It Started With a Poster:  An Interview with Brian Ewing

It started with a poster in Chicago, IL and ended with an interview in Boston, MA.  Let's start at the beginning.  My friends and I attended a two night Brand New concert series in November.  There were 15 limited edition posters being sold each night.  We missed them by a long shot on the first night so we made darn sure we were in the beginning of the line on day two.  Luckily, we got our posters.  We had no idea what they looked like.  At that point all we knew were that they were limited edition and, being huge Brand New fans, we knew they'd be good. 

The drowning boy poster was like emo on paper.  I had never enjoyed a poster the way I took to that piece.  Thus beginning the start of a torrid love affair with myself and art.  Now it's eight months later.  How were we to know (as we minded our own business walking through the Milwaukee Warped Tour) we would have "round two" of poster love?  I walked by the Samsung/Cingular "PUNK YOUR PHONE" cell phone decorating booth and grabbed a free poster.  I stopped and looked, and there it was, the signature of Brian Ewing.  I soon realized that there were six different prints, and matching laminates.  I missed the signings that day.  SAMSUNG/ CINGULAR arranged for the six bands to autograph that day and even flew Brian Ewing in to sign as well.  After all, it was his hometown.  That brings us to the present, in Boston.  With an e-mail and a few phone calls, I was on the SAMSUNG/CINGULAR RV, tape recorder in hand, to talk to the man himself as he fidgeted with a hot dog and lemonade.  The boy was hungry.

XROXX:  My friends and I are fans of your work.  We have some of your pieces framed in our houses.
Brian:  That's weird...thank you!  I just kind of do the art and it goes out there.  I don't hear much about it, and when I do, it's all at once.  It's a lot to digest.  It's not like I am doing this for anybody in particular.  The artwork, at times, is very personal to me.  It beats having a day job, and I love doing what I do, and I actually like the music.  I'm very happy the bands like it, so that's cool, and that's what matters to me.

XROXX:  What is it like being an artist in the music business?
Brian:  Lonely.  No, it's cool.  All of my work is legit, and whenever I work with bands and management I always let them know that I do sell a limited number of the posters.  Recently, there have been people making posters for shows that I was hired to do.  Bootleggers.  It just sucks.  I make the effort to work with the bands and the management and these people just show up with posters, sell them, and the bands don't even know or approve of it.  The bands get ripped off.  It kind of tarnishes the legitimacy of what I and other designers do as a career.

XROXX:  Do you do anything other than posters?
Brian:  If I want to, sometimes I'll do cover work for the comic book industry.  But there's a different satisfaction with the posters because I own rights to the poster artwork.  It's a nice feeling.  I'm creating a property, and later if I want to transfer them onto something else, I can.  Regarding other work...whatever comes across my table really.  I just did some skateboard designs for Scarecrow.  One of them is a version of the Coheed and Cambria "I robot" poster, the other is similar to the Nekromantix poster.  I had to have a skateboard.  C'mon.  It was a part of my life growing up.  Anyways...I'm doing something for a friend's hair salon, OLD GLORY.  That's going to be fun.  Later on what I would really like to do is publish some artists that I like and feel other people would like too.  But that's later on when I have a breakdown or break both of my arms.

XROXX:  Have you thought about a clothing line?
Brian:  Kinda, sorta, maybe.  Other people have licensed my work from me for clothing.  There was the Brand New tour poster shirt.  Rufio wanted to use the tour poster I did for them as a shirt too, but nothing is set in stone.  I'm just not aware of what people think about what I do.  I kind of work in a bubble.  I've got some ideas; I just don't want to do the average thing.  Everyone and their ex-girlfriend are starting clothing lines.  They all copy the same people and produce second rate stuff that has little personality to it.  For me, right now, it's a matter of time and having some strong pieces to set myself apart from all the good and bad designs out there.  Most band merch tends to look the same to me.  I'm not blind but I am picky.  It costs money and I have to do and know everything.  Recently I've been asked to design some clothing type stuff for Atticus.  I just finished up a tour poster for TSUNAMI BOMB that Atticus hired me to do.  I heart Brendan!  Coincidentally, I am one of their first sponsored artists.  Normally they deal with bands but decided to branch out.  I'm one of the guinea pigs.  They also sponsor a tattoo artist out of La Jolla, CA... Adam Hathorn.

XROXX:  How did getting a gig with Samsung/Cingular come about?
Brian:  I'm friends with Ashley Dechter (one of the super awesome workers with Samsung/Cingular).  She interviewed with Sarah Baer for a job to work on the tour.  They told her they wanted to do this big promotion with posters for bands and give it some street cred.  She suggested they call me.  The posters came after that.  All because of Ashley. As a side note:  The Taking Back Sunday poster was originally a sketch for their album cover.  The band asked me to do some sketches for Where You Want to Be.  The thing is...I only had a day to get some sketches together.  They liked the designs, hooray for me, but thought they would make better posters.  A couple of months went by and then I got hired by Samsung/Cingular to do the posters for the Warped Tour.  They were like "oh, TBS is one of the bands we are working with."  So, that was easy.  They (including the band) were pretty stoked.  I've been getting the most feedback from that poster out of the series.  It's strange when the bands are here, at Warped, and people ask "is Brian here?".  I didn't make a huge announcement to let people know I was gonna be here.  I was too busy trying to get the project done...on time!  I just put it up on my site and people sought me out.  So, it's been great.  FANSCAPE and SAMSUNG/CINGULAR also promoted me on their sites and through text messages they sent out to all the people attending the shows on the days I was there.

Brian's work can be seen and bought on his site www.BrianEwing.com.  His use of monsters, color, and imagery will move you.  He's done posters for a bunch of bands you probably listen to (Coheed and Cambria, Brand New, Further Seems Forever...).  I am just fascinated by the art.  Thanks Samsung/Cingular for exposing such an amazing artist to the masses and becoming the main sponsor for this year's Warped Tour.  Last, but not least, do not buy Brian Ewing posters on E-bay, get them direct and support the artist.

Jayne*Star
jayne.star@XROXX.com