ECTOPLASMIC MELTDOWN:
Spilling this month’s slime!
By Staff Writer Matt Ferri
First off, I would like to thank Josh and BTS for allowing me to add some grime to their site! Greetings to all you ghouls and ghoulettes! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Matt. I am a freelance illustrator, and touring musician. I go by the alias Matt Slime Bucket (you can see my work atMattSlimeBucket) and have done artwork for many bands involved within the underground music scene, including Living Decay, Spewtilator, Ex Dementia, Zombie Mortropolis, Johnny B Morbid…the list goes on. I also do most of the artwork for both of my bands. I play bass and yell a lot in the band Trasher, and I play guitar and puke in Coffin Dust. I draw inspiration for my artwork and music from all things morbid, disgusting, horrific, and gory…and I would like to use this column to project my fowl regurgitations to whomever would like to pay attention!
I was recently bestowed the honor of drawing the monsterpiece known as THE ZOMBEAR for my very good friends SPEWTILATOR (with whom I will have an interview with next months column!). I was very VERY excited to work on this piece, and I wanted to get started right away. Animals with fur are a challenge to me still sometimes, and I like to refer to the gory gods of today’s horror illustration whenever I need reference on how to translate something into pen and ink, and the first guy I always go to is the almighty Putrid. Putrid has been one of my main influences for a while now, and i think I make it very obvious sometimes. He’s always allowing me to pester him with questions, and ask him for tips and critiques…it’s a miracle he hasn’t murdered me in my sleep yet! 😉
Well this wizard of illustration gore has been so kind to answer a few questions for me, to give you a little background, and to everyone an idea of what he’s all about.
Putrid! Spill your slime dudeski!
Matt BTS: There are many who know you as a wizard of illustrational gore! So please tell me, What and who inspired you to start drawing and getting involved in artwork? And have you always been interested and enthralled by doing gore/horror art? At what age did you start?
Putrid: Hey Matt you depraved fiend!!! Well I’ve always been drawing as long as I can remember and still have a bunch of art from Kindergarten and first and second grade, probably even before that if I were to guess but I was always inspired by horror movies, books and comics, I can truly say that I have been fascinated with all things horror since day fuckin one. As I got older this only matured and I would watch as many horror flicks I could get my hands on and then immediately hit the paper and start drawing up my own versions of Dawn Of The Dead, The Thing, Friday The 13th, Aliens and Jaws to name a few. When I got older metal became a big thing for me which was perfect cause to me metal and horror go hand in hand so I was never without plenty of inspiration and imagination as I was constantly coming across more and more killer shit that got me excited to continue spilling the grue heheh.
Matt BTS: I know for a fact that your medium of choice happens to be ink, but are there any other mediums you like to work in? If not, have you experimented with other mediums?
Putrid: Yeah I’m just about exclusively pen and ink and really always have been, I’m pretty bad about breaking my comfort zone, I just don’t like spreading myself to thin I guess?? Still though I’m trying to experiment more and have been working a bit with Watercolors and some acrylic illustrations/paintings. I’m sure at some point I’ll really get into another medium but for now I’m very content with just trying to improve upon my inking style.
Matt BTS: You are a well established artist, and many around the world know about your work. Where/When/How did you get your start? How did you start doing graphics for skateboard companies? And what got you started doing artwork for bands?
Putrid: Ah well this question I’ve answered a million times so these days I just breeze by it, sorry dude! Basically I drew up a board graphic for my buddies local skateshop Meta in Colorado which made it’s way on over to the Deluxe Skateboard company in SF and things kinda just snowballed from there, I started illustrating boards for Anti-Hero, Consolidated and Creature. I liked doing that alot but really wanted to start working with Death Metal bands so I set up a website and started emailing bands I was stoked on and hit up a bunch of my favorite artists like Jake Karns of Bloody Skull Comix, Dennis Dread, Mike Majewski, ect… I also printed up a bunch of flyers and started handing them out at shows when I moved to Chicago and thats how I came in contact with the Cardiac Arrest fellas and that was my first album cover so that helped me out a lot, those dude’s are good buds of mine.
Matt BTS: I can’t help it. I have to ask. Favorite horror movie?
Putrid: Impossible question to answer without an entire dissertation to fully explain everything so I always just put down a few favorites of the week:
– Slaughter Hotel (Klaus Kinski and Rosalba Neri, tits and blood woo!)
-The Killing Of America (bleak as fuck documentary that has some ghastly footage and carnage)
-Waxwork 2 (total fun)
-The Devil Master (blew my mind, the un-cut is available, though hard as hell to find under The Demon Lover on Unicorn Video)
-Fortress (The killer Aussie revenge one with Rachel Ward)
Matt BTS: …favorite band?
Purtid: Gah! Another one of these!? Well I’ll do this like up top:
-Repugnance (Epitome Of Darkness)
-Infernal Majesty (None Shall Defy)
-Magnus (I Was Watching My Death)
-Machetazo (Necrocovered)
-Tombstones (Not For The Squeamish)
-Abysme (Demos)
Matt BTS: Where do you see your artwork going? do you see a direction it’s/You are going in??
Putrid: Hmmm, not to sure but I’m in no hurry to change right now… I know that I want to improve upon some areas in my art such as overall dynamic and proper perspective so I can really make a strong professional piece but I’m very content working in the underground metal and horror scene so I want to just keep living the life here in my miasmic pool of head banging gory glory muhahaha!!!
Matt BTS: Any advice for aspiring artists (such as myself), or any final words??
Putrid: THANKS a shit load Matt for this interview!!! I really look forward to our next beer swilling metal meltdown!! As for some advice not to much outside the obvious PRACTICE, PRACTICE and more PRACTICE, also worship and study your influences but really try to blend ’em all up and create a style that is original to you, I feel that is extremely important! Keep your blood metallized Matt and go see The Expendables cause it rules haha! 666
Matt BTS: You can see a wide variety of Putrid’s work at WWW.PUTRIDGORE.COM
I suggest you look at the entire site! It’s fucking oozing with pure grimey disgusting perfection.
Next month I’m going to have an interview with Spewtilator, and I am going to update you on some new artwork that I’ve been working on, and also whats going on/whats next for Trasher and Coffin Dust.
Fangs!
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON GORE!
–Matticus “The Slime Bucket” Splatticus
If you missed our first interview with Matt Ferri – check it out HERE!!!
and now…New Original Artworks by Matt Ferri..
