For those of you that don't know Spliedt, here are a few facts from the man himself:

"I played bass and did back-up vocals in Nora for 6 years. I did a few musical things/projects (usually involving various ex-members of Nora oddly enough) but nothing really took off. I will do music on some level again, but for now my creativity is poured into painting and graphic design.

Band's I've done graphic stuff for are:
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Burnt By the Sun
Poison the Well
God Forbid
The Break
Nora
The Killing Gift
Merciana
Lifetime and Weston (a loooong time ago).

I also help Josh & Portland (of Trustkill & Ferret Records respectively) with some graphic stuff from time to time. Usually just technical stuff... like I just did the color separations for the Bleeding Through CD face. I'm a fountain of graphical knowledge.

For money I work in the production dept of a newpaper. I do two comic strips in said paper: Chemical Corparation Baby Funnies, and Bunny Vs. Squirrel.

Upcoming projects include: a few graphic design things for bands (although I'm probably going to ease up on that stuff for a little while.), as many art shows as I can get, a cool comicbook, and as always lots and lots of paintings."

If you would like to purchase any of Chris Spliedt's work or would like to hire him for design, you can contact him at spliedt@trustkill.com

So here it is...

The Spliedt Interview

Chris: Gotta get some music jammin' here.

Spliedt: haha

Chris: Ok, gotta warn you, I'm somewhat unprepared so I'll be wingin' this.

Spliedt: So am I, no problem.

Chris: Ok, let's start with the music biz.

Spliedt: Hit me.

Chris: You played with Nora for six years who in my taste are an amazing band and an amazing bunch of dudes. What made you quit?

Spliedt: Oh man...

Chris: Haha, never said this would be easy.

Spliedt: Nah, it's cool. There was a bunch of reasons ... to sum it up as neatly as possible, I needed a change. I wasn't getting out of it what I was before, and a LOT of time was being put into it. It was probably the coolest thing I have done with my life thus far, it was an awesome experience, but when I quit, I just needed something different. There were no ill feelings or anything like that. I still talk to all those guys.

Chris: You're still working with Portland over at Ferret right?

Spliedt: No. Portland used to work with me at the newspaper I'm currently employed with. Haha. I was his boss. ... the Ferret office just moved to the same town I work in, they work like 10 minutes from my office, but I talk to Portland almost daily over instant messenger. Quick note. I ain't too good at spelling.

Chris: It's ok, I'm a good editor. So you plan on getting back into the music thing?

Spliedt: eeeh. ... how can I word this ... I would REALLY like to create music again. but don't really want to be in a band. Or I would, but it just can't consume more of my time than I would like. So yes, I plan to be involved in making music again on some level. I don't know when though.

Chris: So it seems you're totally devoted to "creating" whether it be music or art.

Spliedt: Seriously, it's like a disease... it consumes my head. So much so, that the non-creative side of my brain barely works.

Chris: Haha

Spliedt: It's cool. I wouldn't trade it, but like the idea of doing something like balancing a check book, doesn't even occur to me, and if it did, I wouldn't know how.

Chris: So how did you tap into the artistic side?

Spliedt: Like painting and stuff?

Chris: yeah

Spliedt: I was doing that way before I played the bass... I was drawing since I could hold a pen. It's something I was good at. Design kinda came later.

Chris: Did you attend an art school or did it just come naturally?

Spliedt: I never went to college. I took as many art classes as possible in high school. As far as design goes... my friend Karen worked at this college newspaper and I saw her one day and she asked me if I wanted a design position. I got hired and picked up on the applications really well. I barely knew how to turn a computer on before that.

Chris: So you had almost no experience with computer design before that?

Spliedt: No experience. She just knew that I was really artistic. Little punk rock trivia: she was the drummer from Deadguy's girlfriend. They lived down the street from me.

Chris: Seriously? I don't remember his name I just remember rockin' them on my tape deck back in like '96 or '97.

Spliedt: Dave... yeah man, they were awesome. We still have an old Deadguy design here that they used for a shirt. I'm taking it with me when I quit.

Chris: haha

Spliedt: So that's how I learned design... and I guess from just being in a band, or going to shows, I just knew lots of other people in bands. They would just ask me to do some design work for them. Besides Nora, I think Dillinger was one of the first things i did stuff for. Oh... and Weston and Lifetime back in the day. That wasn't done on a computer on my end.

Chris: Classic bands.

Spliedt: Totally

Chris: So do you work for like an art "firm" now or just random projects here and there?

Spliedt: Well my "real" job is at the news paper, the stuff for bands and labels, that's the freelance... not that I really get paid very often... but it's the same deal. Someone will just ask me to make something for them. for the most part, it's just friends that I do stuff for. It just happens that half of my friends are in bands (or own record labels), which is kinda weird.

Chris: Tell us a little about the comic strips you're doing for the newspaper.

Spliedt: I do one daily, it's called Chemical Corporation Baby Funnies. It's completely random. I do it with my friend Nim. It doesn't make a lot of sense. And I do a weekly one, Bunny vs. Squirrel. That's my baby. It's... really, really mean.

Chris: Mean?

Spliedt: Yeah. It's fucked up. The two main guys (bunny & squirrel) try to out-do each other with meanness. It's at times horrible.

Chris: So which do you prefer, painting or design?

Spliedt: Well, I don't know haha, probably painting. I actually don't think I'm that great at design. I think I'm really good, but not like, "awesome"! I'm better at the technical end of graphic applications. Design is fun, but you have to have your "game on", you know. You're selling an idea, and with bands, you're selling an idea to a group of people, so it can be a pain in the ass. But on the other hand, it's always really cool to go to the mall, walk into Hot Topic and see something you designed there. With painting... not to sound like a dirty hippy, which I am... you can just do whatever you want. Yer free duuuude!!!

Chris: ha

Spliedt: Wait, lemme rephrase that. That reads as if to say "I am a dirty hippy", I meant "I'm sounding like a dirty hippy." I'm not dirty, nor am I hippy

Chris: Gotcha, haha

Spliedt: haha

Chris: So do you prefer to work with a particular style of painting or just whatever comes out?

Spliedt: um... just whatever comes out, which is usually demented looking animals, hot angel chicks and lots of bugs. I'm not sure why, I guess I like those things.

Chris: How much time do you spend on a painting?

Spliedt: One painting took me about 9 months. Not straight through, but I kept getting frustrated with it and putting it aside. It was hard. I almost painted over it half-way through, but usually it's not that bad. Usually, I finish them over 3 weeks or so. But at any given time, I'll be working on 3 different paintings. my attention span ain't too awesome. I get bored with one and work on another or work on something else while paint's drying.

Chris: I recently got an invitation to one of your art shows. Can you tell us about those?

Spliedt: haha. It's actually the first one I'm doing but somehow it seems to be snowballing already because I got offered another (maybe in February) and starting to talk to people. It's totally new to me. I'm like... I don't consider myself an artsie dude... I guess I am though.

Chris: So where is it? Will you be selling or just showing art?

Spliedt: It's Friday, January 7th at Coffee Blue in Belmar, NJ,9 p.m. I'll be selling around half of my stuff... which is also new to me. It's like selling a kid or something. I feel weird about it, but at this point I have way more paintings than wall space. So i suppose that's just the next logical step; make some money.

Chris: What do you charge for a painting?

Spliedt: That's the other factor. I have no idea, hahaha

Chris: It's gotta be hard putting a price on something that took you weeks or months to create and there's nothing else like it.

Spliedt: I'm kinda looking around at other artists' stuff and figuring out what's reasonable... I've seen art that fuckin' blows sell for thousands. It blows my mind... I guess that's what I mean by saying I'm not artsie. I don't have any appriciation for pretentious, boring, crap that took no skill to create, so I'm going to be a little more reasonable.
I think I'm going to start my paintings, the smaller ones, at like $250, $300. Basically I'm charging what it would take for me to give it up. I'm pretty cheap I think.

Chris: Sounds reasonable.

Ideally I'd like to sell prints too... and eventually, when I can afford to make prints, I will, this way I can sell a bunch of one painting real cheap.

Chris: I was checking out the stuff you have on plasticfly.com and it's really amazing work.

Spliedt: Thanks man.

Chris: Have you thought about putting an online store in there?

Spliedt: Yes! but... I'm going to have a sight overhaul really soon. I'm about 60% done with it on my end, and my friend is going to do the coding and crap.

Chris: Anyone we know?

Spliedt: Um... I don't think so. His name is Mike Calamosa. I tried to get Portland to do the first one, but the boy's just too busy.

Chris: And Todd TK?

Spliedt: I haven't talked to him in a while. Mike said he'd do it for a painting I did of a bee, haha.

Chris: Haha, nice. We're working on an overhaul as well and our graphics guy and I are actually fans of your work. We thought about hiring you to do it.

Spliedt: Haha. Give him my email. I can do graphics (as you know) but I can't do coding.

Chris: We can do coding but we really like your graphics style.

Spliedt: Thanks man. It's funny, I don't even think I'm a great designer. I'm not being modest either. I'm really cocky about things I know I'm good at like painting.

Chris: As you should be.

Spliedt: haha

Chris: So what's in the future for Sir Spliedt?

Spliedt: Hmmmm. Immediate future is art pimpin'.

Chris: And 10 years down the road?

Spliedt: Jesus! I have a hard time figuring out what I'm doing on a weekend when it's Thursday... here's some stuff planned and/or in the works: a comic book. Like not the comic strip stuff. Like a real one. I have 20 pages of the rough sketch done, new site design that will be updated every time I paint or design something new, I'm doing another T-shirt design for The Break soon, and more stuff for The Killing Gift, and if I ever start making money off of this whole art gig, I'm going to pump it right back in and sell prints and posters. It would be rad to have some T-shirt done up. Who knows.

Chris: Nice, so totally off the subject and working on a wrap-up, what's currently on your playlist?

Spliedt: Dude. you're gonna laugh. The screaming bass player from Nora's playlist... gimme a sec to go through itunes... at least half these bands I know little about, I get 'em from friends... Autolux, the new Perfect Circle, Jimmy Eat World, Mew (fuckin' awesome!), the new Ministry's actually really good, Placebo, My Bloody Valentine, Muse, The Killers, the new Dillinger is sick, I'm still rockin' the last Poison The Well too. And the new Hopesfall record is pretty rad... Holy shit, the new Cure... fuckin' awesome!

Chris: Haha, alright, any final words, shout-outs, places or things we should check out?

Spliedt: Well first, thank you very much for your interest, it's really cool. If you're in Jersey, my art is going to be at Coffee Blue in Belmar all January. come check it out, and I think that's it.

Chris: *cough, cough*plasticfly.com*cough,cough*

Spliedt: Yeah check out my website. It hasn't been updated in so long... Hopefully the redesign will happen sometime in the spring.

Chris: Awesome!