Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Wes Lang

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Wes Lang is a contemporary artist based in Los Angeles. His work is best recognized through symbols including skulls, horses, and the indigenous American, as he aims to convey themes of freedom, mortality, and the American Dream. Lang draws inspiration from his heroes–fallen country music icons and jazz musicians–to tap into the rugged spirit of post-pop Americana and inspire a sense of opportunity and mythic adventure. Lang’s artistic reach includes creating pieces for Kanye West and the Grateful Dead. Though his main medium is canvas and paper, he has also produced work using cast bronze, collage, fabric, and hotel stationary, with his pieces held in prestigious international collections like the MoMA, Damien Hirst’s Murderme collection, and an upcoming exhibition at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery. Represented by Almine Rech worldwide and V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Lang continues to push boundaries with his unique blend of pop culture and existential themes. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Vivo Barefoot http://vivobarefoot.com Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA'

Tetragrammaton. I lived in New Jersey. I grew up in a little town called Chatham, New Jersey. I grew up in a little town called Chatham, New Jersey, about a half hour outside of the city. My dad owned a record store down in Red Bank, down the shore by a sort of Springsteen country, you know? And, um... One of the guys that worked there was a guy in a band called Monster Magnet. Remember them?

I love Monster Magnet. Dave. It's Dave, and then there was a guy named... God, I can't even remember his name anymore. It's sad. I can't remember. It was so long ago. He worked at my dad's store. Wow. And the other guy worked at the comic book shop in Red Bank.

Cause they weren't, you know, you look at, it's so funny when you're young and you see like, like someone in a band. Yeah. Mentally, you're like, that person must have everything in the world. You think they live in a mansion and they've got piles of girls around them

and da da da and everything is going PG Kane and like these two guys who I like looked up to and their music and all that stuff were like, one worked at my dad's record store and the other guy worked at the comic book shop selling me Dark Knight comic books and stuff, you know? And that was actually great to see, you know? To know that it like changed your perception

of what success was because it isn't those things, the mansions and the cars and the this and the that. It's just the fact that they got to make music and they did whatever they could to make music. And it's very hard to define exactly what success really, truly, truly is. I mean, I was born with no options. Like I can, my earliest memories of growing up

were about creating and being struck by images, like reference material. I started hoarding reference material in kindergarten. Like I remember there was like a time where I learned to tie my shoes, and my teacher gave me this sticker of a dragon. And it was like the body and the head and the arms and the tail were all separate, and you could kind of do it.

And I was so kind of do it. And I was so proud of this sticker. And not because I had tied my shoes, I just loved the way it looked and I couldn't explain why, but I lost one of the arms in class during the day. And I was so upset that I didn't have that arm anymore for this thing. I couldn't find it and she wouldn't give me another one.

I've kind of just been like, not to sound cheesy, but just kind of been looking for that arm my entire life. You know? When we were first grade, Battlestar Galactica and the Muppets were like a really big thing. And the day, the morning after Battlestar Galactica would come on,

me and my friend would sit and have like a drawing battle to like replicate what we saw the day before. And I had- Was everyone in your school into the same stuff or would you say you had particular interests? I was such an outcast. Like- Even from the beginning? From the very start. into the same stuff or would you say you had particular interests? I was such an outcast. Like, even from the very start.

Like, there was no moment of going to school for me that was pleasant, except for things like that. Yeah. And, you know, there was like a, I remember I had this great third grade teacher that read us James and the Giant Peach, that book, and she would bring us snickerdoodle cookies that she made us and read it to the class. And I just remember sitting there

and visualizing that story in my brain as she was reading it to us. And she was, you have this skewed memory, but I thought she was probably like the most beautiful woman in the world. And she was telling me this story and she was feeding me cookies. And it was just like those little things

really stuck with me. What was your home life like at that time? It was, it was, you know, my parents are great people. My mom's an interior designer, and still is. And my father, when I was growing up, worked in the printing business until I was about, you know, 12. He worked in Manhattan.

I had a great childhood. I lived in an idyllic town with- Suburbs? Super suburbs, yeah. Like as suburban as it could possibly be. Did all the houses look the same as each other when you walked down the block? In certain parts. We lived in a really cool house

because my mother was into designing homes. It was like this beautiful home made out of field stones that were pulled from the Passaic River that ran through our town. So it was actually a really beautiful house. They still live there. It was great. My house was great.

I had two friends that were super solid and everybody else thought I was insane. And I just, I didn't know why. I couldn't understand it, but I didn't try to make people like me. I just did my thing. And I was in my head a lot and drawing a lot and just staying in my lane.

And I was always kind of finding things like almost too early, I don't know. I had a way of like finding music and things years and years before they meant anything to the world. So I found a lot of peace in those places. You have brothers or sisters? I have a little brother, but he's like seven years younger than me.

So like, the first stretch of life was just me and my best friend Don, who our parents met in Lamaze class. So we were basically like twin brothers, you know? Spent all of our time there. He just came to visit me last weekend. So cool. So we were basically like twin brothers, you know? Spent all of our time. Who just came to visit me last weekend, you know? So cool.

It was Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and then Ronald Reagan. I really remember Ronald Reagan being elected president and sitting with my father in the living room on election night, drawing campaign posters for Reagan and like hanging them on the walls in the living room because I wanted, my dad loved Reagan and I wanted to, you know, you want to, you have a close, I was close to my dad and I wanted to impress him.

So I was drawing Ronald Reagan. I still actually have some of those drawings. All my memories are about music and drawing and hoarding pictures. Magic catalogs and I held them like little secret bibles and I wouldn't show this stuff to anybody. I was always kind of hiding stuff. I would make like boxes and draw skulls and crossbones on them,

like keep out stuff and hide the stuff inside those boxes. I did it with my candy. I would like take old coffee cans and draw tape paper around them, make them look really nice and draw skull and crossbones on them and hide candy. You know where things were? Oh yeah, I knew exactly where everything was, but it was, I keep, I still do. I keep, if you asked me to like find a matchbox car that I still have, I could go find it for you within 30 seconds.

You know, I'm, I'm very organized in here from, especially for visual things. Let's talk more about hoarding. Was it always to be able to get back to it, to reference it? Or was it about something else? Yeah. I mean, I think I probably just found a lot of solace in this stuff because it was mine. You know? it was mine, you know? And when you say mine, do you mean physically mine

or this is an example of my taste? It was my taste. And I felt like I was the only person in the world that had it. And it was always skulls were the most important. When I would go through these catalogs and find a skull, it was like, oh my God. And I would just study it and study it skull, it was like, oh my God. And I would just study it and study it and draw it

and draw it and draw it and draw it again. And like I said, I still, luckily my mom kept most of my stuff, so I have a lot of it. It's the first time you saw a physical skull. My best friend Don's dad had one. And it was in their kitchen. And they had all these cats and ferrets. And it was like a really great house to hang out in.

Live or stuffed? Live. Oh, okay. But, you know, like there was just so many cats in their house and eventually like a goat and all kinds of like cool, and we have, his mom had a skunk. Like it was really strange.

It was the seventies. Like people just kind of did stuff. I remember showing up in school in like fifth grade. I had a British flag T-shirt, no sleeves that I bought in the city. And I showed up at school and like that was one of the worst days of my entire life like the reaction at school and then sure as shit like you know six months later every kid had a t-shirt like I was

I like had checkerboard vans people would come and pour stuff on them on purpose and pick on me and steal them and throw them in the trees you know just stuff like that that was what it was like at school but I didn't really care I wasn't like sitting there I I don't know I really appreciate that that happened to me at this point in my life. It was probably really hard at the time, but it definitely made me be me, you know?

And it's not like a poor me, I'm not saying these things because I feel bad for myself. It's not, well, it probably wasn't the only kid it was happening to, it feels that way when it's happening to you, but I got into Run DMC, I went to see the Ice Capades with my dad at MSG, and then Tower, you know, used to, I believe it stayed open until midnight.

And my dad is a massive, massive music fan, jazz primarily. And like, you know, jazz singers, cabaret singers, stuff like this, country. And so we went there and you obviously- Fourth and Broadway? Yeah, went down there. Jazz section upstairs. Yes.

He went up there, Tower had those incredible displays that they made, you know. It wasn't like the record company, because they were the only store that had those things and they were amazing. And I walked in and I saw the first run DMC album. So like 84 I think is when it came out and I was always allowed to pick a record and I bought that and a tape because I was really into my Walkman so I wanted the tape and then you did maybe a couple years later, you did a record with them. And that was when I first heard of you and saw a picture of you. And I was like, who the hell is that guy?

You kind of kept putting all this stuff out, dice and P.E. and just these things that no one I was around was listening to at all. Nobody knew who any of these people were. And I would like break dance in my backyard on this giant piece of cardboard by myself, like listening to these, you know, especially Run DMC and LL Cool J were like the thing.

And then in 87 Christmas break, this kid gave me the first Boogie Down album and That was like a whole other stratosphere. Oh my god. What else we listen to besides hip-hop at that time Super into bad brains misfits Black flag JFA, The Cramps, Minor Threat. You know, I was listening to what I was seeing in Thrasher. The Misfits were from Jersey, obviously Skulls, and the music was so next level.

And also with that, The skulls and the music was so next level. And also with that, you know, the movie element of it was really interesting to me, the influence of the movies on the song titles and what the songs are about. And I was obsessed with the Misfits. I'm still obsessed with the misfits. Do you ever get to see them live? No, I never went.

I never went. Good show. I'm sure. It's like, I can't put into words how important the misfits are to me. And like, what they did to my brain was like, I'm still dealing with it, you know? And I loved Elvis.

My dad still had, probably still does have like 45s from when he was a kid and I would sit with him and listen, I'd be like, dad, can we go upstairs and get the Elvis seven inches out of that closet? And he'd be like, all right. And I'd dance, you know? And so Danzig was like, kind of just, I was so happy a few years ago

when Danzig finally like just threw it down and was like, did an Elvis covers album. And it's fantastic. I love it. I listen to it all the time He was able to marry so many things All of which were things you were into all of them. Yeah, everyone I listened to it on Albums and that I still have and and like it sounds one way and I listened to it on Spotify and it sounds another way. I love Spotify.

I think it's just fantastic to just have that. So convenient. All the time. Like I'm not a, yeah, I want things to be convenient. Spotify really, like the day I heard about that, I was like, yep, I'll do that. And you're able to just transfer back to all these things and I could be driving in some place. I don't have my records,

but I really wanna hear Myer Threat right now and I can. That's fantastic. Cause I still kind of just, I listen to some new music, but I still really just mostly listen to that stuff. Like I really loved early U2 as well, like at that time, like October and Boy, those records were really important to me. Having a record store, like my dad bought

this used record store in Red Bank, and then it was just like, that was my weekend job, was to get up, go down to the store with him and work. I spent all of my time with him in Manhattan on the weekends going through J&R and all these little record stores and you know around Bleecker's Bleecker Bob's and all these places and and uh but then to be able to just be like walk into a record store but this is my record store you know I you know it's my dad's but it's mine too I guess you know and he sold bootlegs where where we would, you know, he had these cases of like Dead shows and Zeppelin shows and Black Sabbath shows and da-da-da-da-da.

And one of my jobs would be, like, someone would come in and be like, I want this concert. And I would have to sit there and dub it for them, and then they'd come back a couple hours later and get the tape. And I'd have to like photocopy it and cut it, put it into the tape for them and stuff like that. And then he sold posters, which was another massive way of gaining all this insight into

visual information about like live tour posters and stuff. A lot of Morrissey posters and Cramps posters and bands that were doing stuff like still at that time. And he would buy these posters from these suppliers in Europe that would send them like poster delivery day was always really exciting to like see what was coming. And yeah, I would just sit there and just and then bootleg albums too.

You remember like the old, there was like a lot of Zappa bootlegs that I really liked. And Zappa was another one I got into really, really early. And cause he kind of had like a minor, maybe it wasn't a hit, but I heard it on the radio that like, Don't Eat the Yellow Snow song. And then my best friend Don's dad bought us the tape of, that's Joe's garage I believe, right?

That song? I don't know. I think so. And so we'd listen to that in the car driving around. The human foot is a true marvel of engineering. With 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles and tendons, it's built for flexibility, balance, and natural movement. Unfortunately, today's narrow, rigid, elevated shoes

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So like I knew some kids and kissed a girl and stuff like that. You know, which I would never get the opportunity to in my town. And yeah, it was a lot of regulars. Kissed a girl and stuff like that, you know, like which I would never get the opportunity to in my town and Yeah, it was a lot of regulars Some guys that would come in and just stand there all day and tell you the same stories and da da da no but like Bon Jovi came in one day, you know that was like That was really cool, you know Bruce Springsteen would come into my dad's record store. That was really cool.

Seeing the guys from Monster Magnet have jobs, seeing Bruce Springsteen in my dad's store, it just humanized heroes really early for me, which was really great. And I look at my life now and I'm sitting here with you, the people who I have relationships with in my life are people who are operating at the highest levels of whatever it is that they do,

and some of them might be wildly fucking famous, or they write movies and nobody knows who the hell they are but they're like the best at it. And like, I feel really lucky that I saw this, I don't have this like fear of, or idolize like famous people and shit, I just, I don't know what's the right way to put this. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Absolutely. They're just people. And they are. And that was your experience from childhood and you got to see it early, which takes away this. I think it could be a limiting belief if you feel like the only people who have success in the arts are special people and they're not like us.

That's not true. It's not even remotely true. It's not remotely true. I mean, you have to probably as a producer, I would imagine a lot of what you see or have to do is witness the psychological traumas of the people that are creating music because it is Psychologically traumatic to create and that's the best part of it. I think is is

having those fears those doubts You don't want that to go away Having those fears, those doubts, you don't want that to go away, but you wanna fight through it, you wanna get through it. And you wanna, now like, at this point in my life, I come into the studio with no agenda and no plan, and I don't want one at all. Zero plan.

I have this series I've been working on, it's over the last, little over the last year and a couple months, and I have one more painting to do, which I'll start later today. I have no idea. And then it'll be, and then the series is done?

Yeah. And I have no idea what that painting is yet, and I don't care. Like it will absolutely tell me what it needs to be at like five o'clock tonight, and I'll sit down in my studio at my house. It'll just happen. Tell me the process, where does it start?

Does it start with you have an idea and then you draw something, or does it start standing in front of a canvas? It's never the same, I guess. This particular thing I'm working on is I decided to take the white album and the wall and every other double fucking album of all time and try to make them all.

I've made 96 paintings in a year. That's not normal, right? That's not what I've done in the past. I've never made a series this big. I've never made a series of paintings that has like a, like a story through it all. There's definitely a narrative to it. This was spawned by seeing a lobby card from an old serial.

Which one? It's called The Moon Riders. And the films do not exist. All that's left is the lobby card? It's the lobby cards and a couple of posters. And I found, you know, I rabbit-holed trying to find as much of this stuff as I possibly could. There isn't any. There's just like nothing. I have like 10 images that sort of spawned all of this. Probably like six I found on a tumbler once and then I dug around finding old poster

collectors and calling them and I found a guy that had some and I bought them. So I made a painting. One little painting, a 9 by 12 inch painting and I showed it to somebody who I had a sort of a working relationship with. I was like, I'm thinking about making like a series of these and he was like, don't do that. No, it's a terrible idea. Don't do that. And I was like, don't do that. No, it's a terrible idea. Don't do that. And I was like, that's what I'm definitely gonna do.

One of my greatest ways of getting through life is considering the source, right? Of what this, who it's coming from. And you kinda go, well, actually, there's nothing aspirational about, this information, who it's coming from. And you kind of go, well actually like, there's nothing aspirational about, I don't look up to you for anything, really. So I don't trust your opinion,

and I'm going to trust my gut, because that's all I've got. You know that really, really well. So I just kind of started making some, and then I showed them to, I was texting one night with Damien Hirst, and just about whatever, catching up. And towards the end of it, I sent him that painting,

the first one, and he was like, whoa, what's that? And then I sent him another one. And he really responded very positively to what I was doing. He's somebody who I greatly respect and trust and has been remarkably generous to me in my life and helped me in ways that I can't understand. When did you first meet him? to me in my life and helped me in ways that I can't understand.

When did you first meet him? 2013, he was introduced to my stuff and wanted to get some. I had this book that had come out, and my friend gave him the book. Via our mutual friend, he was like, I would love to get that painting. I was like, none of those paintings are available. They're all gone.

They're just in a book, but I'm making these new ones for this museum exhibition I was having. And we worked something out and he ended up like purchasing these paintings for me. That was really, you know, motivational. What are the ways that you feel like Damien changed the game? I can only speak to how he changed the game for me. Okay. value myself.

And he taught me a lot about methods of creating that I hadn't considered in the past. He changed the game by doing those things. I don't know that I should actually speak to them because they're, I don't know if it's, it doesn't, it's, he just pushed things in a way that no one else can do. I can't do it. It's impossible for me to do it. I cannot do it. He took methods of working that, you know, Warhol did, but like having this sort of factory thing and took it to such a different level of polish and shine and glitz and glam and fuck yous

that no one's ever done. And I love his work. Love it. All of it. Because I understand why it's there. It's important. It's like an album that everybody hates by a band and you You know, they had no choice but to make that he's somebody that doesn't have a choice. He's got to do it You can't explain that. I don't want to explain his paintings. I don't explain my painting. I don't know what they're I don't want to tell you What my paintings are about my dad came here on Sunday with me to see this stuff and walked around and Looked at it and he was he asked me like what it was about

And I know he like wanted an answer like it wasn't able I wasn't able to be like I Don't I don't want to tell you. That's my dad. Close. So I didn't answer him. I was like, look around at it one more time. And he didn't. I don't know, he's old and it's on a cane. I understood why he couldn't do it.

Or didn't do it. And then I went home and I started working in my studio I have at home and then jumped out of my chair, ran in and found him and he was on the phone. I was like, put your phone call on mute. I can tell you what the paintings are about. And I kind of was able to tell him what all my paintings are about, I guess.

Which is, we are told that we are living in this world of divisiveness and upheaval and uncertainty and fear and just tragedy all around us, right? That's what we are told we are doing, correct? That's the way it's presented to us. I want to make artwork that shows you that that is not true. That we are living in a world filled with

unbearable amounts of love, unbearable amounts of gratitude. It is, I couldn't pick a better time to be alive than right now. It's magnificent out there. Like everybody else have anxieties about things and visions of the worst case scenarios and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I don't live in those places. I can acknowledge them. They'll hit me. I say something to myself. I acknowledge the love that I have inside myself and how deeply rooted and connected that is to every other person on this planet and Keep moving Yeah, that's all I can do

So I want to give people a glimpse of that that that is possible to live that way, because I live that way. And I wish that all I can, I can't wish that everybody lived that way. All I can do is hope for myself to give people examples of that, right? Yeah, that's it. I met you a handful of years ago, but in 2018, I remember reaching out to you and coming over to your house

or up to Shangri-La and talking to you, and you invited me back to meet Krishnadas. And through that experience, I was able to go meet Ramdas. And I don't know if I've ever properly thanked you for that. I don't even think you want ever properly thanked you for that. I don't even think you want me to thank you for that, but thank you. That was like the most magical thing and nothing happened.

You know, I know there's like a little documentary that was put out kind of shortly before he passed away, where it just shows him going to the beach with a group of people, going swimming, and then going back and sitting in this room in his house and looking out the window. That's exactly what I did. I met him on the beach in Maui, went for a swim, held hands with him on the beach. He stared at me in a way, I mean, I'm about to cry, you know? And then went to his house the next day,

had my friend Will Welsh was interviewing him for GQ. Great. And we sat for three hours in his study. Will was interviewing him, but he and I looked at each other in the eye for three hours. And anything that was wrong with my life went away that day. And I'm not, it's like things will come up

and they'll be bad. But God, did I learn how to deal with them better after that experience. I've always studied and read and I was introduced to Ram Dass as a pretty young kid from my mother. Gave me, be here here now because I knew she knew I would be into the pictures. And she was listening to his lectures and on tapes. I have all of those now too, which is really great.

I knew all these things, but to sit with him and have him reflect back to me and Will and the world I guess eventually when he put when the interview came out, he, Will started off, Ram Dass had sort of a go-to explanation of himself right where he would talk about going and explanation of himself, right? Where he would talk about going and being at Harvard and da da da and then like Will asked him a specific question and I can't recall what it was it doesn't matter but he like it clicked in him like oh I don't have to be like Ram Dass magazine article version of myself I can just talk to these guys and then it was like magic hour.

Got real. This guy who is so... incredibly devoted to this loving awareness in the world is still gets pissed off at people and has bad feelings towards people and bad feelings about himself and better. And it's just like, you know that, but to hear it really come out of his, but see him set like this close, like see him say it. He's human.

Yeah. He's still human. Yeah. And like, he's one of the only people though, like he is, he was somebody I couldn't look at that way. Yeah. He was too important. He knew too much. Cause that's what you got.

When you read the books and stuff and listened to him talk, it was like, he didn't have a goddamn thing figured out except the love and how to stay there. And that's all we can do. It's actually pretty easy once you realize that. I know you're very interested in those thought processes and all those things as well, and that's why I had called to reach out to see you originally, is I needed to talk to somebody, because I was going through all kinds of shit,

and I couldn't talk my way out of it, right? And I was like, I'm not needed to talk to somebody because I was going through all kinds of shit and I couldn't talk my way out of it, right? I'm not fooling myself to think that I've got it figured out just because I met Ram Dass and he made me feel a certain way. Staying in the practice of doing this stuff really helps to keep my, my anxiety is almost zero now. I, you know, it's the only way I'll get a little anxious if I don't eat enough and have too much coffee.

And that's a very easy thing to fix. Just eat something. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] L-M-N-T. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function.

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dial who I could call when I was really losing it because when you have a panic attack it feels like the entire world is just... Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv every painting I could make to every single person on the planet that meant something and I was fucking miserable. So it was in success that you had the panic. Yeah, cause I have no self-worth whatsoever, zero. I don't expect to sell paintings. I've come to a much different place with it. I'm good with it now. I look at it totally differently. But at that point in time, it's really easy to understand it. I was

drinking, smoking cigarettes, eating pizza and hamburgers and treating myself really really really badly. I Thought I knew what like these books and stuff were about They were very much a part of my life. I was practice. I was reading them. I Thought they were getting in I wasn't letting them permeate me properly, you know, I And I it's a life's pursuit pursuit to let them do that for you. But I don't know, a bunch of different things happen and it's clicked more, right? Some of the things that I see in these books, my favorite being the Dao is like the one that I, that really resonates with me.

I wouldn't call myself a Taoist. I just practice my version of the Tao. Does that make sense? Absolutely. I don't want any rigidity in it, you know, and I can't define it for anybody, but I know how I practice it. I know how I meditate.

I know how I practice it. I know how I meditate. I know how I study these words and I know what they do for me. I think the nature of the Tao is so open to interpretation anyway, that if you read this, you can read the words and then read them a year later and they'll mean something completely different. Totally different.

What I do is I wake up every morning and that's how I start my day. I give myself 10 minutes of perfect quiet and breathing and staring out a window that's up high in my room. Do you do this in bed or do you get out of bed? No rule. Typically, just describe typically. I usually wake up,

I'm woken up usually because I have a little, I have a two year old son. So his noise will wake me up. My wife usually is the one that will go in and see him first. And I'll just sit there and breathe

for ten minutes. And laugh and breathe for 10 minutes and laugh and listen to what's happening in the other room, then I'll read a verse of the Dao. I actually open my phone and read, there's a Ram Dass app, and every day there's these words of wisdom. There's two to three of them every day.

I read those first, then I read my Dao verse, and then I'm ready to go. I'm up, and I go see my son Otto, and that kid is six-ass, bro. My wife walked in here into my studio one day. A mutual friend brought her along on a studio visit randomly and I went outside the parking lot to open the gate and this girl opened the backseat of the SUV

they got driven here in and stepped out and I've literally lost my breath. I was just like, who is that? And now I'm married to her. I have a son. Congratulations. Thanks. And yeah, that's success, man.

That love, I never wanted it. I saw my friends that had kids and I'm gonna guess you probably felt this way. You like look at your friends that have kids and you're like, ha, like your sucks for you. You don't get to go do this. You don't get to go do that. And like, luckily I did get to go do all the things.

Now I'm in my 50s, I have a two year old son and it's like, it was the right time for me. Do you think your mom's eye for detail in her work influenced you in any way? 100%, yeah, we're almost, we're like facsimiles of each other. It's, I look a lot like my mom. Do you think it's genetic

or do you think it's seeing her do it, her modeling it for you? It's hard to say. My father's super creative too. He writes about jazz. My mom is a mom does her thing. My aunt is an art teacher. Like there's creative people. I was just brought up around creative people. They definitely didn't encourage me to do this. I can say that. There was a lot of butting heads,

like get a job kind of conversations. I just wouldn't do it, just wouldn't do it. I got a job when I was five at the pharmacy on Sunday mornings, putting newspapers together because the Sunday papers came in sections and you had to put them together. And I wanted comic books and toys and that's how I got them. Sorry, not five, eight, I was eight.

And then I worked in a rug store, which was all about detail and being around these beautiful rugs. And there was a very specific way to unroll them and a very specific way to reroll them. And I loved it. And I was really, I took a-roll them. And I loved it. And I was really, I took a lot of pride in how I did it.

And then my dad opened his store and I worked in record stores. And then in my late 20s, mid 20s, I started to work at like sort of like blue chip art galleries in New York City. What motivated you to move west? It was a couple of things, but like I had this idea in

2009 or early 10, that I wanted to come out and stay at the Chateau and make a series of drawings on that letterhead that you get when you stay there and they print your name on it, right? What started that idea? What was it about the chateau? I had been there and I just liked it.

You know, it was just like a place. The first time I went there, I was just like, it's so storied and I like went and stayed there. It was the first time I could like afford to stay in a really nice, nice hotel, expensive hotel. So I flew out to LA and I went there and I didn't have like this crazy time there. I just, I left there feeling like I wanted to be there.

Right? I get this room, my home, any other home I've had in California, studios I've worked in since I've been able to have studios. It's like, and what a dump it is when I walk through the door, there's like, I just get this feeling. The energy.

Yeah, and this place was just a disaster feeling. The energy. Yeah. And this place was just a disaster area. I bet. And I crossed the halfway point. This building is twice as big. I crossed the halfway point into the building. And I got to the beam that separates the space. It's buried in that wall now.

And I looked in here and I got the chills up my spine. Amazing. I was like, this is it. You know, anyway, to go back to it was like Chateau just felt like a place to be for me. I just needed to be there. I didn't know why. So I... long convoluted story as to how I got there. I had nothing to you know, I had didn't have a pot to piss in really but I Found the money I sold some works. I got the money and I went came out here in early 2011 and rented room 34 in the chateau and I'm 34 in the chateau and lived there like I was supposed to be there, because I was supposed to be there.

How long were you there for? I stayed for 30 days and I made a drawing every day. Then I went back to Brooklyn for a couple weeks and then I came back and I rented the penthouse for a night and threw an exhibition up there. And it did really, really, really well. This was another thing that some people that I was working with in New York had

discouraged this idea, to put it lightly. And I was like, well, I'm doing it. However I can do it, I'm gonna do it. And I did it, and it changed my life, man. I met a good buddy of mine, Darren Romanelli, in my room at the hotel. He came in, and I was listening to a live Dead show, and he was...he's a big Deadhead,

and we got to talking and he introduced me, he helped me get involved in a project for a Grateful Dead box set and that was all happening at Rhino, Warner. And so I kept having to come out here for meetings with the producer of like the Live Dead releases is a guy named David Lemieux. So I was coming out here meeting with him. He's like an encyclopedia of Grateful Dead. Just a really cool guy. And I'd come out to LA. I would have a good stay at the Chateau, have a fantastic time, and then I'd get back to Brooklyn,

and I would be around a bunch of painters, and... There's too much negativity going on around me. You know, there's, like... I don't understand how people have turned art into a fucking competitive sport, but they've figured out a way to do it. And I was not willing to play that game. So I decided, I was turning 40 in 2012,

and I just decided to come and move here. And I moved into the Chateau Marmont. Amazing. I had no plan. And so I just kind of started drawing and making these like paintings on paper basically. Cause that's all I could really pull off in there. And did another one night exhibition

up in the Belushi bungalow and sold it out, I would say in 10 minutes, literally. It was just like, yes, this, you know, and the next day... It's not typical for an artist to sell his own work. No, no, that's another that was that was something that that I Found that the system that I was presented with to work within was not the one that I was willing to do So much of today's life happens on the web Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best in class

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while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. and get started today. Tell me about the system. I really know very little about the art world. What's the typical path? I don't know if there's a typical one, but the relationship between a gallery and an artist

is it can, at the level that I was operating at, which was sort of not emerging, but not some, you know, there's like emerging artists and mid-career artists and late-career artists. I was in between emerging and mid. And there's just sort of this like indentured servitude that you feel by the people involved in the gallery system. Do you feel like you work for the gallery when you have a gallery? They try to make you feel by the people involved in the gallery system.

Do you feel like you work for the gallery when you have a gallery? They try to make you feel that way, yes. That's not a game I'm going to play. I'm not going to do that. So the very short version of the long story I didn't say is like, I wanted to come to the Chateau. The people I was working with said,

no, we're not going to help you financially to do that. Get a Kickstarter. And maybe you can get, and I didn't even know what that was. They showed me what that was. I was like, I'm not doing that. You couldn't pay me to do that. Well, if you're not gonna do it,

then you're not doing that project. And I said, I quit. On the spot, I quit. Give me the couple things you have, my trucks outside. I'm out. Called a collector, sold a big painting, got 40 grand in my pocket and spent it all to live at the Chateau for 30 days.

And rolled it and it turned into more than that. And then more than that, not more than that. These are the sort of the times though where I was like getting like anxiety and panicky and tweaky about things and I just kept, I'd answer the phone and it would be the best news in the world. And I would have a panic attack.

What's a call you would get that would put pressure on you? That was so difficult. It's cause it didn't feel like pressure to me in my mind, but my body felt it that way, I guess. And my mind subconsciously was doing that to me. I don't know. It was just like so and so of world renowned would like to come meet you and buy a painting.

And those calls were like happening, like not like once, but like weekly, you know? And I'm so thankful for it. Not like once, but like weekly, you know? And I'm so thankful for it. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. But tell me where the anxiety came from that. What do you think it is?

I really don't know. I mean, the only thing I can answer for, the only thing that I can think of is having no self-worth of any kind. I'm a tall guy, I'm covered in tattoos, I'm relatively well-spoken, but I'm educated enough. I've got a good head on my shoulders and stuff. Financially succeeded in this world, and up to a certain point, I just, like, hated myself. What was your first tattoo?

I got a little, like, crappy line drawing version of, um... uh, uh, Jimi Hendrix's flying eyeball that like Rick Griffin had drawn from a Jimmy Hendrix concert poster on my ankle. I think I was like 16, this place in Jersey, tattoo 46. A big old biker dude gave me the tattoo. How'd you pick the image?

You know, it picked me, I think, you know. a big old biker dude gave me the tattoo. How'd you pick the image? You know, it picked me, I think, you know. I just walked in there and... You didn't know before you walked in what it was going to be. No idea. I just wanted my first tattoo. I was obsessed with tattoos. Because spending all that time in New York City, I was seeing tattoos. In Chatham, New Jersey, you didn't see tattoos.

But being in the East Village, you saw people with tattoos, and they were the scariest people on the street, because they had tattoos. Tattoos were, you know, they weren't fashionable. They were a way of marking yourself as like the outside. And I mean, I had friends growing up after we had gotten out of high school but we're still like around the area they'd come home from college and stuff and

Like their parents didn't want me to come over because I had tattoos You know that was a thing and then all of a sudden a Lot of it I was like I was working at a tattoo shop I was an apprentice in a tattoo shop when I got out of high school in Jersey and This is 91 But say that was one of the last Truly fantastic moments in American music at least for me was that era

So at that point in time, then the music that was coming up that became so big, all these guys had tattoos. It was changing the world, it was changing fashion, it was changing the tastes of the world, that music. Anthony was literally the most beautiful man on the planet at that time.

And he had the most amazing, beautiful tattoos. And like, it changed people's perception of tattoos. Like right, I saw it happen in the tattoo shop live. Like we were tattooing like thugs from the oranges in Jersey and like garbage men and frat guys with their frat logos and stuff. So you worked in the tattoo salon? Yeah, I was like a... I would draw and make needles. And you make needles? You soldered them together. Like you'd buy... you'd get packs of needles, you'd have a bar and you'd solder them together. You had jigs,

you put X amount of needles in the jig, solder them together. It was a patience, a lot of patience to do that. But you got good at it and I would take pride in being good at it, you know. That was a great time and like the music was so crazy. Again, not to keep blowing smoke up your ass, but you were making a lot of it. And I was working at this tattoo shop and at the same time there was like a sort of like

real wave of like the rave scene happening in New York and I Went with my boss at the tattoo shop This guy Carrie brief was, brief was his name, is his name. And we went to the limelight on a Wednesday to this party. It was an old church. Yes, went to this party called Disco 2000. That was this like amazing party.

It was fucking crazy, man. Nothing like it on the planet. I've never seen anything like it. The club kids that were like on whatever. I remember they were on like a talk show one day in the afternoon. They were on like a Donahue type show or something like that. I knew all of these guys were guys I was hanging out with. But then also it was Tuesday, Wednesday was Disco 2000,

Tuesday or Thursday. I can't remember which one was like the industrial night with like ministry. And when you first walked in, we were talking about, you know, nine inch, I was listening to nine inch nails, like they were playing that and stuff like that. That was also a crazy party. It was so cool to go there on Wednesday and the freaks that were into that scene were there.

And then the next night, a whole other subgenre of New York City and the surrounding boroughs would show up for this party. And it was so special. Did you ever go to Limelight? Absolutely. And that was, that was, that couldn't happen today. I don't think.

There was an incredible club scene in New York all through the time that I lived there. Yeah. Nothing like it. Yeah. There was that, NASA, which was down next to Wetlands. And then Club USA opened, I remember, in Webster Hall, I remember going to Webster Hall opening night with Michael Alec, that guy that ran this party disco 2000. And he like ended up killing a drug dealer

and hacking his body up and going to prison forever. And there was a movie about him. He was my boss, boss. I got paid 75 bucks to go to the club and have fun. You know, it was really cool. I remember there was like a room way up in the back of the back of the back of the VIP area that H.R. Geiger had done.

Like all this furniture was like all sculptural stuff that he had made. That was so cool. Unbelievable. Welcome to the house of macadamias. Macadamias are a delicious superfood, sustainably sourced directly from farmers. sustainably sourced directly from farmers. Macadamias, a rare source of omega-7, linked to collagen regeneration, enhanced weight management, and better fat metabolism.

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Coconut white chocolate and blueberry white chocolate. Visit houseofmacadamias.com slash tetra. Tell me about that moment when you're making something and you feel like I have to walk away. What would be an example? Where would you be in the project and what would the voice say? I mean there was when I first started to paint I was I would draw so much right and I was really confident in my drawing and I'd get in front of a canvas and I would just fail instantly and then I'd just paint over it and then I'd fail instantly. And then I'd just paint over it. And then I'd start something else.

I mean, you talk about this in your book too. It's like you walk away from it on a Tuesday and you feel like it's the greatest thing you've ever done in your life. And on Wednesday morning it is dog shit. Yeah. And it is. Yeah.

Dog shit. So from like, when I really started to paint, I would say I was like 25. So from like 25 to 40, I drew and then I painted. And when I moved to California... You drew first and then painted the drawing? I would say I, no, I would paint this much and I drew this much in my practice. I see. So I spent like 15 years predominantly drawing. My drawings would get big, they'd get complicated, they were really, you know, I'm proud of them.

They were remarkable and hyper derivative of certain people, very much on purpose. Because I looked at those people that I admired and I looked at how they worked. And that's what they did. They looked at the people that they liked before them and they copied the shit over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I think one main difference in music is that it is quite possible to become hyper successful as a musician when you're a teenager and still be really fucking good at it when you're 70 years old, it's possible. It's possible, but not often. Not often, but it's possible. Yes, it is possible.

Painting, it's not possible. It's not possible. You just have to grow into it. You have to grow. You have to have a life experience, because paintings are generally not about... I don't know, this is not gonna be right either, but you could write a song when you're 18

about the girl that broke up with you when you were 17, and it could become a classic song for the rest of time. You can't paint a painting at 18 to create that same thing at 18 with a canvas. One person I know of has done that, that was Basquiat. Like he did it all by the time he was 27 years old and he had a mastery of the history of, very specific history of art, but a mastery of it.

And he liked all the artists that I liked and that I looked up to. And he had this way of looking, he created a way of art. way of looking, he created a way of art. All art is talking to art that came before it. He had a way of taking art and turning it into the first Boogie Down record for me. The sampling and layering and bravado and mystery and violence and romance

that were like, it was, they were identical to each other, to me, visually and sonically, those are the closest, that's how I can put them together. Seeing his work for the first time did the same thing to me that that Boogie Down record did to me. What was the first time you came across his work? I was in my like, I was probably like 24, something like that. Never heard of him before that. And a girl, my girlfriend at the time gave me a book for my birthday.

And I was like, what is this? Paintings didn't look like that before. No. It was a new language. Yeah. And he was dead by the time I saw it, but not that dead. Yeah. You know?

No. He was just around in the same places that you were. Yes, yeah. No time ago. And I spent like a, you know, a really, and I'm still hyper influenced by him, hyper, hyper, hyper influenced, unapologetically. Somebody comes in, like I've had people come in here

and be like, that looks like a boss guy. And I'll say, thank you. Thank you very, very, very much. Because I dove headlong into understanding him and his process and what motivated him. And the corollaries were so strong between us, minus the fact that I'm a white guy and he's a black guy. There were so many things that happened between us, minus the fact that I'm a white guy and he's a black guy. Oh, there were so many things that happened

and the things we were both drawn to were so similar. I felt like art is a conversation, music's a conversation. You're talking to the people that did it before you. And I decided to have a really, really in-depth conversation with Jean-Michel Basquiat and find what that could do for me. I remember just being like, at first, being like really scared of it and like wanting to like, that's where I would get lost on a canvas

is I would try to not do the very thing that I should be doing, which was talk honestly and openly and copy what the hell that guy had done. And then I embraced the conversation and my life changed drastically. And that's when those phone calls started coming and the great opportunities started rearing their heads and and like just like yes I am

doing that I am openly publicly telling you I spent my life copying what that guy did and making my own new fresh version of it because it is markedly different than what he did But the structure is the same identical structure Because of the guys that I looked at that's what they did and then all of a sudden They didn't need to do it anymore And I'm just over the last couple of years, I have done something unique in here that is mine,

and I know that. I had no plan other than that first little painting and being told not to do it. And then that encouragement from Damien, and then sort of set this parameter on myself that I had never done before, which was to make a gigantically ambitious body of it. There's 96 of these paintings.

I've never made 96 paintings that went together. How'd you pick the number? 96 of these paintings. I've never made 96 paintings that went together. How'd you pick the number? It was just kind of thrown at me by a friend. Like that you can get there. Like if you do that many, you should feel done. And I started doing it. And that number for like the first hour after hearing that suggestion, I was like,

I can't do that. That's insane, you know? That's crazy. I'm just one guy. And then I came to the studio the next day and I made one. And I was like, well, there's one of them. Come back tomorrow and do another one. And I was like, well, there's one of them. Come back tomorrow and do another one.

And this turned into like, I've had many challenges with them as far as pushing myself and my technical abilities and finding things inside of myself that I didn't know that I had. And I will not say that it has been easy, but it has been effortless. Yeah. And I've had no self-doubt, because I had no point where I, after that first hour of saying I couldn't do it, and once I said I can do it, I did it.

And I never was like, no, I'm not gonna do this. I can't, I can't go on another day. About two weeks ago, my assistant Ben was with me and we were in my house studio. I love painting at my house, because I get to be around my son and my wife and not have to drive anywhere. And I was kind of like, oh, I'm getting sick of this. I was at like 90.

I was like, I just can't do any more of these. And instead of lists, I just had to say it. Yeah. And then I went right up to a canvas and I did the goddamn thing. And then I got really excited about it again. And I really fell in love with the whole process all over again.

It's amazing how even a small breakthrough changes the whole picture. Yeah. Changes our understanding of what's happening. Yeah. You know, I can never do that. I will never do this again. And then even a glimpse of something interesting

is enough to just erase that. Yeah, yeah. Like those battles that you have with yourself, they never go away, but they get a hell of a lot easier to win, right? In a shorter period of time. I've always won them, but some of those were 12 rounds and they were draws, you know?

I've been going in and like having like early Mike Tyson fights with my paintings, you know? And like, that is a good feeling. Tell me about the first time your work was hung in a museum. Well I remember in 2003 I got a call that the MoMA had bought a suite of drawings of mine from a gallery that I was working with at the time but I never went to see it installed but I'm pretty sure it was

installed in this collection. But then in 2014, I had sold stuff to museums in Europe, but I had never gone to see any of it. But then in 2014, I was given an opportunity to do like a sort of survey show at a place in Denmark called the Arhus Museum, which is in a tiny college town called Arhus. It's one of the most magical towns I've ever been to in my life. They came to my studio in Brooklyn because I was still there when this was

conceived, but then by the time it was happening, I was living here. But the idea was to replicate my studio in Brooklyn inside of the museum because my studio is, you know, it's an interesting place. And the one in Brooklyn was smaller and jammed up and it had a different vibe. I was a different person. So I lived in a little apartment around the corner from the museum for a month and went and worked in the studio that they built me a footprint

of Brooklyn in the museum. And I went there and made paintings and made it covered in paint and pinned little pictures all over the place and shipped my books like everything. It was really cool. That was the most memorable experience I've had with a museum. Other things have gone to museums over the years but I've never gone to visit them. Do you think there's aspect to your work? For myself, absolutely. It's my practice. It's my

way of, one of the ways I can meditate and I can do it for many many many many hours So you just zone and I don't have to talk That's one of the great things about this job is I don't have to speak to anybody to do it So I can sit in absolute silence alone So I can sit in absolute silence alone. Or even if there's music, I mean, you know, music can become the soundtrack to a silence that you need. Even though it's on, it becomes that headspace you need. Creates an internal silence, right?

Like a good song can quiet your mind like nothing else. I think I touched on it earlier, is like I would like for my paintings to make people feel something, to feel a desire to look at the world in a different way. a desire to look at the world in a different way. One of the greatest things that happened in my work life, my uncle, I was very close to my uncle Bill, and he had made me a copy of

The Power of Intention, the Wayne Dyer lecture that and he gave it to me and at the time I had this big wall of CDs in my studio and I was about to start a project for Art Basel in 2004, I think it was. And he had given me this stuff. I took it, put it in my CD case. Couldn't even see it. And I went to reach up for something. And it's like this set of discs just shot out and landed on the

floor and I picked it up thought of my uncle walked over put it in my six CD changer turned it on started this group of drawings I was gonna do I drew all these drawings of myself dressed up as a zombie from a Halloween costume that I had had. And all I did was draw myself with a snake coming out of my head and blood all over me. And I just wrote everything he was saying that meant something to me on these drawings. All over them. And I just listened to it for like a month. And then I went to Miami, we installed the stuff. I had no expectations of any kind. I wasn't killing it by any stretch of the... I was making a living, but I wasn't.

And then I was just going to the beach and hanging out with friends and doing whatever during the day every 10 minutes my phone kept ringing. Sold another one, sold another one, sold another one, sold another one. That was a turning point where I had always been writing on stuff, but what I was writing changed and what I was putting out changed. That was a stepping stone in my life where I was treating myself badly, but I needed to treat myself better and I had a moment where I did it and it made work where I was treating myself badly, but I needed to treat myself better. And I had a moment where I did it.

And it made work that I was really proud of. And it succeeded in helping me. And it succeeded by going out into the world as well. And it was successful in a myriad of ways. So that started a practice for me where I was really intentionally placing these texts that I was studying into my artwork all the time. And it was the beginning of me really, truly

getting to make a real living at this. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Let's look at the Tao, and I want you to randomly open to a page and read to me what's there. And let's see how it impacts what we're feeling today. Without going out the door, you can know the world. Without looking out the window, you can know the world.

Without looking out the window, you can see heaven. The farther you travel, the less you know. Thus the wise person knows without traveling, understands without seeing, accomplishes without acting. I'm going to go get some water. Thank you.