Life is different than it was in the Nineties. I'm a dad and there are other things I have to get done in an afternoon than just being an artist.

I'm an artist and I go in the studio and make my music. And then I'll give it to my dad and he does what he does. And he does you know the press and figuring out shows and whatnot. When it comes to my artistic freedom he doesn't like step on my toes or anything.

My dad was a huge country music fan but he also had a band and he sang. So he'd listen to a lot of music and the songs that he'd learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings Conway Twitty George Jones Johnny Paycheck even.

My dad was always such a frustrated artist. He always worked very hard to support his family doing a bunch of ridiculous jobs. He wanted to be a painter but then he also wrote science-fiction novels in his spare time.

Within our culture every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy basically.

My dad's side of the family had lots of artists and musicians. There's an emotional quite sentimental quality to Slavic culture. It's very open it loves art it loves music it loves literature. It's very warm it's very up it's very down. I would celebrate that.

I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger.

I've always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.

You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage.

When I was in school I read a lot of comic books and pretend I was in them and kids would tease me and call me names. But now I do the same things and people say that I'm artistic and cool and I'm doing the exact same thing I did in high school.

Men when they fight in movies it's a very different style. Harrison Ford was so cool when he had the whip and Bruce Lee was such an artist that you couldn't take your eyes off of him.

It's a really cool time for artists who want to strive for a little more depth in what they want to say to come forward. We live in a very fast world right now. We've got all this media and music which is so accessible to us it's here one minute gone the next.

I influenced the BG style by not being able to draw perspective. The BG artists developed cool graphic painting styles to make my bad backgrounds look like they were that way on purpose.

I'd love to be an artist that's multifaceted. At the moment I am not. But wouldn't that be cool if I was like 'Yeah let me pull out my guitar and play you a song.' I would adore that. I am so far not gifted in that way. But I am a very hard worker and a very determined person so who knows?

I'm a comic book artist. So I think to myself what do I like to draw? I like to draw hot chicks fast cars and cool guys in trench coats. So that's what I write about.

I'm taking a lot of my favorite artists different people my favorite music and marrying that with what I do as a comic. It's very collaborative arty fun and cool.

People see my photos and think I labor over my image and I'm this cool brooding artist. But I'm just having fun with it.