Episode 58 - An Animated World with Drew Tetz - The Women in Vinyl Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Women in Vinyl Podcast with Jen Dugenio,
founder of Women in Vinyl, and contributor Robin Raymond. This
podcast facilitates conversations with those working in the vinyl record
industry to educate, demystify, and diversify the vinyl community.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to episode fifty eight of the Women in Vinyl Podcast.
Today we're diving into the world a Vinyl animation with
special guest and Women in Vinyl Buddy Drew TETs. Drew
is one of only a handful of people worldwide bringing
the vintage art of the Zootrope to life on your turntable.
Drew's work has captured the attention of artists and labels alike,

(00:45):
with over sixty five exciting projects last year, including collaborations
with Frozen Glass Animals, John Lennon, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas,
and more, including our Women in Vinyl Spooky Slip Map
from twenty twenty three from Arts to the Super Bowl.
Drew has an incredible journey and we can't wait for
you to hear all about it.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Enjoy Drew.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Welcome to the Women in Vinyl Podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Yeah, thank you for having me. It's awesome to be here.
Love what you did.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
True tests, it's true tests.

Speaker 6 (01:18):
I mean longtime listener, first time caller, you know what
I mean? Yeah too, both ways though, both ways.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
It's so funny. It's like the actual first time that
I've ever talked to you instead of just like instagraming,
Oh my god, that's so.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Cool that, like, well, we've been on a couple of
projects together, haven't we. I mean, certainly the most recent thing.
Everyone's about to find out about the bespoke stuff, what
you do, but also get into two of a couple
of years back, I got to do a little promo
slipmat for women in Vinyl, so you know I'm a
big fan.

Speaker 5 (01:55):
So yeah, well, I mean obviously vice person in the
world kind of caught fire in twenty twenty four with
Drew TETs Yah Drew Tetsmania, where everybody was like, oh,
I got I love Glass Animals and Frozen and night
Beer before Christmas and Beetlejuice, Beetle Juice, Beetle Juice, and
and and and of course the Lion King.

Speaker 6 (02:14):
I mean I could go on. I mean, Russell wants
to tell you how much he loves his Street Fighters.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
Six Street awesome as awesome, So I would be glad
to hear it if I didn't get that in there too.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
So yeah, well that as a kid who was a big,
big nerdy fan of Night mem before Christmas and Street
Fighter and all these things, it's pretty it's pretty surreal.
It's it's definitely nice to get into it.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Tell us everything about that little kid and how you
have become to this not so little kid.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, well, I mean, you know I was. I think
that the world has a pretty good grip on the
sort of child I was. You know, I liked drying
and comic books and video games, and you know a
lot of us have grown up and moved on to
being artists and working with a lot of these properties
that we kind of love. So it's really cool that
a lot of my friends who are also in their

(03:10):
mid thirties can kind of relate to that same being
back as an eight year old and being like, oh
my god, I got to do something for the Ninja Turtles. Ah,
his masters Pliny are going to call me. I don't know,
he hasn't.

Speaker 6 (03:21):
Yet, but folks, so operators are standing by.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, So that's that's definitely, And of course I'm sure,
I'm going to talk about this over and over, but
I'm a stupid megafan nerd of so many record labels
and bands and everything. So being able to come back
and interact with all of these things that have given
so much to me in my heart and my world
despite not being able to play a chord or hit
an out, it's really really something.

Speaker 5 (03:48):
I mean, I think that's what we've kind of tried
to shine the biggest light on is that even if
you love records, you don't have to be a musician
to make them. Yeah, Like, there is literally a place
for everybody, no matter how nerdy, along this path.

Speaker 6 (04:03):
So I mean that's it's just like a testament to it.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, because I was the same way.

Speaker 7 (04:09):
I didn't or anything, and I was like, what am
I going to do?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So found my way here late, like a lot of us.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
But yeah, yeah, well it's it's good that we have
stuff to contribute.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
And we'll be in the front row sing along whether
you like it or not. So we'll try to practice
a little bit more on the gang vocals.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
And so you went to art and design school.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, I went for undergrad for just graphic design.
I didn't do any kind of animation or anything. I
was interested in it, but I kind of just thought
it was way too hard. Like I had friends doing
animation and they would spend, you know, two weeks in
a row to get this three second pencil test, and
I was like, okay, good, good for you. That's amazing.
That's clearly something beyond my comprehension. So I never even

(04:55):
like really entertained the idea of being an animator, but
I was always interested in it, and I was kind
of just working in the design field. Well well, you know,
like most freelancers, working in design field means working three
to five jobs, some of which are tangentially design related
and some are just working in a fourth grade classroom.
But that's good, you know. It gave me the well

(05:17):
rounded development to kind of mess around. And at one
point in my life, after my friend had just won
the World Yoyo Contest, which is weirdly the easiest way
to segue into this, I had convinced him to use
his winnings to buy a laser cutter so we could
we had this whole big dream of being independent toy producers,

(05:40):
and actually that was wow. I completely tried to jam
my vinyl obsession into this completely unrelated facet of my
life where it's like, yeah, we're going to make flat
pack little models and we're going to package them in
LP sleeve. So you pull it out and Hank's just
like whatever, dude, all right, I got a couple thousand bucks.
Let's see what happens. I love it. Needless to say,

(06:03):
that company is defunct. We didn't manage to break even
more or less, and we we got to make a
bunch of weird stuff, including at one point I was
working my two to three other jobs and babysitting this
laser cutter in my apartment, which blessed my neighbors for
never calling the cops on me when there were smoke
billowing out of the windows. But I was thinking, you know,

(06:24):
odds are good. I'm not going to be able to
play with the laser every day for the rest of
my life. This is probably not going to be sitting
in my spare room forever. So I want to try
and make all the weird stuff I can. You know,
before before I lose access to this really weird, awesome thing,
and I had remembered seeing I forget what it was
exactly it struck it, but I was thinking about like

(06:45):
wood grain texture, Like wouldn't it be so cool if
you engraved all of the frames in a sheet of
wood and then photographed it. And so it was like
an animated and I tried it. It took forever, looked
really bad, but it was like enough of a I
had invested enough time at that point that I was like,
I got to make it work. I got to make
some kind of physical animation. And so I started thinking
back about like the Victorian stuff, the actual pre cinema,

(07:09):
like zootropes. Yeah, yeah, the Phoenix eustoscopes and zootropes. Because
I remember being like four or five years old in
the Saint Joseph Children's Museum and that was like really
one of the first times I understood like a cartoon
is a series of animations because they had one of those,
uh you know, the little carousels with the slits in

(07:29):
it and you spin it by hand, and they had
a little running dog. So I can remember being like,
you know, three feet tall and just being like, oh
my god, the dog starts moving, like these are all
the pictures. So you know, I guess I've always had this.
I've always wanted to be an animator, and this was

(07:50):
just after twenty something years of wanting to do that.
I finally got to a point where I was like,
all right, this is a weird enough angle where I
don't have to think about, you know, pencil tests and
storyboarding I can do. I'm just gonna sample this, this
little illustration loop of data lists on his drum machine,

(08:11):
and sixteen frames. I can make sixteen frames happen. And yeah,
and I the weirdest thing looking back at it is
that I never did an actual paper print test. I
was like, it's got to be on the wood. I
got it, spent three hours later engraving it. So clearly,
you know, I can't say that I had a great

(08:31):
plan of mind. A lot of it was definitely just
kind of messing around. But then like when I put
it on the turntable and I got the lights on
and I started playing with the speed and I actually
got it tuned into where the image came to play,
it was like, oh my god, it's working. This is
you know, it's here. It's not on a screen. It's
not you know, I didn't draw this and play it

(08:53):
back in Adobe Photoshop. It's just it's like actually on
the turntable in the world and I can see the frames,
and that was like mind blowing to me. It was
like taking me right back to being five years old
and the children's museum suddenly understanding how cartoons work totally.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
Where is where is Saint Joseph's.

Speaker 6 (09:11):
Yeah, shout out to the Mitten, Yeah, shout out.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
To children's museums.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
Yeah, museums in general.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
I mean that really feels like the dream jobs, like
just getting to make something that a little kid will
see and be like, oh, that's cool. I want to
learn science. Whoever's job that is doing the Lord's work.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
The docents in the museums that know more than sometimes
the people that are curating the exhibits, bless them all
absolutely absolutely, So I mean, what what was that first image?

Speaker 4 (09:47):
What?

Speaker 1 (09:48):
What?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
What did you?

Speaker 6 (09:49):
What did you make?

Speaker 4 (09:50):
So the very first one I did was it's of
that musician Daedalus. They're a they're from the Los Angeles
beats scene. I mostly know them from their well they
did a lot of sort of labat Seine tapes, and
in the two thousands they had a really great mixtape
with Radio Inactive and bus Driver called The Weather which

(10:11):
is a sort of experimental you know, two thousands mush
Anticon style, really experimental hip hop and a lot of
borderline spoken word and experimental tape loops that kind of stuff,
And it was one of the first sort of I guess,
experimental hip hop projects that sort of took over my brain.
So I've really always admired them and their approach to
be making and stuff. But beyond that, they're also an

(10:33):
incredible performer. Because you know, a lot of drum machine performers,
they're awesome to listen to, but they get that sort
of laptop face where they're just super focused, droning out
pounding on the four pads, which is like, you know,
sounds awesome, but you aren't necessarily not them. Alfred Weather. Yeah,
when Alfred is on stage, they're moving their arms, they

(10:55):
get the full range of motion. It's like it's really
something to watch. It's like it's almost like the Bugs
Bunny composer skit and I made that in the most
positive way. They're an absolute wizard music and they're fabulous.
So that was that was like, Okay, this is a
cool little illustration I grabbed that I did to my credit,
tried to do a couple of little moving shapes like

(11:17):
starbars turned into a circle and expanding, and I think
partially because I didn't actually know what I was doing,
I kind of just was like, I'm going to do
one at sixteen frames and one at twenty four frames
and just put them all on there. So Alfred or
data List is the one that actually came into into focus,
which I don't know if that was you know, Kismetter whatever,
but that was really cool because later that year the

(11:40):
data List actually saw the piece and that led to
my first sort of official music piece, which was working
on the special request video for them. Yeah, so that
was really cool and kind of wooden era before I
figured out I could actually print on paper and I
didn't really know what I was doing. It was really
nice to have kind of this the mentor figure that

(12:02):
I had always admired, not necessarily mentor I don't want
to you know, at bit Yeah. Yeah, well, well someone
that who had always inspired me to like look at
what I was doing and be like, wow, this is
this is cool. What can we do with this? Even
though it was very formless and chaotic and had a
ton of artifacts and everything, it was really nice to

(12:23):
have that kind of encouragement. So I'm forever grateful to
Data Lists for really taking me along that first year.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
That's awesome. I love that so much.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah, it was really cool.

Speaker 7 (12:31):
And maybe for people that don't know, I mean, you
talk a little bit about the old school animation, but
like specifically what a zoetrope is, Like I was reading
the make article that you wrote before this.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
And maybe you could just explain a little bit about that.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, So zoe troops are super interesting because well, I mean,
obviously I like them a lot, but I think they
actually are a really interesting facet of kind of the
whole history of film because they they predate pretty much
all animation formats. The first recorded zorch tripe actually predates
the flip Book, which is insane to me.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
Because how are you going to.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
How are you going to figure out putting them in
a circle and spinning that before you figure out just.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
I mean, much like you and I, it's the hard
way first, and then you're like, it just doesn't have
to be this way.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
Let's backtrack in a minute.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
I get it absolutely mental to me that there were
people in the seventeen hundreds eighteen hundreds figuring this out
without computers, without you know, anything, They're kind of just
drying up my hand. And I don't know. I can't
imagine what it must have been like for the first
person to spin it up and actually see the illusion
of motion, because you know, that's without well, without television obviously,

(13:42):
but without even flip books. You know, it's just so
insane to think about. But yeah, to keep stop myself
from building it up forever. It is the original form
of animation. It's a pre cinema device where basically it's
a circle and around the rim of the circle there's
a sequence of images sort of like a film strip

(14:02):
that laid out in the circle, and there's a series
of slits in it. And the way that it would
work was they would hold it in front of a mirror.
I was getting a little confused about which is the
zootrope and the phoenichis to scope and all of these variations,
because essentially they're all fake Greek names invented by victorians
to sell their parlor tricks. So if I get the
technical name wrong, I apologize to any art historians to bust me.

(14:25):
But as I remember it, the zootrope was the flat
disc with the slits, and he looked in the mirror
and spun it. And because the slit would it would
create a blink, almost like the flashing of a film projector,
and that would trick your brain into sort of resetting
the image. So suddenly, instead of being a blur of
the same image over and over, it would actually separate
into discrete frames. And that blew the doors open in

(14:49):
the next twenty years. You know, it was around that
time that Edward my Bridge took the first photographs of
the horse in motion, so that's generally considered the first
film clip. Ever, it was only twenty or so years
later that they started we got the projectors and they
started figuring out how the flickering light could make it bigger.
But in that weird like fifteen year thing where it's

(15:12):
just purely printed matter, no lights at all, it's people
just like standing in their living room spinning the spinning
circles to watch the little devil dance around or whatever,
Like what a what a weird time, what a weird
magical decade of motion picture history. Yeah, so it's it's
kind of weird that the modern soa trope, as we know,

(15:35):
just focusing on the turntable stuff. It's really tied into
the turntable, so locked in at thirty three rpm. And
the other new wrink was that most of us work
with the magic of smartphones, so we aren't building enormous
physical carousels and said, we're relying on the frame rate
of the camera, which is thirty frames per second. So
when you look through that, it makes the flicker and

(15:56):
it lines up perfectly with the record, so you get
the frames popping into place and you can see it
on screen. You can also use a strobe light, which
is much better for like showing a group of people
at a party. But yeah, that's that's basically the science.
I don't want to go all day because getting into
the brothers Luomier and the mirrors and practicinoscopes. But it's

(16:17):
cool stuff.

Speaker 6 (16:19):
Well it's cool.

Speaker 5 (16:21):
It's cool that you know all of that stuff too, though,
I mean there's so many of us that are kind
of in spaces that we don't really have that appreciation
for the history and the lore.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
So I mean that's I'm trying. I wish, I wish
it was a little bit better preserved corner of film
history because I'm if you're perfectly honest, not a great
art historian. I try my best. I'm really awful member
and dates and stuff, so well. I did go to
grad school and do my thesis paper about this, and
I tried, yeah, yeah, And I think if you have

(16:52):
access to an academic library or whatever, maybe you don't
even neat that. Maybe you can just google it. But
whatever the route is to reading thesis paper, if you
do want to go and read a little bit about
the history of zoetropes. I tried my best to compile it.
But I'll be honest, this is a little bit of
a neglected corner of film history. I wish I could
say I was doing a lot to preserve it. I

(17:13):
think the best I can do is just try to
make cool new ones and hope that people get stoked.
But it is definitely a weird little area that I
wish that I knew more about, because so much of
it is just like that, all the famous ones like
that one everyone knows of the devil swallowing the man
flying up. It's like eight frames and you see it
mentioned in every early photo history lecture ever, and nobody

(17:38):
knows who drew that. It's not like signed or anything,
so we have no clue. So things like that, I
was like, Wow, that's weird.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, so awesome that that's like ones.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
It makes me want to like update my discogs page
with better citations, though, like, oh man, what am I
not getting credited for?

Speaker 3 (17:55):
I hear you, I hear you. That's all them.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
So, I mean, I've got a different take on it
of how the process works. But can you explain how
a band would or a label or somebody would approach
you and get to collaborate or is it a little
bit more like, oh, no, I have this idea and
you come to them where you're like, no, this is

(18:22):
how it should be.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
That would be cool, that would be cool. But no,
I'm definitely very much I'm from a back kind of
the graphic designer rather than a fine artist. So I
think that's good for me for working in the record
industry because I don't really have like an ego of
trying to put forward a specific image. It's really just
you know, this is their record, this is their world
that they built. Most of the time that I'm getting

(18:44):
on a project, they even have the cover art and
the visuals hold on, so that that works really well
for me is sort of my history as a standards
based designer because I'm like, all right, what's the what's
the brand here? You know, what's the world that you're building? God,
I don't mean to say brand, that sounds so corporate
and gross, but you know, what's the story you're telling?

(19:05):
Like the visual identity? Yeah, and I will admit it's
a lot easier for me to do, you know, a
repress a twenty year anniversary of some punk album I
listened to when I was sixteen. Then, like a modern
pop artist, I'm going to have to spend a couple
of days listening to them and getting into their world
before I can claim to really understand what they're about.

(19:26):
But I think that's like also so exciting, just sort
of yeah, trying to decipher their world and break it
into this other visual that's like the coolest part to me.
But to get back to the actual question. After rambling
for a bit there.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
It's okay with the Queen of ramble, it's so fine.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, Generally I'm added pretty late on the project. You know,
the album's all recorded. Album art is almost always done,
so what they say is usually you know, we're planning
out the vinyl releases. We want to do it picture
disc zootrope. This is what we have so far? What
can we do? There are cases sometimes where someone has

(20:08):
a specific idea. Sometimes people are even like, we have
this animation made for you, which is like wow, for me,
you made that for me. But most of the times
it's very open ended, which I think is really cool
because it gives me a chance of sort of dialogue
with it. Obviously just trying to find the best execution

(20:30):
to match the identity of the album and the sound
and everything matchdundividual, but going through that process of breaking
down all the individual elements of the album cover and
like trying to go through the lyrics and find crucial
themes and eventually putting together a little older of eight
to ten options that they say, Okay, these are the

(20:51):
two that we want. That's like good, and you know,
it's it's not always that linear. Sometimes they're like, we
don't like any of the can we have? Can we
have six to twelve of something else entirely? Oh my god?
Or sometimes they're like this is great, we'll take it.
I'm like, wait, no, that was the draft. Don't don't
send a press yet?

Speaker 5 (21:16):
How long does that process take though, Like from let's
say Jen and I are about to drop our hot
beat tape and we're like, oh, yeah, it's time for
the vinyl. How long is your process for designing six
to twelve or eight to ten crazy sides?

Speaker 4 (21:33):
I mean, I like to ask for a month, because
that's usually about a week of a week of sketching,
and then a week of like where we check back
in we're like, Okay, this is probably feasible, and then
at like the two week point, I try to drop
a wide survey of like everything that could possibly not
necessarily polished up, but like this is the general direction

(21:54):
it will go. Then from there we kind of try
to pick. If they can pick two sides at that point,
it's awesome because then we have two weeks just to polish.
But more often than that that's just round one and
then week threes, round two, and then week four is
when we all freak out and drink lots of coffee.
And of course record industry, being that it is a

(22:16):
month is you know a lot of times a luxury
that's sometimes two weeks. I've tried really hard to say
no to week long jobs, but I like buying groceries.
So I'm not above it to well.

Speaker 5 (22:30):
I mean, twenty twenty four was kind of a banner
year for you, was it not. It seemed like twenty
four was the unofficial year of the zootrope.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
It was a big one. I'm really grateful that I
got so many, so many jobs done. I think the
final count was sixty four pieces. I did it. I
did an end tally, and as soon as I posted
it to Instagram, like two people were like, hey man,
you forgot that record we worked on and I felt
like an ass and I updated it and then like

(22:58):
two more people were like, dude.

Speaker 6 (23:00):
What about this one?

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Yeah, So I either have to stop doing that or
get better at my bookkeeping because I'm offending people and
it's not good.

Speaker 6 (23:11):
I'm sorry guys.

Speaker 5 (23:15):
When you I mean, when you have that any incredible projects, though,
it's hard to Yeah, especially if you're looking at like
a two week turn around for some of them.

Speaker 6 (23:25):
I mean that that's hard to keep.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
Trying to be fair to me, at least three of
them were things that had been completed in twenty twenty three,
and they so I was like, I forgot you know
that that was a twenty twenty three job, so totally,
that's that's what I'm telling myself to feel better about
my increasingly short term memory. But yeah, it was. It

(23:49):
was a big year, and for all of us too.
It's a pretty small scene the Zotrope Zotrope Covin. There's
only like five of us really, so I think that
last year was probably the busiest year for any of
us yet because definitely Quentin Lemai, the Swiss animator, who

(24:11):
was one of these Oh he's amazing. He had some
of some of the biggest stuff because that was his
year with eminem and with the Lincoln Park disc. DJ
keV had i think four record store Day releases. Sculpture
did one of their own releases, which was pretty cool
that it's it's nice that there's still an artist who's

(24:34):
doing their own completely not commercially viable, really awesome abrasive
art stuff kind of in our collective as well. And
then we also had a couple kind of newer people
in the scene. Iziero Smith did a really nice zoetrope
for take that for Sony, So I think it was
a really great it was it's nice to not feel alone.

(24:56):
It's it's nice that I can like everyone, I can
tell someone what my job is and they'll know what
I'm talking about.

Speaker 5 (25:03):
Yeah, I feel that, Yeah, I feel that definitely, Absolutely
I do. But I mean like designer to designer. Yeah,
like with me, Jen, is that something that you ever
thought of like doing or implementing? Is that like you know,
it's animation, something that you ever considered doing?

Speaker 7 (25:22):
Oh no, like Drew for me, those people were in
a dark room for long periods of time.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
He gets his work. I mean, no, same stuff like you're.

Speaker 7 (25:33):
Building a whole a whole hallway or scene or whatever
for like months like I just for me it was
photography and then pretty much into textile design from there.
But you know, I think it's interesting because when you're
talking about this collective, do you ever pass work to
each other?

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Like are you absolutely?

Speaker 7 (25:53):
This one doesn't really fit me so well because I
think that's interesting that people might not know is like
we all likes for things, and so sometimes when I
would be freelancing or doing things, people would come to
me with a project. Actually, like way way early by
only Please, like they were first starting came to me
and were like, hey, can you design something for this album?

(26:13):
And I was like to be honest, like it wasn't
inspiring me and it wasn't something that I felt I
could create a good piece, so I like passed along
other names that maybe work for projects with you.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
All.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah, it definitely happens. I'm super proud of them. I
keep saying it's a scene. But it's funny because it's
it's so unaffiliated, Like we don't obviously, we don't have
a union, we don't have health insurance, we don't have
a conference we go to, and I think that I've
only talked to like one of them ever on zoom

(26:45):
or anything. But like, at the same time, we do
feel I think maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but
I definitely feel like we have this shared bond, if
only because we're the only five weirdos in the world
who care enough about this dead art format to keep
doing it stubbornly. And then like now that it's like
actually kind of taken off for us, we're like, oh, yeah, this.

Speaker 7 (27:06):
Is what.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
I mean. We were pretty happy when we were just
trying to impress each other, so this is this is
unreal to get some other artists that we respect in
the mix.

Speaker 7 (27:18):
Too.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
But but yeah, in terms of passing work around. That's
absolutely true for one thing, just because, like I said,
it's been such a busy time. There's more work than
any of us can handle. So there's been so many
times I'm like, man, this is such a cool project.
I physically don't have the bandwidth to make it happen,
but I really want to see it happen. This is
my complete rollodaxe. Please hit up one of these six people.

(27:41):
I hope one of them has available in their schedule
because I want to see it done right, because it's
it's it's the worst when you you know, absolutely I
want to walk in anybody who wants to try Zootropian
into the field. We need more animators. But also there's
nothing worse than like seeing it done and you're like,
oh no, call me.

Speaker 5 (28:04):
I think that's just how like the record business feels
in general, the way it's just like, really, that's what
you did?

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Oh no?

Speaker 4 (28:10):
And and in a way it's I know, it's so
precious and entitled as a fan to be like no,
I wanted to do that one, but also it's like no,
it could have done so good. Yeah, So I'm really
grateful when I see a cool project. If I'm not
able to do it. I'm really glad that I can
say Kevin can do that and he can, and like, yeah,

(28:31):
there's we're all doing that. I definitely got some jobs
from keV last year. Izzy to take that one, she
stepped in from me because that was with the Sony
UK guys that I usually work with, and she did
a great job. So yeah, it's it's really nice. And
and like you said, like not everybody is. I mean,
I'm a really standard story and a designers, so I

(28:52):
don't mind just stepping up to the plate and seeing
what they have. But if they want me to do
like original character animation from scratch, it's like, ooh, do
you have like a model or some reference images. But
Quentin is great at that. He's got a great background
in that he's doing you know, independent stuff all the time.
And so what he did for Lincoln Parking, for eminem
and for Baby Tron, all three of those were original

(29:15):
animations that he did in cinema forty cool.

Speaker 6 (29:18):
Those were super cool.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
Yeah, and he did great and I think that that's
you know, that's he's definitely the best out of our
group at three D animation and character animation. But I think,
you know, I probably have a little more experience with
sampling and breaking down film clips. I'm probably the most
experienced out of that, out of the group of us.

(29:41):
So it's nice kind of all.

Speaker 7 (29:44):
And all the.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Yeah, all the sorry on spooky stuff.

Speaker 6 (29:49):
Okay, yeah, the spooky stuff we love this week.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
I do like this spooky stuff.

Speaker 5 (29:52):
There was a record that you did last year, I
think it was last year, and it was like rain
Drops that was just beyond because it's so I mean,
like animation wise, it's maybe like not that like wow,
we wow, but it looked so realistic and it was
just so mesmerizing to watch because it actually looked like

(30:15):
rain on your window.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, thank you. I'm really glad you liked that. One
was for That was for Holly Humberstone Paint Your Bedroom
Black or pay My Bedroom Black, and it was It
was released with Blood Records. She's a really talented singer songwriter.
I don't think she's really got many listeners in America yet,
but I think she's kind of making some progress in
the UK. She's she's great, though amazingly talented songwriter and

(30:41):
when when we got the assets for her album, it
was mostly a lot of kind of just like photography,
there wasn't really a whole lot of animation. We did
have access to the music videos, but they were sort
of just the pop star, you know, singing. I think
she's like riding on the back of a truck. So

(31:01):
it wasn't really as compelling as sort of the vulnerability
in her songs. It sort of made it feel a
little bit. I mean, we mocked those up and we
did put them there, but I felt this thing with
the rain drops, I really wanted to get something that
kind of I don't know how to describe it without

(31:25):
sounding like a big emotional teenager, but like shes.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
Same kind of the feeling of the record.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Yeah, she has this vulnerability in her songs where a
lot of it is about being nineteen and drunk and
crying and like this this feeling of kind of like
looking out the window and the tears going down the
window or the rain drops but that's you know, on
your face. Something about that metaphor really stuck out with me.
I don't think I think she does have a lyric

(31:54):
about rain on the window, but it's not on that album,
it's on the previous one. But something about that really
stuck with me, and so we got the the rain
drop sliding outward on one side and then inward on
the other, which visually it's just more dynamic. But you know,
if you want to if you want to be a
emotional art teenager and get conceptual about it, I think

(32:16):
it's a sweet tie into the record too. So I
think it was cool to get that little dialogue with it,
that one.

Speaker 6 (32:22):
That one was so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, that one.

Speaker 7 (32:25):
It's not necessarily on the nose, you know. I feel like, yeah,
books that emotion from it, which is really cool.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, And I really like when artists are really interested
in trying something that's a bit out of it's not
just directly tied to the album art. And I think
that there's a lot of artists that well, I think
a lot of artists are interested in that, but just
don't have the deadline or the budget to make it happen. So,
you know, I totally love I love working on cool

(32:54):
album art and stuff, But like one an artist is like,
but what if it's this weird third thing that's outside
of the existing mythology and it ties in and it
makes the you know, this is like it's a piece
of the whole album, but it's like a it's a
new piece, like that's I don't know, special, So it's
like getting to play on an unreleased B side or something.

Speaker 6 (33:15):
Totally on Triangle.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Yeah, I love it. Yeah I could. I could probably
handle Triangle. They might have to just mute me in
the mix, but I could stand on stage and hit it.

Speaker 6 (33:24):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Well, you and Robin worked on a pretty awesome collaboration.

Speaker 7 (33:28):
Yeah, yeah, maybe we did share of that as you can.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
Absolutely, they actually never made.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
It because our recording day is today and the thing
is tom Marrow, and this will come out after.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
I think we're okay.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah. Also, they never made me sign an NDA, which
is crazy, Which is crazy. I guess they figured that.
Like if I was like, hey, I'm in the super Bowl,
people are just like, okay, whatever, Drew, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and then we're going to Disneyland exactly. But yeah, let's
put the cart before the horse. We we're in the

(34:04):
super Bowl. We're going to the super Bowl and.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
Going to the super Bowl like on a team, on
a team exactly.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
As we are carrying the World of a Final to
the super Bowl proudly. So where it's Yeah, this really cool,
surreal opportunity. In November, I got an email from a
producer at Fox, Jesse Weiss. Super awesome guy, really fun
to work with, and he basically said, super Bowls in
New Orleans this year. Me and my boss both love

(34:34):
like music, and we're trying to find some kind of cool,
jazzy connection to the city. Do you think you could
do like a football zoo trope? So yeah, I mean sure,
yeah Fox Money, Yes, yes, I can do that. But
but it was really cool they sent me. He sent
me they have these like half hour long film versions

(34:57):
of every super Bowl ever recorded pretty much, and he
was like, do you think you could chop up this
one with Tom Brady in it? Because he's one of
our guys on the announcing team, and so I think
that will help us like push it because he'll be like, oh, hey,
that's me. So I spent Thanksgiving break putting together some
demos and yeah, there he is this one. That's the one.

Speaker 6 (35:18):
The Brady there, he was right at the top.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
Yeah, oh my god, I'm working with Robin and Drew.
This is great.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, he's so stoked. I mean, I understand there's a
lot to take in, but but yeah, long. In the
short of it was they they were stoked on it.
They've they came back to us pretty quickly, and the
question then was like, how are we going to make
these which obviously this is where Robin enters the picture.
Actually it was it was Heath that wax makes Mage

(35:49):
who recommended you specifically, because guy, yeah, I love Heath,
great dude, but he's one of the people that a
lot of the times when I have an idea that
I'm not sure if it's going to work or not
because it seems really expensive, I'm like, hey, man, this
probably won't work, but if it did work, how do
you think we could do it? And You're like, yeah,
talk talk to Robin. There's no way we're doing that.

(36:11):
I got a groove that doesn't make any sense at all.
So he put me in well, we've been in contact before,
but I reached out to you and then put Jesse
in contact with you, and it was, yeah, pretty smooth
sailing from there.

Speaker 5 (36:25):
It was pretty quick.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
It was yeah, it was frighteningly efficient. I have to
say I don't want to detegrate any of our brave
comrades in the music industry, because you know, Lord knows
we're all one person working out of garage on sixteen
projects at a time. But like the efficiency with which
I was like, oh, do you think I could get
a different version of this, and then like fifteen minutes

(36:47):
later they'd email it back.

Speaker 7 (36:48):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
It's like it was like a very bizarre and I
love being DIY independent and working with a bunch of
overstressed or caffeinated weirdos. That's great, but like like to
like be on a team where like everyone knew what
their job was and like I never felt like I
was late. It was like this is so weird. Yeah,
what am I forgetting something? I feel like I should

(37:10):
be doing someone else's job right now. But no, it
was it was really cool.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
Well and from my side, I mean it was just
like you sent me I think, either an Instagram note or.

Speaker 6 (37:22):
Like an email, and you're just like, hey, can you
do this?

Speaker 5 (37:25):
And I was like, yeah, let's do it. I was like,
there's no problem, I can. I can do that all day.
And then it just it was like when do you
need this? Because I was traveling at the time, and
I was like, oh, I will need those on this
day in order to do that for one week, and
then those be done and in your hands before I
leave again.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
So but we did it. We got it done. We
did eleven records and basically a month and a half,
which is, you know, don't yeah, you're listening to this
and you're a major label, don't make me do that again.
But we did it. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
I mean, and that's the thing, because there was like
there's twenty different images. Yeah, so I mean, I've got
some of the ones. So that's the one that Drew
was talking about with Tom Brady on it. I mean, obviously,
I'm not a turntable and we're not doing this at
frame rate, but for those for those of us that

(38:19):
are not listening on the ear holes and watching.

Speaker 6 (38:22):
Us on YouTube, this is what it looks like. I
don't know if you need to bring closer.

Speaker 5 (38:28):
And then there was this really I think this one
is actually my favorite one.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Oh yeah, oh that's cool. Yeah, yeah, they have a
really cool I forget the name of the animator that
I worked with, Michelle. I'll credit on her on Instagram
whenever I get to post it, but she's she did
some really cool illustrations of like a riverboat and all.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
This sort of Yeah, I've got the Riverboat here and the.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Like New Orleans flirt Lee and stuff. So I think
they're really good job.

Speaker 6 (39:00):
This one with the trumpet player too, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
Well. One of the things I always really like about
Zootropes is like when you look at the record as
a whole, you kind of you don't see any individual images,
but you see the whole color palette all at once,
and you kind of get a feeling for the record,
and it's it's kind of cool to do that was
like a big, super huge budget thing like the super
Bowl instead of like you know, punk band from Ireland,

(39:27):
because it's like, wow, you guys are serious. You've got
you've got three versions of that font and you know
that I use the wrong pantone, so I'll fix that
right now. I'm sorry. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (39:38):
Well, I mean this one was super cool to be Like.
Jesse was like, do you want to can you do
these works for the super Bowl? And I was like,
excuse me, yeah, I am Canadian?

Speaker 6 (39:48):
What yeah, I can?

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Sorry? What would you say?

Speaker 7 (39:51):
And Jed I said, where could people see them? Or
where will they be shared?

Speaker 4 (39:56):
I have no idea where they're going to be afterwards.
I mean, it's one of those things where it's like
the super Bowl.

Speaker 6 (40:01):
So yeah, I mean it's going to be on it's
on Fox.

Speaker 7 (40:06):
Yeah, I wonder little segments because like it looked like
one of those said coming up.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Maybe Yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
Think I think the intention is to use them as
like the advertising bumpers.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
Well yeah, yeah, I think I think they're going to
be the bumpers, like you said, My initial understanding was
they're going to be like sort of the lower third bars,
like just the imas. But then when I saw the
like they went and they got a little set set
up with you know, a little room with records on
the walls and a DJ actor and everything. So that
makes me feel like there's going to be at least

(40:39):
one full screen moment where our records will be broadcast
into the eyes of Americans.

Speaker 6 (40:45):
We need to need to watch. Yeah, I was like,
do you worry to watch the Super Bowl?

Speaker 4 (40:50):
I'm had to. I already had to figure out how
to download two B and wash it on my TV
because I don't have television.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Anyway. Sports, let's see the record, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (41:02):
All of all of the music people are like, just
just get to the halftime show. Now, there's just like
this bonus thing that all of us nerds are like, oh.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
It is pretty It is pretty cool to get associated
with Kendrick in this extremely seven degrees away kind of way, like, yeah,
I'll take it. Yeah, I don't think he's ever gonna
ask me for a record, but I'm like, yeah, we're
at the super Bowl together kind of I wasn't there.
I was at home.

Speaker 7 (41:26):
Well, you also are in John Lennon, right, so yeah, yeah,
you want a Grammy.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
Well I technically didn't want a Grammy, but I did
contribute work to the Grammy winning box set for Mind
Games Relation. Yeah, thank you. Are directed by the wonderful
sean On o'lennin and equally wonderful Simon Hilton, two really
great guys who are really really passionate about John's music
and art. I think did a really beautiful, insane job

(41:56):
looking at the box. I was just looking at the
box with my dad yesterday because he's, you know, raised
me on the Beatles, and I think I think when
I had told him about it, and even when he
had seen the pictures, he hadn't fully internalized how much
stuff is in the box.

Speaker 5 (42:11):
Oh, it's jam packed.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
It's basically a museum exhibit. Like if you were to
go to you know, the Hirshorn or something, and they
were to dedicate three rooms to John and Yoko in
New York in the seventies. This would be the box
just blown up and expanded into three rooms, but they
decided to compress it into a you know, eighteen inch cube.
So it's it's really something I think even for the

(42:35):
most dedicated beatlemaniac, being able to like pore over the
recording notes and everything, it's just insane. And from my end,
it was really a dream job because I've worked with
Sean once before on one of his albums with the
Claypool Andnon Delirium, which is really fun. Yeah, really fun
because as you can imagine, adding less Claypool in there

(42:57):
doesn't make things less weird. So that was a really
kind of fun way to get based in their psychedelic
ocean Baptism by Fire and this one, you know, a
little bit more restrained, less cosmic, but we already had
a little bit of a nice working relationship and it

(43:17):
was really cool because Sean just said, straight up, we
want to do something cool, just cool as possible. What
you got, do you have any cool ideas that are like,
you know, oh, we always wanted to do this, but
it's just not financially feasible or like nobody wanted to
do it because it's not like we're just building out everything.
What do you got? Wow?

Speaker 5 (43:38):
Yeah, So that's what was the timeline like on that one,
because that we.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
Had a while. Yeah, that was definitely a long time.
I guess. October twenty twenty three was probably when we
started in earnest. We had kind of started talking in
the summer, and Sean had been Sean had been working
on the because he did like seven different album mixes
and obviously all this archival stuff. It's been brewing a
long time. But when I joined was about October twenty

(44:06):
twenty three cool, and so I ended up just kind of, yeah,
you know, put together all of the weird vinyl gimmicks
I could think of that had never gotten financed before
we did. We didn't get to use all of them.
There's some of them that we may be saving for
future release, you know, knock on wood. But but I mean,
we got to do so much it was insane. I

(44:28):
got to make a die cut sleeve with Yoko Ono's
head in it, and we got to do.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
This.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
We did this really cool thing. One of the things
I'm probably the most proud of. I mean, the Zoe
trips were really cool, obviously, and it was really awesome
that we got to push that so far. But I
think sort of the most conceptually tied to the album
that I'm most proud of is on the back of
the Magic Magic Box Edition LP, rather than the standard
back art. I did a it's like a barrier creator

(44:59):
slip animation, which is that thing where they have the
black bars and one bar that's clear so when you
slide it across it and makes an animation. So we
had we had mocked up some of those, but then
we actually decided to take it back to not even
an animation, to sort of an A and B thing
because we found it was really interesting when you put
John's face and Yoko's face and those two portraits right

(45:21):
next to each other and you slide across it, it's
this really interesting thing of revealing them one at a
time separate, but one you pull it off and you
see them together. It does this weird mind blending thing
where you like almost see a composite face of the
two of them. It was so funny because when I
was I was showing it on zoom and it pulled
back to show the two of them mixed together. Simon
was like, Oh, that's you, Sean.

Speaker 7 (45:43):
There you are.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
It's just totally yeah, John and Yoko, there you are.
So that was I thought that was kind of sweet,
and conceptually it ties in a lot to sort of
the separation put togetherness of the album. And you know,
just as a fan of John and Yoko's and Fluxus
and that era of art in New York, I think
it was kind of a neat thing to sort of
dialogue and pretend I was a Bohobe Nick at one point.

Speaker 5 (46:12):
What do you think, like, what role do you think
that physical and interactive art like this can play in vinyl?
I mean, we've seen the rabid collectors really show their
collector dumb, But do you think that's kind of like
where we're going to start pushing things in twenty twenty
five twenty twenty six is like, No, it's got to

(46:32):
be more of a wow moment.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
No, it's got to be more of this because I mean.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
Everybody's talking about how expensive records are blah blah blah
blah blah, so do you think that that those are
like gift with purchases that are kind of making the
cost justifiable.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
I think definitely the thousand dollars box set is the
extreme end. I don't think we're going to see that
more than one or two releases a year from here
on out. I do think that we'll start to see
them more as we start. I honestly see it less
as a fan thing and almost like an archival thing,
Like it's a lot the people that care about what's

(47:10):
in that box set is a much bigger number, and
not necessarily all the people who bought the box set,
Like there are definitely some Beatlemaniacs and Spain in Mexico
and France that like, you know, didn't have the chance
to import that. But we'll probably you know, buy a
digital copy of the strip down mixes and analyze it
and lend historians for all time. So I think we're

(47:31):
going to see a lot of that with the sort
of archival artists. I don't think we're going to see
like a Sabrina Carpenter one thousand dollars bucks. I mean
maybe maybe she don't one. Yeah, as soon as I
said it, I was like, yeah, no, never mind, that's
a good idea. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
Well, I mean especially Taylor, because she's definitely one of
those that has the like you were talking about. It's
like that weird first thing that applies to the fandom,
you know, like painting her nails the color palette of
the next album release and like doing just like little
easter eggs like that. I'm kind of shocked that she

(48:07):
hasn't done when she has.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Point.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
Yeah, honestly, that's true that some of those really those
bands that have kind of a cult following where it's
like you wonder if it's they're really being bankrolled by
just fifteen super dedicated bands. Maybe those guys are going
to start doing the Delexe Fox sets. Yeah, but I
think that kind of intrinsic final is. I mean, I

(48:31):
think we all sort of expected a little bit, but
it's what we value most about physical media. Like the
average vinyl listener, I buy a lot of music on
band camp. I love having you know, streaming on my
phone for stuff, especially for bands that are too small
depressor record, but I like if I love an album
and I want to hold on to it, and stuff

(48:51):
like being able to pay twenty five bucks and wait
a week and get it in the mail and open
it up and actually look at this twelve inch thing,
even if it doesn't have liner notes or a gatefold
or anything. Like something about being able to hold it
in your hands and the ritual of putting it on
the turntable, Like that's something every vinyl collector can relate
to and something that we all kind of superstitiously buy into,

(49:14):
even if we like talk about audio file quality or whatever.
Like a lot of it is really just the ritual,
the experience of, like, this is my album, I'm going
to make time to listen to it, I'm going to
set it on this holy alter, and so on and
so forth. So I think a lot of, if not all,
most vinyl buyers are this kind of weird media ocultist

(49:39):
where we're almost it's almost like I don't want to
see a former worship and start we're there. I don't
want to we're all there, but yeah, we're we're all
into the back masking and communing with Ozzy that way.
But but no, I do think that vinyl is it's

(50:00):
very much part of the experience. You know, when you
buy it, you're saying, I want this to be an
object that I have in my home. It's something I'm
proud of. It's something that I consider myself connected to
this object and this work of art. I want to
experience it over and over and I don't want to
make a conscious effort to experience it. And I think

(50:20):
the more that that experience can be expanded, it doesn't
have to be expanded with you know, a thousand obviously,
I love it if you want to contract me to
make more crazy Vinyl gimmicks. I remember just like ordering
from Asian Man Records and like pouring out the lyric
books and like reading them alongside while listening to it.

(50:40):
Like that experience was so much richer and deeper than
just like listening to when I was skateboarding in the
parking lot. I mean that was ritually that was a
great experience too, but it's very different. It is sort
of a form of dedicated listening, taking in the whole
world of the album. And I think especially as a
visual artist, you know, music has always affected me really deeply.

(51:05):
I think a lot of visual artists can relate to this,
where like a song will completely make them cry and
then they try to learn it on the piano and
they're like, oh, okay, I'm going to stick to pencils.
So yeah, So I think being able to like dialogue
with that world and like, you know, you want to
actually be part of the album. You want to make

(51:26):
something that continues that experience and the idea and actually
relates to it, and that fans can hold on to
and sort of give back and expand on that inner world.
I think that's really the the power of packaging more
so than like, you know, if it looks good on
a shelf and it's a really awesome cover and I'm like, Wow,
that looks metal as hell, I'm going to buy it.

(51:47):
That's awesome. But that's that's different from you know, like,
oh man, I'm going to sit here and pour over
the liner notes because I need to know what their
friends' bands are because I need to buy every band
in the scene right away. Like that's a that's a
very powerful thing.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
So I have an artist question for you.

Speaker 7 (52:07):
How do you stay inspired and continue like pushing the
boundaries with your work, Because that's I mean, to be honest, Like,
that's why I got out of the world. Was I
got out doing the same thing over and over again
to the point where like my mom wanted something for
her birthday and I was like, Mom, I'm retired, but

(52:27):
still I was just like, I don't draw much anymore.
I would love for others like me to hear sort
of how you keep, you know.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
I think I'm really lucky, as I keep saying I'm
a standard space designer and how much I love working
with other artists. But I do think that working with
other artists is an incredible engine, especially when you're sort
of trying to learn their style and execute their style.
That's a really great challenge for me as a designer
because it's not like they're asking me to draw the
same picture or to draw the same style of dog

(53:00):
every time or anything. It's they're interested in the medium,
but the actual execution is they're more interested in that
being like their record than my past work. So that
means I have to stay on my game. I'm always
I was really grateful for that fanogram project I had
to do in November because that taught me so much
about gradient mapping and just like all these weird little yeah,

(53:23):
and just like all these weird little things where it's
like not an aesthetic that I'm personally like drawn to
or would do in my own life, but it's like, well,
I learned it for this person, and now I know,
how did I know the proper way to do have
toone dots and animation? So that's really cool. Working with
other artists and like being being forced to adapt to
them definitely keeps you on your game. But it is

(53:44):
inspirational too, because like seeing you know, I still nerd
out every time that I get like the high risk
scan of a cover painting or something, I'm like zooming
all the way in and being like how did they
do this? Because I'm I'm married to a painter, but
I've never had any kind of skill with illustration or anything.
So like getting to zoom in on like those really intricate,

(54:07):
super hand drawn stuff, I'm like, Wow, this guy's awesome.
And I think for me it's also really inspiring because
like when you have to go and actually break down
an illustration for animation, You're like, wow, I appreciate this
so much more. I'm glad I didn't have to draw this.
So I think constantly being and other artists is definitely
a big motivator for me, good way to stay on

(54:31):
top of things. But I do think as a working
artist when you're always working for other people. I do
think that can kind of lead to burnout because a
lot of times, like if you have an idea, but
you just spent sixteen hours and you don't want to
do anything but play pac Man, it's like, Okay, that's
not I'm just going to shelve that and like eventually
get around to it. And that's it's almost like not

(54:56):
it's not burnout as much as like it's like a
pressure release where I'm like I have to go and
make something weird and unsellable or I'm not going to
be being able to make anything commercial viable again, Like
I have to go and make this stupid thing that
I'm not going to be able to sell. And it
is like probably fan art and is like, you know,
not actually really cool and maybe makes me look like

(55:18):
a nerd. But like now that I've got it out
of my head, I can finally like work on stuff
people want to pay me for again, shake.

Speaker 6 (55:27):
Your sillies out in order to get.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
Yeah, it is very much as shake your sillies out.
But I know a lot of artists like that, especially
like commercially successful artists, where it's like they have to
do something silly and like it's like, no, don't don't
ask if this is going to be for sale or
like or you know, if I'm going to turn it
into a full project or whatever. I just had to

(55:51):
draw this stupid thing and get it out of my
system or else my brain wouldn't let me.

Speaker 5 (55:54):
Be Well, anytime you want to put it into physical
you let me know.

Speaker 6 (55:58):
I'll make you.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (56:01):
Yeah, of course, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
I need the audio.

Speaker 6 (56:05):
I want to see the weird that comes out of
your tests. That's what I want to see. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
I need the audio component to take advantage of the
lathe though, so I need the house this audio.

Speaker 6 (56:18):
We'll just say, there you go from the podcast and
there you.

Speaker 7 (56:23):
So who would you say are some of your biggest
influences when combining art and music?

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Is there anybody doing that that you think?

Speaker 4 (56:29):
Yeah, oh definitely, there's so many people. Tierra Whack, I
know she's she's primarily a musical artist, but she's really
involved in like the visual direction of all of her
videos and stuff. And I think her EP Whack World,
which five years ago now, I think it was right
before COVID hit, but it's it's a sixteen minute video
and it's basically an album songs, but all the songs

(56:52):
are a minute or so, and it is insanely good.
I think it's probably the best hip hop project of
the past decade, like on without any other qualifications, but
the fact that she also made like a brilliant avant
garde short film to go along with it. It's like
this is this is insane. I don't think there's anything
else really like it. I mean, there's comparable points, but

(57:14):
I think the extent of which she did it was
like insane. And she's also done a lot of cool
music videos recently. She works with this Philadelphia animation studio.
I'm a big fan of do Wave, the EU ax Wave,
So shout out to those guys. They're really cool. Shout out.
I'm Tierra Wax. She doesn't know me, but I'm going

(57:35):
to shout her out because she's cool. Another brilliant Philadelphian.
I'm not actually from Philadelphia. If anyone's going to accuse
me of pulling for the Eagles here, we don't care
about sports. But another brilliant Philadelphia. Another billiant Philadelphian is
Francis Quelan of Hop Along and they are absolutely get disowned.

(57:57):
That hop long album. I would say, probably after the
Weezer's Blue Album is my favorite album album I've listened
to most of all time. Ever. They're just absolutely brilliant,
and they're also an illustrator who's done the cover art
for most of their works. I would I don't know
if they have any you know, I'm not in touch

(58:18):
with their release schedule, but I'm hoping for something in
twenty twenty five that would be really cool.

Speaker 6 (58:24):
I feel like Doci's gonna have a cool ze.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
Oh my god, oh my god. She is amazing. Uh
huh's She's definitely another one where it's just completely blowing
me away. Like whatever she's going to do next, I
can't wait. And all of the Denial ofs of River
stuff that she did, the little sitcoms and the little
sketches with Zach Fox, those are cracking me up.

Speaker 5 (58:45):
Yeah, I feel like she like she's so conceptual. I
feel like a like a zootrope or some sort of
interactive something is going to be something that happens.

Speaker 6 (58:56):
I'm just I'm manifesting that for all of us.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
I had one hundred percent except that manifestation, I would
be beyond honored because she is brilliant. Yeah, there's there's
a ton of it's a good I think it's a
good time in music generally. You know, I'm I live
in rural Georgia, so I'll say it's not necessarily my
favorite time in country music radio. We're in a bit
of a loll there in my opinion. But in terms

(59:23):
of like really visionary new hip hop and rap and
a lot of new rock acts, I think it's a
really good time. It's a really exciting time to be
in the music industry, and as a music listener. He
spends too much on records every month. That's either good
or bad, depending on how you look at that.

Speaker 5 (59:42):
I love it, Yeah, I mean other than Doci and Taje,
like who, Who's the Who's the dream? What's the what's
the grail? For Drew TETs in six?

Speaker 4 (59:54):
I honestly I can't even I feel so entitled talking
about the idea of a because I've already had, I've
already gone so far beyond what I had ever imagined
or dreamed like, I don't I didn't expect any of this,
And every day the fact that I get to wake
up and make pictures for Records is like, wow, that's crazy.
Are you sure? You sure I can pay my mortgage

(01:00:17):
with this? Okay, but I mean I've already gotten to
do something for Gorillas, which I thought was like that
was that was my first kind of like Okay, I'm
not gonna you know, I don't think it'll happen, but
I'll dare to dream, like this is the cartoon band
and the band that I loved the most one I
was in seventh grade. So when that happened, I was like, Wow,
I'm done. I can check out or realistically die and

(01:00:40):
I'm good, like I've got it done. But then, I mean,
last year I got to do something for a Weezer's
Blue album thirtieth anniversary, which is literally the album I've
spent not just album like work of art more than
any movie or book or anything. I've spent so much
time with that thing on repeat my whole tea. Like,

(01:01:02):
I mean, that was like, I don't I still don't
think I've processed it. Really, It's like, Wow, all that
time I spent listening to it, it just kind of
manifested into the world, and I guess it was a
real physical thing that people purchased as well, So saying
that purchased that mind like looking at it like that,

(01:01:24):
I don't. I mean, how can I even say a crail?
I mean, obviously Beatles would be cool, and like, now
that I've done something with lanin George Harrison, it's like
not even unbelievable, soy and and uh, they did, you know,
not necessarily the most revered Beatles album, but they did
do a really wacky cartoon thing in Yellow Submarine, which

(01:01:45):
I am not ashamed to say that I love. And ironically,
I know that's not a universally held opinion among Beatles fans,
but I love it. So yeah, they ever want to
go full psychedelic, I'm there for that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
I mean, that would be cool, that would be super cool.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
And definitely there's a lot a ton of musicians where
like Tom Waits or Janelle Monet or Bruce Springsteen where
I'm like, I don't think you won a zoa trope.
I don't know what it would look like, but I mean,
you know, if you ever do, I'm here and we'll
pay you to do it. I won't really pay you
to do it. I'll probably work under ridiculously underfeet though.

Speaker 6 (01:02:23):
So no, no, no, they're not letting you do that either.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
No no, no, no no.

Speaker 5 (01:02:27):
But like I'm born in the USA, back pocket scenario
would be a pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
That would be cool kind of thing. Yeah, we always
need more Bruce's, but wherever we get it?

Speaker 5 (01:02:37):
Truly, I mean, now that we've also seen Janelle Money moonwalk,
like that would be a pretty cool little.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Clip on it. She's another amazing visual artist, So if anything,
I think that she's too far futuristic. So she's not
interested in returning to the distant analog past. She's already
living in four thousand and nine.

Speaker 6 (01:02:57):
Who knows, man.

Speaker 5 (01:02:58):
I mean, I feel like somebody like that as a
pretty hefty appreciation from where they from where she came from,
you know what I mean. So yeah, I know that
she's probably got a pretty bitch in record collection.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
Oh absolutely, I can't even That would be the coolest
record club, the.

Speaker 6 (01:03:18):
Quincy Jones Record Club. We're just like, God, Hey, what's
going on, Quincy buddy? Let me come over and see
what's on the shelves.

Speaker 7 (01:03:30):
So what advice would you give to young artists who
want to work in this space? I think that's something
that I get asked a lot. It's something that I
wanted to do and there isn't really resources for it.
It's I have an idea that I don't want to
put out into the world, so we'll talk about it later, but.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Here, what would you suggest.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
Do it? Keep doing it? I mean a lot. I
didn't think this was a job. I don't know that
it is. Honestly, I'm definitely still too scared to call
it a career. But you know, when I started doing this,
I had no I definitely didn't think I was going
to quit my job to do it. I didn't even
think I would ever make money. It was kind of
just like, wow, this is this is a really cool thing,

(01:04:15):
and you know, I'm it's a way for me, as
a sometimes slightly insane artist to dialogue with this thing
that makes me less insane. So like, on just a
personal enrichment level, it was worth it, and I didn't
even really consider it. But then it started forming all
these kind of inroads for me where I was able
to kind of reach out to people in the music

(01:04:37):
community and start to form links with you know, people's
kind of on the fringe of indie psychedelia who are
interested in sort of this visual application to the music
and data lists. Someone who I had admired actually brought
me in started introducing me to the sort of Los
Angeles people, so things like that. You know, it wasn't
a job when I started doing it. I don't know
if it is, but I'm paying my mortgage. I'm not

(01:05:02):
you know, in the poorhouse. I'm is there like.

Speaker 5 (01:05:04):
A program and things that that kids should, you know,
start to get.

Speaker 6 (01:05:08):
Familiar with, because I mean, like everybody knows that.

Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
The world runs on Excel and that's like one of
the actual things that they should have taught us in school, you.

Speaker 6 (01:05:17):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
But like, is it is it Photoshop? Is it like?

Speaker 6 (01:05:21):
Is it Adobe? Is it light Room?

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
Is it Canva? I mean I can see all of
the graphic designers in rolling their eyes so hard that
the rent is detached. I could see it, and that's
exactly why I said it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
Well, but I think that, I mean, I I definitely
have access to the Adobe Suite, So that's great. I
recognize that's not something that every teenager can afford, although
if you are a student, it's a little bit more
affordable in your university university might even cover you. But
I use the Adobe suite. Having said that, none of

(01:05:55):
the things I use it for on a day to
day were taught to me in design school. All of
the actual Zootropian stuff I kind of had to just
brute force and like figure out by plugging in a
bunch of numbers until it started to look not too
stretched out. So, you know, like just because you don't
know how to do something doesn't mean you can't do it.
Maybe maybe nobody knows.

Speaker 6 (01:06:15):
I still don't know what the hell I'm doing exactly, So.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
I think I think a little bit of a kind
of well placed stubbornness and just like I don't know,
if it doesn't work out, it's gonna look weird. Even
if it doesn't look right, I think kind of having
that attitude and like, I mean, like you want to
do it. I okay, a little bit of a tangent,
but I've had a lot of success with making like

(01:06:39):
you would call it fan art. I mean, that's that's
a little bit of a denigrated phrase, But like I mean,
I made it because I was a fan of the
work and I wanted to study the animation, or I
just thought it was cool and I made it put
on Instagram. But you know, no real expectation. I kind
of just wanted to do it, but I've been lucky
enough to get a couple jobs off of that. I
got to do an official cow would Bebop Slip Matt

(01:07:01):
because I was just a huge, mega nerd fan of
the show, and that's insane to me. I don't think that,
you know, teenage illustrators should expect that all fan art
should turn into jobs. But even the ones that didn't
turn into jobs I think have really helped me and
my growth as an artist. Because, for one thing, even

(01:07:22):
if I didn't show it to anybody and I was like, oh,
this is actually pretty bad, I learned something by trying
to study it. By studying the work that motivates me,
and I realized things about what was compelling, and you know,
I learned a bit of the technical execution side too,
But getting to figure out that part of it in
the artistic I think that's an important thing for a

(01:07:43):
lot of artists to just figure out why the work
that moves them moves them. But then also connected to
me with other people, other like minded artists and fans,
you know, even if it's just like my bro from
high school being like, oh, I didn't know you like
that band like that. That is a connection in that
those kind of connections can foster other unique experiences and honestly,

(01:08:06):
everything just leads into everything. You never know when things
are going to go. I had a guy I knew
from the form the pro yoyo career later become a
professional skateboarder and refer me to somebody in Yo Yo. Yeah,
and like, see, you wouldn't you wouldn't think. But everything
ties into something, even even if it's like you're you're

(01:08:28):
super obsessed with Norwegian metal bootlegs from whenever, Like if
you find that same collector who's into that, like, that's
a data point that you can talk about and that's
a unique, unique perspective you have relating to the art
that not everybody has. So that's not really a concrete
piece of advice, but just don't keep keep doing it.

(01:08:51):
Be interested in stuff. Don't worry if it's not going
to make you money. You know, if you're if you're
getting better and making stuff that you like, you're you're
headed in the right direct and you're going to start
to resonate with people that see that. So or if not,
at least you're making art that you like.

Speaker 5 (01:09:08):
You know, yeah, so people keep going that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
You know. Yeah, as long as you're moving forward, you're
moving forward. Yeah, that's all there is to it.

Speaker 6 (01:09:20):
At what what is it?

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
At?

Speaker 6 (01:09:22):
Sixteen frames per second? Is that what it is?

Speaker 4 (01:09:24):
Thirty frames thirty thirty?

Speaker 6 (01:09:26):
Yeah, I'm so bad at math. That's why.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
I mean, I am too. Even people talk like I
figured out the math, and I did figure out the
math once, but I didn't. I didn't actually figure out
the equation.

Speaker 5 (01:09:38):
I wrote it on my wall and a sharpie, so
I never had to figure it out again.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
I've plugged in numbers until I got the right number.
And then about six months later, one of my friends
who's good at math, was like, did you know that
if you divide this by three sixty and multiply it
by this, you actually get the frame rate?

Speaker 7 (01:09:56):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
Mark never occurred to me. I'm glad to finally what
the equation is, but I did not know that.

Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
Thanks a lot, oh man, I mean that's exactly what
I thought too. I was like, I should go back
to my high school and find my physics teacher and
be like, guess what I do every day? Physics?

Speaker 6 (01:10:15):
Like why?

Speaker 5 (01:10:16):
How could you not say that music is physics. Why
in the world wouldn't you try and make that real
world correlation to make something that we all love so
much and make that because like, I didn't know that
I was gonna fall in love with sign waves and
like need to know them obsessively.

Speaker 6 (01:10:34):
But here I am. I had to do physics twice. Like,
come on, dudes, find somethings that we like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
Yeah, I need to get the lath the workshops and
high schools.

Speaker 5 (01:10:48):
Well, I mean you're talking to the two right ladies
to try and figure that out. And you know what
I mean, this is the mission.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
All audio programs.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
That college is nice.

Speaker 4 (01:10:59):
Nice.

Speaker 7 (01:11:00):
I'm on the bar at a technical college here for
that good good.

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):
Well, now we'll talk to them about visual designed things
as well, Jed.

Speaker 6 (01:11:10):
Nice, We're also well adapt to talk to them.

Speaker 5 (01:11:12):
About Okay, well, as a longtime fan of the podcast,
you know what's coming. Some people prepare for it, some
people don't, which I love. But in the spirit of
record collecting, if you Drew TETs could make a seven
inch record that had anything on the A side, I
feel like Weezer's going to be on the A side

(01:11:32):
for this one, and anything on the B side. What
would your custom Drew TETs seven inch record be and
what would the zootrope aspect.

Speaker 4 (01:11:40):
Be on it? That's the thing, right, I feel like
I feel like all everyone in the music industry has
asked themselves this question, And if we're honest, I mean, like,
I love the idea of doing the Vanity record and
getting to pick any two people in the world, But
I think we all kind of foster the secret punk
dream of like, no oh, I'm going to run five

(01:12:01):
hundred pieces, I'm gonna sell them out of my garage.
I'm only going to sell sanity of them. I'm gonna
have all these boxes forever.

Speaker 6 (01:12:07):
So hey, that's my whole business model.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Dude.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Hmm. Yeah. So I think I'm still kind of clinging
to that dream, and it's still like, Okay, well, there's
this really awesome he unfortunately recently purged the majority of
his music from the Internet, which breaks my heart. I
hope this means that he's found a distributor. But there's
this absolutely brilliant songwriter from Roanoke, Virginia named Doug Cheewood

(01:12:30):
who was working on this. I was a fan of
him in high school when he was doing sort of
more or less just art rock. I mean it was
it was a little bit of the Tom Waits sort
of weird theatrical stuff, but still more or less rock
and roll. In the twenty years since then, he started
writing and producing his own like full twenty minute or
twenty to thirty minute rock operas, wow, where he portrays

(01:12:55):
all of the roles and does like costumes and stuff,
so like very wow, very wild, like kind of like
late night cable access stuff. But like, but he's actually
a brilliant songwriter. So it's like, oh my god, how
does this only have one hundred and sixty views? Who
is this strange man? So definitely, if I ever win

(01:13:17):
the lottery, I'm going to spend a significant portion of
it trying to make the world like Doug Cheatwood. Okay,
But as far as what the actuals well, I mean,
I guess if he's making these rock operas, we gotta
we gotta put that on there. I'll let him choose
which two songs and what in.

Speaker 5 (01:13:35):
This in this one instance, like we can we can
give you a twelve inch record because has there here's
a here's a question that is just occurring to me.
Has there ever been a seven inch so trump, what
is that like?

Speaker 6 (01:13:48):
Have you?

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
The math is the math is the same, as is
the same?

Speaker 6 (01:13:51):
Yeah, just not like it. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Well, we did some for Mad Decent. Well, I can't
remember what artist was the Frighteners. Yes, yeah, that was.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
My first reggae one too. I love that.

Speaker 6 (01:14:07):
Oh cool. I've never seen a seven inch trope before you.

Speaker 4 (01:14:10):
Yeah, that was a cool one. Actually, this is the
only time I found them. I found these seven inch
circle frames, and I've only found two of them in
my life and my wanderings through hobby stores. So I
put put the two Frighteners in that awesome. I'm fond
of that release.

Speaker 5 (01:14:26):
Okay, So Doug chee Wood, he was on the A
side and the B side. Are you going to have
some deep cut on the B side?

Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
I think my number one pick is to just go
Doug Cheatwood and let him choose whatever an A and
B side forms a complete rock musical, or I guess
I will I'll do a backup pick, which is also
in the two thousands. John Flansburgh of They Might Be

(01:14:54):
Giants and his wife were in an off Broadway show
that they wrote called People Are Wrong. I don't think
it's ever then I don't know if they even recorded it.
I think they did record some of the songs as
like a you know, yeah, pitching kind of thing, but
it's never been released. And I think, as they might
be Giants nerd, like we need that piece of physical media.

Speaker 5 (01:15:17):
There's a kid that used to come into the record
store that I worked with, and he he's nine years
old and his name is Hunter, and he knew everything
about there might be Giants, like that's his band, So
I wonder.

Speaker 6 (01:15:30):
If he knows about this.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
Yeah, that's it. That's a deep cut because I don't
ever had a physical but I actually I did get
to My parents took me to see it in New
York when I was like seventeen, which is a super cool,
amazingly nerdy but heartwarming story.

Speaker 6 (01:15:45):
Shout out to mom and dad texts for real, that's
so cool.

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
Yeah, And then I got to do that they might
be Giants record two years ago, so full circle total.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
That's awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:15:58):
Well, okay, so I mean he answered it, Jed, That's
that was a very comprehensive answer.

Speaker 4 (01:16:03):
I got more answers if you want them, but none
of them are financially viable.

Speaker 5 (01:16:09):
Hey, we work in the not for profit space, we know,
not financially viable. Come on, But anybody that wants to
contribute to the Women in Vinyl pursuits you can do
that at patreon dot com slash women in Vinyl. You
can join us here on YouTube and all of the

(01:16:29):
other things.

Speaker 6 (01:16:31):
Drew Ted's give us your socials, give us your things.
Where do we find you? What are you doing? What
are you doing right now?

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
I'm working now that we've we had that awesome, awesome
month where it's like I can only work on the
super Bowl because it pays enough for me to put
all other projects on the waist side. And now all
those projects have come back. So yeah, that's what I'm doing.
But if you want to keep in touch with me,
I'm probably the mostly on Instagram. I'm going to try
to move a blue sky soon. But it's just my name,

(01:16:59):
drw E t Z. Yeah, come look at some animated records. Yeah,
do it support Women Vinyl both on Patreon and in
your everyday life? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:17:10):
Thank you, thanks Drewe nice to finally connect.

Speaker 6 (01:17:15):
So much for having me, Thanks for tuning that awesome
slipt for us.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
My pleasure was so fun to another one.

Speaker 5 (01:17:21):
Hey, look at it, it's right there. We'll do another
one for Hello, Hello, Spooky, Hello, spooky season this year nice.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
I'm awesome, all right?

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Like subscribe and thank you again, Drew.

Speaker 4 (01:17:36):
Thanks so much, guys, Thanks Drew, take care of back
super Bowl, Happy super Bowl, and see you tomorrow, see
you on the big screen tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (01:17:43):
Yes, tomorrow.

Speaker 7 (01:17:46):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
This episode has been brought to you by Women in
Vinyl and Red Spade Records. Thank you for listening. Please
remember to subscribe, and you can always contact us directly
by visiting www dot Women in Vinyl dot com

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Episode 58 - An Animated World with Drew Tetz

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 58 - An Animated World with Drew Tetz