Killer Born Man: Steak Mtn.

CHRISTOPHER NORRIS is responsible for some of the most vibrant images to come out of the underground music scene. As the one-man (design) gang of STEAK MTN, Norris has created striking visual work for Against Me! (Dude, you know you wanted all those shirts named after each track on New Wave), his own anti-music outfit, the now-defunct Combatwoundedveteran and Light Yourself On Fire's latest, Intimacy. Leave the term "centrist" for your political blogs: With images that are positively vibrant or patently hideous, Norris' work leaves little middle ground.



What sort of things are informing your work these days? Music? Food? Architecture?
Film or movies or cinema or whatever the fuck you call moving images recorded mostly at 24fps (I don't want to cut anyone out by sounding like a fucked-dry art dink) is the heaviest informer of my picture drawing. My interest in it and it's influence on my work is always far more prominent than anything else I might--or at least pretend to be--interested in. For all the music junk I get tangled in, I find it very rarely moves my imagination. Sure, there are bands I enjoy working with and people in those bands who "creatively challenge" me, but "music" as an uplifting, emotionally organic form of sonic power is a completely dead scene when spinning my crummy artwork.

I can't imagine hockey moms wanting a Steak Mtn. original over their fireplace, but haven't you been getting responses from more unusual quarters these days?
I see most of the attention I have been getting as gravy from someone else's victory. A byproduct of a slightly mysterious band with fans that are obsessed to connect with every sliver of sinew that makes the train run. Which is totally cool, because really, money is money, work is work, press is press, etc. But I am not even close to breaching the birth canal of new, daywalking civilians looking at the Steak work. I mostly just keep getting the standard issue sweaty-14-year-old-boy fan letters. And as sweet as those misspelled nuggets of enthusiasm are for my ego, the adjectives "killer", "sick" and "brutal" are sort of sleepy notices from a career of (clearly bitter, totally subjective) overthinking, heavy theorizing and the projected desperation of giving new looks to boring transgressive imagery.

And upon rereading all of that above stuff, I sound like an ungrateful dick. Which is not my intention, but you are right: No moms, dads, aunts or nannies are looking for the newest werewolf drawing from Christopher Norris/Steak Mtn--and that's totally cool. I am just being realistic: I know who sees my stuff and I always really like the feedback from those kids. I remember being young and excited about every new thing that showed up in front of me and I especially remember sending these same daft and directional love letters to anyone that could receive mail.

With regards to the underground music/art scene culture you came up in, are you starting to see a lot of repetition and cliches? Just like many new bands are being influenced by acts less than 10 years old, are you starting to see that routine sameness happening in visual art circles?
Sure. I think it's always happened in music, art, writing, language, etc, but it is more visible these days because we have expanded information and access to all creative turns that good and terrible artists make. It's dumb to say, but history now gets defined almost immediately in the face of all this insane technology, making the circle round quicker for themes or styles or whatever to become noticeably repetitive. In every creative movement, canonized or city-centralized or culturally generated, there will be--and have been--pretenders to the throne. You need water to float, and the fakers, the lazy, and the mediocre are all part of what makes awesome artists seem so awesome.

What kind of stuff do you patently loathe? Are you seeing any pieces of work that might as well be attributed to "Pork Quarry," considering the amount of appropriation lifted from you?
Currently, I am tired of faux mysticism, mythical beasts and woodland animals in people's art. Looking at another deer head or haunted tree or fucking watered-down Kenneth Anger rip-off is going to blind me. With that being said, I am completely fucked if anyone looks at my portfolio and sees I am guilty of all sorts of ironic, pyramidical, werewolf'd monster drawings. But thats the work I know will at least sort of fill my bank account with rent money. Realistically, it's why kids keep pumping that shit out for other kids, because sales can and will soar. I think the things I do are boring anyway, so there has to be a good number of kids who fall asleep even sort of taking notice of my repetitive theme pool. Then again, I don't deny that there also might be some goofs who like it and want to copy or lift the general atmosphere of my what I do, which is totally cool. I steal all the time, I have been known to be an absolute criminal hack. I would attribute that great Picasso quote ("Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.") to my thievery, but it doesn't apply because I am probably a tracer above being any sort of good or bad artist.

Whose work are you currently enthused about?
Oh man. I don't think I can go into why. I just am always so fucking juiced on other artists and the list is always growing that it makes it hard for me to even really talk in length about everyone. But all of these people are quality, so everyone should be wasting their time at work googling these names: Mark McCoy; Aurel Schmidt; Elizabeth Huey; Dan Mumford; Greedy Hen; Brent Wadden; Gary Panter; CSDIV; Horsebites; Heather Gabel; Cody Hoyt; Jason T. Miles; Dan Rossiter; Tim Warner. This list is stupidly endless; I could go on all day.

Your most public work is the series of pieces you did for each track on the Against Me! disc New Wave. You have a close working relationship with Tom Gabel; in the future, will you pursue working with other bands you share an aesthetic kinship with, in an effort to forge a "visual identity" for them? Or haven't you found the opportunities particularly inspiring?
There are tons of bands I would love to work with, but I usually run into logistical problems. Perhaps they are not really relevant anymore (the Misfits); way out of my reach (Slayer); sort of a nightmare, politically (Burzum); aren't the best aesthetic match (Ghostface Killah); or in the most extreme case, are from a different time period altogether (the Shangri-La's). Naturally, I get hit up by bands that are similar to Against Me! but are lower on the food chain of popularity. Minus the shirts I did for Green Day that they didn't end up liking--because they were bad.

But basically, if it comes my way & there is money involved, then I am down. I am gun for hire (or a hack of you will) in my thirties, I don't have scruples about blowing design ideas on dumb things. Especially when you realize that having some sort of agenda limits any chances to live off of your art, or at least widdles down the chances for that. Really, I just want to give this drawing shit up and make music videos. So take heed, huge bands: I am inexperienced, have really dumb ideas and am indeed for hire.

A recent economic trend piece reported that one of the few areas of fiscal growth is art. Do you find that possibility exhilarating or depressing? I remember the title of a compilation issued by a Norwegian record label: Money Will Ruin Everything.
Not if your goal is to take that economic growth and retire very very early in life. But actually, it's exciting to see interesting artists making good money. Especially when they take that cash and sink it into wild, grandiose personal projects that end up sustaining their livelihood, hopefully feeding their creativity to go bigger, weirder and smarter.

Go visit the world of Steak Mtn. Norris will have an exhibition in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in April 2009. But don't worry: I'll remind you about it closer to the date.