Pete Fowler is a multi-talented and prolific artist, illustrator, toy designer, skateboarder, DJ, musician, and monster creator from Cardiff, South Wales, perhaps best known for his collaborations with Welsh band the Super Furry Animals.
Since the early 1990s Pete has been sharing his psychedelic world visions with us in almost too many forms to count – from his earliest skateboard designs for the likes of Panic and Unabomber in the UK, his iconic SFA album artwork, to his hugely successful and ever growing family of toys including the wonderful and world of Monsterism and Monsterism Island where many of them live.
Pete has exhibited work in the UK, Europe, US and Japan and worked on commercial commissions as varied as concert posters for the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival and commercials for KIA Motors. He now lives and works in London, England.
above: Pete Fowler by Pete Fowler
Pete works in many medium and sees opportunities for creativity and self expression anywhere from skateboarding to making music to painting. He’s currently working on a host of varied projects: new music with his band Seahawks; a new toy series; more skateboard graphics and an animated music video for ‘Changing the Rain’ by The Horrors – the third single from their Top 5 album ‘Skying’ which is out on March 12th. All this, and a top secret condiment-related project! We count ourselves lucky he took time out of his busy schedule for a chat last week…
Above: Crayon Skateboards / Pete Fowler award winning ‘Super Furry Animals’ deck 2010
Hi Pete. First of all, how did you get into art and skateboarding, and how do you see them linked?
I BMX’d before I skateboarded, and rode for a shop in Cardiff with a few mates but as soon as I got into skateboarding the artwork on boards and t-shirts really interested me. It was around the time when I was leaving school and going into sixth-form, thinking about what I wanted to do. I did a little fanzine in Cardiff with a friend of mine which was maybe more fun that what I did in art school, where some people seemed so far ahead of me, so the whole skate thing, gang mentality, shared aesthetic and sense of humour among my skateboard friends really fed into my art.
When I moved down to Cornwall to do fine art at Uni, I used to skate loads and the two for me seemed like valid forms of self expression. Just like everything I do now with art and music I don’t really see a difference between artwork or music or skating and have always seen them linked.
Where there any skateboarders, artists or brands that inspired you at the time?
Yes a lot of the skaters I really liked at the time were artists. Neil Blender was one of my all time faves, and I think many people have a soft spot for him. Obviously an absolute ripper but also out on his own with his artwork, and I liked that a lot of the artists and skaters weren’t out of art school. Obviously you’ve also got the Gonz – it’s not that I’m a huge fan of is artwork but it’s the whole package with Mark Gonzales, and certainly some of his early boards I loved. The same with Blender – I guess they were my two faves really, but also other skaters of the era like Caballero, with his music – you see I was always into what else skaters did when they weren’t skating, for fun or as another outlet.
As for board brands I loved the early Alien Workshop stuff, the early Powell Peralta stuff. My brother used to keep all his old decks, I think he had all the early Natas ones, and I loved that 80s era, especially when skaters themselves started to do their own graphics – the ‘Colour My Friends’ Gonz and the Blender ‘Coffee Drinker’ are just classic boards.
I remember your brother working at City Surf (Cardiff’s No1 skate & surf shop) and he’d always have band names and other graphics painted on his grip!
Yeah! I remember he had a really quite detailed and well painted Dinosaur Jr. thing on his tape and going to so much effort is again another example of creativity in skateboarding, personalising your board, you’d buy the board and shape you liked…but I’d always look at the graphics first!
Above: Panic skateboards / Pete Fowler – Matt Pritchard ‘Tidy’ & two ‘Friends’ graphics from mid 90s
That brings me to music and it’s influence on you – I know you’re really into and make music yourself, but also wanted to touch on your work for the Super Furry Animals – your album cover artwork is possible what many people know you best for – how did that come about?
It was a pretty random, chance thing really – they had an album out before I started working with them and I remember hearing that and their first EP, which I really liked. They saw some work I did for a free magazine in Cardiff that Bethan Elfin (BBC radio DJ) was part of, a Welsh language paper, and she did a little interview with me, had one of my paintings on the cover, and I’m not sure who in the band saw it but they liked it and were thinking about it for their second album, and I got a pretty random call from someone at Creation Records, their label. It was pretty amazing as I was really into them as a band, and obviously the Welsh connection! It was a really big deal for me at the time and it was one of the things I did that took my work to a wider audience.
above: Pete’s first cover for SFA on their 2nd album ‘Radiator’ 1997 – for a detailed look at more of Pete’s work for the Super Furries over the years see his SFA Flickr art page
For me music’s really closely linked to art and skateboarding – weather the music itself, video part soundtrack, the energy of live gig, album artwork, punk’s DIY ethos etc – how has and does music influence your work, skateboarding, life?
Well I always listen to it when I work, I’ve collected records for a long time, I’ve been DJing for years and I make music with my friend John as Seahawks (releasing records, cassettes and CDs for the last few years with Pete designing all of the visuals for the packaging, movies and overall image) so it’s always there I think.
above: Seahawks ‘Caught By The (Cosmic) River’ mix and ‘High On You / Dreams Are Made of Magic’ 12″ covers
And music and skating was a big thing, everyone I used to skate with, my closest friends and by brother, were all really, really into music – not necessarily the things you would expect skaters to listen to at the time, like hardcore, but bands like Love, lots of psychedelic things, so there was always loads of music around and everyone was always sharing and swapping music which was kind of inspirational and influential.
With what I do in artwork it’s always there, weather it’s literal with a guitar or a synth for instance in an illustration or painting I wouldn’t say when I hear music I hear colours or things directly jump out but you kind of just soak it up and how it comes out isn’t up to you, it just finds its way in there.
I know some people who can’t listen to music when they create but I’m the opposite, I couldn’t not, I don’t really like silence when I’m creating something. I usually open iTunes probably before I open Illustrator.
On the music tip I have one of your ‘Sounds of Monsterism Island’ compilations CDs (a soundtrack to that world) and wondered if you could tell us a bit more about Monsterism, and how that whole thing came about?
When I first moved to London I was doing a lot of editorial, figurative work for magazines (like GQ, teen, pop magazines) illustrations of humans etc. but the monsters and other characters were always something I had in my sketch book and I didn’t really see another outlet for them commercially at that time.
I started to paint more and the characters came out more there and it was probably starting to work with the Super Furries that gave me the confidence, they liked the monster stuff, to start to use it more in my artwork. That slowly developed into more and more characters, and after a while, having all these creatures, I started to think about where they’d live? And I started to think about their backstory so ‘Monsterism’ and ‘Monsterism Island’ was created.
Then I had an exhibition in Japan with another artist, a painter, and I was showing sculptures there and got approached by Sony Creative Products with the offer of some toys, the first toy thing I did. As I started to work on them, creating the information cards for each one, it really started to kick off for me as a place to be free to create exactly what I want, there were no rules apart from any I might set. After a few years of working on tight briefs for magazines with the subject matter perhaps not being something I’d do normally in my work, as is often the case when you’re doing commercial stuff, it was somewhere I could have fun and set my imagination free by creating a world I could populate.
Above: A selection of Monsterism toys by Pete Fowler
What’s your favourite medium to work in or with?
It’s difficult to choose any medium, but with everything I do, even sometimes the music, it always starts with a pencil sketch. Drawing is what I think is the root of everything I do, where I work out my ideas, develop stuff, so that’s probably my favourite medium. In its self I really love drawing with pencil, drawing with pen and ink – it’s how everything starts, it’s how I think really.
Actually though at the moment I’ve got an iPad and I’ve got this Griffin pen for it and an App called ‘Brushes’ which I’m loving this week.
Sometimes I get into something totally new and think it’s the best thing ever, then go back to a different medium and bring something new to it, but pencil on paper is my fave! If the world goes all Mad Max you’ll still have pencil and paper – an iPad would be useless!
So if you had that Desert Island Disks questions (“what would be the one thing you could have on a deserted island?”) the one thing you’d have would be pencil and paper?
Yeah – a huge crate of pencils!
As far as other artists or designers, who are you currently into, who inspires you, and do you own or collect work by other artists?
It’s funny because sometimes I look at lots of other artists and illustrators work, and other times I don’t because I see so much good stuff and just think my got I’ve got to pick up my game! Which can actually be quite inspiring too!
There’s an artist called Felt Mistress who makes soft sculptures and I’ve done a few collaborations with, a show on YouTube I’m involved with called the Stuffs which she makes the puppets for – she’s amazing, the way she thinks and the skill and craft she has which I really appreciate.
There’s a young Cornish artist and illustrator called Jack Teagle who mostly paints, does comics, not much digital work, which is something I like to see these days, people working analogue for want of a better word.
Then there’s a Japanese artist called Keiichi Tanaami [one of Japans leading post war pop artists] that I collaborated with [to produce the latest artwork for the cover art of Super Furry Animals’ latest album Dark Days/Light Years. The album officially released in the US on April 21st 2009. Dark Days/Light Years marks the first time both artists have worked on an album cover for the psychedelic Welsh rockers although Tanaami has done work for the band’s past two albums while Pete Fowler has contributed artwork for six of their past LP’s.] On the last Super Furries’ album Dark Days / Light Years who’s amazing and I’ve always really like his art, the film posters he did – he’s done so much so working with him on the album was a bit of a dream come true.
There’s also an American comic artist called Jim Woodring who I’ve always liked who does a strip called Frank which is really inspiring – the world he creates in this completely different fantasy strip about this cat called Frank, often beautiful, often disturbing and nightmarish.
I’ve got a few bits and pieces – a Felt Mistress beetle, lots of prints by other artists, last one I bought was one of Jack Teagles from his NoBrow show in London. I also really like to see original work because I’m a bit of a geek and like to see how they’ve done it!
What are you working on at the moment and what can we hope to see from you this year?
I started a few projects last year that are coming to fruition spring summer. A new toy company called Dude Box who I’ve got four figures coming with.
Above: Design a Fiend from DUDEBOX – some of the ‘fiends’ on a sight-seeing tour of Pete’s Monsterism Island
I’m also working on a couple of things I can’t really talk fully about yet – an animated music video which should be mid-February I hope, and another that all I can say about it is it’s for a condiment company and it’s for Valentines day!!!
Also I’m working with a French porcelain company, doing some plates, cups and saucers which should hopefully come out this year.
Then there’s more music with Seahawks, we’ve already got two releases in the pipeline ahead of ourselves – and I’m also doing more skateboards!
Above: Lush longboards / Pete Fowler ‘Shralper’ ‘Wizard’ & ‘Stallion’ models
I’ve done two already with Lush longboards. I know some of the guys there form skating in Cornwall, and I have two more which I’m working on at the moment.
Obviously I had a few designs out with Crayon over the last couple of years and it’s nice to be doing boards again. The longboards are fun to do as you have a huge canvas and the Lush guys I know from skating with them so they get my work. I really like working on skateboards, the iconic lozenge shape I see almost as CD or album covers where you’ve got this classic, defined space within which to work – longboards are a bit different, so fun and a bit of a challenge.
So plenty of stuff, it’s been a really busy start to the year, and pretty lucky to be working on these projects, and making a living form something I enjoy.”
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For more info on all things Pete Fowler see the Monsterism website, Pete’s Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
For a comprehensive collection of Pete Fowler art work of all types see his excellent Flickr Monsterism Photostream
To buy a selection of Petes work directly see his Shop.
For sounds from Mr.Fowler’s check the Seahawks website, their Soundcloud or follow them on Twitter
Above: Crayon skateboards / Pete Fowler range – see also Crayon’s first Pro Model series designs by Pete