying to resolve my varied influences into a coherent graphic style.

This had no relevance to the course work & so I was regarded as a lazy & inept student (even though I was drawing all the time). I wanted to create a style that was contemporary, but built on & infused with the spirit of the art movements that had gone before that I loved so much: *Jack Kirby’s comics, *the Euro- Underground of Moebius, Crepax, Liberatore, etc., *the 80s Skateboard art of companies like Santa Cruz, Skull Skates, Foundation & Zorlac, the artwork of U.K. Punk & of the U.S. hardcore scene, * Airbrush stuff, from the 60s Psychedelia of Alan Aldridge & Michael English to the 80s Robo-Porn of Hajime Sorayama, * the artwork of the 60s Hippies (spanning the Hotrod art of Ed Roth, through Rick Griffin & into the Underground Comix explosion, with people like Robert Crumb & Gilbert Shelton)… I was fascinated by the concept of uniting these various (& often opposed!) artworks & scenes; of channeling all that power & from it, building a mighty & un-assailable style composed of EVERYTHING THAT IS COOL!!!! I feel that I want to develop a complex & varied style, one that is all the stronger for being made up of perhaps contradictory elements.

Perhaps this aesthetic can be best summed up by yet another key moment in music: In 1993, just after I graduated, I went to see The Boredoms. At that time they were playing crazy energized Noise Attack punk!..& yet their abrasive style when experienced live was an amazing melding of so many different musics. In that moment, the walls in my head fell down & any distinctions in musical genres (or at least any sense of one genre’s superiority over another) disolved. Parliament/Funkadelic were jamming with The Ramones & Hawkwind & The Beach Boys. It was all on! & just as this experience forever altered my musical conciousness, so it also spurred me on in my quest to integrate my art style & fuse all those disperate elements. Since that time, I’ve essentially been on that same mission, making it if not more refined, then DEEPER! I’m also obsessed with the concept of making all the different styles present in my artwork TOTALLY INTEGRATED (say, in the way that Kraftwerk’s vision - their music, visuals, record covers, costumes, etc. represent a view into another entirely resolved world). Another thing that I realised quite early on (& have since pursued) was the power of having an Alias under which to present this vision. As though I was a masked Super-Hero. Also, through my own anonimity, I would give the Artwork it’s own life, one which was fantastic & Perfect & which could eclipse mine & my mundane surroundings. Since my time on Foundation I have worked under various identities, the present & longest lived being “Fergadelic”.

mashKULTURE: Do you still collect comics?

Fergadelic: I very rarely buy individual comics these days, I have a very wide range of those already, but I still buy anthologies in book format, which I find easier to read & to store. I was very pleased that 2000 AD brought out “Judge Dredd, The Complete Case Files” - volumes 2 to 5 cover the period that I was really into; I thoroughly recommend those to anyone.

mashKULTURE: How would you categorize your style?

Fergadelic: My criteria for measuring my own work (& often for judging other people’s) is that it has to be SEXY & TUFF & FUN!

mashKULTURE: How did you get into designing for clothing companies? What was the first company you designed for?

Fergadelic: The first stuff I did was for Holmes, the clothing label that Slam City Skates started in 1993, just as I’d left St. Martins. It was good timing, I was right in there at the start. I’d done a few things for Slam City off-&-on over the previous few years but got really involved with the Holmes label. That was the thing that really gave me my start. Holmes was made up of Sofia, the designer & Russell, who worked on the overall concept & sales…& I was the art guy. With them It was very exciting to help shape what Holmes was to become & we had so much fun coming up with weird schemes & ideas. We were doing something quite unusual at that time.

mashKULTURE: When did you first start getting approached by major names like Bape to design for them?

Fergadelic: Let me make this clear: I’ve never worked for Bape, it was for Very Ape that I did some stuff, at it’s beginnings; Very Ape was Bathing Ape’s short-lived brother label, based in London… working for them came through Michael, from Gimme 5 & I met him through having done stuff for Slam City & Holmes. Through Michael I also did stuff for Good Enough & Hysteric Glamour.

mashKULTURE: Do you keep up to date with the latest streetwear/sneaker blogs?

Fergadelic: No! I prefer to see what people are wearing in the street. I walk around listening to my iPod or sit at a pavement Cafe & I’ll people watch…& not just trendy kids; I like to look at everyone’s styles…the best are old hippies /travellers/bums/bikers, who can be categorised as Pirates!

mashKULTURE: What kind of music do you have on your iPod currently?

Fergadelic: My top iPod listens for the past year are something like:

- DJ Cosmic Mixes. DJ Cosmic A.K.A. Daniele Baldelli is an Italian Genius! His mixes from the early 80s are incredible, he has magick ears & an open mind.
- Ash Ra - Blackouts. It’s perhaps my favourite Krautrock L.P.
- Boredoms - lots of stuff & especially…
- Eye - DJ Chaos Mix, this is a Super Amazing mix featuring speeded-up Suicidal Tendencies, Human League, Bad Brains, Flash ‘n’ The Pan, Robert Wyatt, etc., Thanx to Misha for turning me on to this.
- Steve Hillage - his stuff from the late 70s & early 80s, like “Green” & “For To Next”, it’s Cosmic Guitar time.
- The Police - Everything! They Rule!
- Vangelis - Earth…he is a genius & this is one of my all time favourite L.P.s ever.
- Killing Joke - Killing Joke. This, their first album, is so tuff & funky & punky. Thanx to Russell for turning me on to it a few years back.
- Genesis - Foxtrot. I will say this to the readers out there: Inspite of what everyone else will tell you PROG IS COOL!
- Magma - All Of It! (See the comment above)

…there’s lots more going on, but that gives you an idea. Also, of course, I’m listening to LOTS of vinyl, which I don’t have as MP3s.

mashKULTURE: Do you follow what other brands are doing, or do you try to stay away from that?

Fergadelic: I don’t really follow what other people are doing. Of course I’m aware of it to a certain extent, but not to the point where it influences me… I’ve got a lot that I want to say through “Tonite”; it’s about self-expression & individualism which obviously can’t be found by copying other people’s stuff!

mashKULTURE: What is your opinion on the present state of streetwear?

Fergadelic: That something very exciting is about to happen!

mashKULTURE: How do you feel about the role art plays in the streetwear scene?

Fergadelic: I don’t see much art there!

mashKULTURE: What about the fact that a lot of street artists (ie. Banksy, Kaws, Stash, etc…) are getting more recognition globally?

Fergadelic: Good for them, but I don’t feel that I have anything in common with them.

mashKULTURE: What about designer toys?

Fergadelic: To me, it seems like a lot of people just wait in line to buy the latest Kaws figure because it’s trendy, people see it on blogs, there’s a lot of hype, etc… just like with sneakers. Toys are beautiful objects…but these designer toys are very boring… get them out of their boxes, give them to your kids to chew! Free the toys!

mashKULTURE: Tell us a bit about what you did last year, and what we can expect from you in the rest of 2008.

Fergadelic: I’m mainly working - as usual - on my brand “Tonite”, that’s where my heart is. I’m busy making that better… I’ve got some Hot plans! I’m lucky to also be able to do a little stuff on the side: In early 2007, I participated in a Changes show in Milan (The Changes are the band that I do with Misha & Shauna from P.A.M., & Skatething from Bape) we made artwork for SlamJam, the Italian company, who were amazing to work with. That was a lot of fun. I also did stuff for a couple of friends who also make T-Shirts: Toby Shuall who makes Suburban Bliss & Will Bankhead who does Answer. I love what they both do & it’s very nice (as well as important) to be involved working with friends. I’ve designed some sunglasses for the Australian company CoLab, which should come out soon. This was a great project & I’m excited to see how it comes out. I did a very important project, working on a collaboration with Paul Smith Jeans. It was a double-label project for their Japanese stores & I got to design an entire mini-collection which includes board shorts & jewelery & jackets & jeans. It’s been super nice to work with them; an amazing opportunity! I’m very pleased with what we’ve done & can’t wait to see the finished pieces, their production capabilities are incredible. It will hit the shops this April.

Also, I’ve been making music. I’m in a band called Die Verboten, I play drums. There are four of us & we make Space Music! We use LOTS of vintage synths. We’ve done one album already, set to be released soon on double vinyl with gatefold sleeve. I’ve done the artwork for that & it’s a beautiful format to work on. The first L.P.’s not even out, but we’ve started work on the next one already. We’ve been to Ibiza to record, where we set the gear up outside in the sunshine by a swimming pool! That was so much fun & it’s sounding great, too. Well Balearic!

mashKULTURE: Who is involved in Tonite?

Fergadelic: There are a lot of people involved now in various ways… I’m very grateful to them all, but won’t get into a “Thankyou to” thing now. Essentially, I design the range & now I’m joined in that by my Wonderful Wife, who is a fashion designer in her own right…she helps me with shapes, colours, graphics, everything really. Then all the production & logistics are handled by Work In Progress, who are based in both Basel in Switzerland & Weil Am Rhein in Germany, there’s is a big operation (they are responsible for European Carhartt, among other things) & so there are a lot of people there who help… Special mention to Arnaud!

mashKULTURE: Any plans on expanding from just tees and sweaters? Any cut and sew in the works?

Fergadelic: I used to make only Ts & sweats, but I’m going to branch out. I used to want to make only a T-Shirt line, I thought that was a good simple concept (& perhaps me being stubborn, too! I’d often been told it wasn’t possible to survive like that). I’m now ready to meet the challenge of making a wider range of garments (I’m really excited about the possibilities, infact) & I need to keep my audience interested - I really appreciate their support of Tonite & want to keep on giving them more & better things, their great taste should be rewarded!

mashKULTURE: Do you see the brand as something that you will still be pursuing 10-20-30 years from now, or do you plan to create more clothing/t-shirt companies?

Fergadelic: I think Tonite has a huge potential for me personally, as a vehicle for my expression & creativity. I think I”ve only just started, I want to make such great stuff, so I think it could last for a long time.

mashKULTURE: What kind of brands do you really like (besides the ones you already mentioned), and what are the ones that fill you with utter disgust?

Fergadelic: I think P.A.M. make great stuff. It’s really fun & adventurous & unusual. It’s made with real Heart & THAT makes it stand out from what a lot of other people do. I love the brand Patagonia, they do something that you can really believe in. Their stuff costs a bit more than other outdoors brands, but I’m really into putting my money into what they do…I must admit that stylistically I prefer the stuff from the 80s & 90s to what they’re doing now., but if you want a righteous raincoat that’s going to last & last & keep you dry, look no further. I won’t get into the stuff that I don’t like, I don’t want to get into a negative thing.

mashKULTURE: What is the average day for Fergus Purcell like?

Fergadelic: Well, I try not to have too much of a routine, I find it stifling…but an ideal day (it would have to be extra long) would include: I’ll be drinking coffee. Quick blast of Youtube, good inspiration. I might ride my bike, but I love walking around town with my iPod on, too. Maybe check out a second hand bookshop (I LOVE old books). See someone wearing one of my Ts. People Watching - endlessly fascinating, fun & funny. Healthfood Veggie lunch. Take some cool pictures with my camera. Get all those business eMails done in 5 minutes (Yeah, right!). Do some great, new & inspired artwork…& go to the art shop, too & spunk, like, £ 100. Meet up with Bennie for an Art Chat (& possible Stoner-age). Play the drums - RAAAAAAAA!!!!!- it’s SO MUCH FUN! Phone Mum. Go out & do food shopping, get really inspired & come home & cook. Wife gets in , we eat & hang out & have a bit of R&R (can’t ever get enough time doing this). We go to our nice local, the Lord Stanley for a couple of drinx, then go out to a WICKED PARTY at a secret spot, where our mates are DJing & laying down awesome tunes & the crowd is a bunch of mixed weirdos, all on- the Mellow & having an Amazing Time (see you there!). Watch the dawn come up. Go to bed.

mashKULTURE: Any parting words?

Fergadelic: I should also mention my website, which is coming soon: tonitesite.com, look out for it.