Punk rock and metal has always been a home to me, it's where I cut my teeth and those are the friends that I have, and the bands that I love.

When I was really young, I gravitated towards the visual arts first. I feel that's what comes most naturally to me. I've always had an immediate proclivity towards making visual art and I was a really tactile kid.

I feel like I've gotten to the point where when I get tired of making art I can make a smooth transition into making music and vice versa. There is always something to do.

I recognize that no matter how old I get, how many records I've done, or what the public perception of me is, there are still exciting things that I haven't done.

Speak with your own voice and be as unique as you possibly can.

Give your stuff away and if it's good, people will come to you.

Drawing from art history and mythology allows me to connect with viewers in a familiar, yet loose visual framework. Blending disparate histories and themes can give the overall presentation a recognizable, yet unique flavor.

If you want to create something that's worth doing you have to self-edit from the get-go. You really must be careful and selective with whom you work, you must constantly ask yourself the hard questions about your art, and you must set a nearly unattainable standard for yourself.

It can be difficult to mediate a compromise between what I have in my head and what the musician has in mind, which is often 180° different when it comes to the finished product, so it requires that element of trust from somewhere. The point I make to them is You've seen what I do, so just trust me and we will come up with something exciting.

It's important for me to have different tiers of value for the art. Some of the silk-screens are really affordable, but I do have some high-end silk-screens that are several color layers and a little more expensive, and then I have the paintings that can get way up there.

I really try towork with an artist who is trying to create a long legacy of quality rather than trying to jump aboard a trend.

If I'm in the business of making artwork that is designed on some level to sell a product, then I have to be very comfortable with the people I'm working with and I'd like to be proud of the end result regardless of its sale-ability.

Not everybody is going to love what you do, but you have to be yourself, that's what's most important. Bring it as hard as you can.

If what you want to do is make artwork for bands, you have to love doing it because there is almost no money in it. In order to start doing it, you just have to put yourself out there, work for bands you love and for as little as possible to start, if not free, that's what I did for years.