Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 06:56:08 -0800 From: shane Subject: Vaughn Olivier Interview in Heckler E-Zine Excuse me if this has already been posted, but if you've got a Web Browser, stop reading this and go here (http://www.bayinsider.com/partners/heckler/old_heckler/5.6/music/vaughn_olivier.html) for the article w/pictures. Otherwise, keep reading: Vaughn Oliver Interview by John Baccigaluppi "I enjoy being close to music. I enjoy the company of musicians more than I like being around other designers I suppose." "The process is a collaboration to varying degrees. I varies with all the bands how much input they require from us. Some of them use us less conceptually and as more of a layout team. They come in with their own ideas and their own images. Other bands would say here's the music, here's the lyrics, here's a few ideas, what do you think? I kind of prefer the latter approach obviously, given a bit more responsibility." "You're following the artists desires. 4AD won't step in and say anything. There's no marketing department, they allow us freedom to do what we do best after 17 years. Respect if you like. 4AD is happy when we satisfy the band. The band has the final say always. Sometimes things get thrown out. It would make a beautiful sleeve, but they say, 'It's not our music.' It's not an easy job. It has to be appropriate. It has to fit and work with something that the band has maybe been writing and recording for a year or more. You have to be able to get into their art don't you to be able to come out the other side? So I think that's why I'm still here. I'm genuinely inspired by most of the music I'm working with here. It's not like a job to me. It's not like I want to do record sleeves for a record company, I want to do them here at 4AD because this is the music I would buy." -Pixies "We got to do some of our best work for them. Very inspiring for us. Things would happen and a synchronicity would occur. Like I'd have an idea for the next album before I'd heard it, like the planet on Bossanova. He (Black Francis, later Frank Black) sent me the lyrics and they've got this extraterrestrial theme which is good, because I'm thinking about extraterrestrial stuff anyway. I had a dream one night about a planet with Pixies letters on it. They gave us a lot of freedom but he'd give us a lot of input as well. He was keen to comment and keen to change direction but he still had a respect for what we do best at the end of the day. When that band split up and became Frank Black and the Breeders, both identities wanted more input themselves in the artwork. Although they appreciated all the work and the quality of the work we had done when we were given some freedom, both wanted to control things a bit more. Which was exciting, but it's a different kind of project." -Breeders/Kim Deal/Amps "It's always been an interesting working process with Kim. She's pretty good at knowing what she wants but not so good at getting it across. For The Amps, she just sent these Polaroids of these plugs so there wasn't a whole lot for us to do." -Cocteau Twins "With most of the sleeves we've done, you try and reflect the music, get inside the atmosphere of the music. Sometimes it's easy to do if you actually have a piece of subject matter. What the Cocteau Twins would never allow us was subject matter in the photographs. You could never pin them down. 'Our music's not about this or that,' you could not have an object in there. The focal point was always simple texture which was kind of frustrating because it gave you nothing to get to grips with. But given that their lyrics at that point were kind of abstract, or unintelligible, or certainly not literal, I can understand why they didn't want subject matter either. I think it set a style for us; it was a very comfortable way of working. I think we became kind of well known for working in that ethereal fashion. But it's good as a designer to deal with different kinds of music, to move from that to move to something harder edged like the Amps, or Gus Gus today." -Gus Gus "They're very collaborative and artistic themselves as musicians, film-makers. They gave us space to a degree. I think it's one of the better things we've done as of late. We went over to Iceland. Chris Biggs and I shot a lot of the images ourselves where generally we commission the photographers. A piece of music will come in and a photographer will come to mind who would seem appropriate. Someone who will have an ear for or an empathy with that kind of music. So you're looking at a photographer's work and you say to them, 'Here's the music. I wonder if you're working in that way visually?' You draw a comparison between the ideas. Then you just push them along a little bit further. So half the knack in coming up with a sleeve that successfully reflects the music is choosing the right photographer and giving them some freedom." -His Name Is Alive "He's probably one of the most.... special. On the last album, Stars On ESP, he rang me late one night and said 'It's time to do the artwork, here's my brief: What I'm interested in is whales, mittens and stars.' The mittens became apparent later, but whales have always been a fascinating subject for me, as have stars. A very short brief, but it was quite inspiring. Very enigmatic, but it marries with the music and it certainly works. He's giving us the freedom that we like to give the photographers and I think that leads to the best results." -Scheer "That's a case of the images inspiring the title of the record, Infliction. The album itself I suppose, is a journey through the body. There's the scar on the outside, then you enter into the body, commission about with the blood cells halfway through and then back out again. Then finish up with a dog's nipple on the back. For some people it was too provocative and they wouldn't put the poster up in stores. But if you can't do provocative work in this field, where can you do it? Generally, I think we would like to push things a bit further than what actually appears on the final printed result. It's disappointing that things have to be tamed down due to censorship laws. I remember when we did the Surfer Rosa sleeve for the Pixies and it was distributed in the states, it had to be stickered across the nipples." -Kristin Hersh/Throwing Muses "They have very strong ideas of their own, although I think there's an appreciation for our work. I think Kristin in particular is more interested in the Japanese artist I'm collaborating with, Shinro Ohtake. She feels a great affinity for the naivety in his work I think. I think I probably control it a bit much for her in terms of putting some order into the chaos that is naturally in his original artwork. It's not a relationship about freedom, it's more measured for both parties. But I adore her music, I find it very inspiring." -Red House Painters "That was a very interesting case. We received their first album, Down Colorful Hill, it arrived as a finished job from the States. A member of the band, or a friend of a member of the band, had produced the sleeve. It was a case where you sometimes have to educate the band to the possibilities. Mark basically had no real interest in the artwork. I was saying 'Look, this, I would say of albums of recent years, is one of my favorites.' The sleeve that they had done seemed so inappropriate. At that point it didn't really matter to Mark. I said, 'Look, all the effort you've put into the music and the recording is not being done justice by what you've done with the sleeve.' It had nothing to do with the atmosphere or the mood. I mean strong, strong, evocative emotions came out of that album. So I said, 'Why don't we do something new for you?' So I showed him a couple of things and we finally arrived at something. It was an easy design, using an existing photograph and simple typography but it just hit the nail on the head in terms of reflecting the music. The overall effect for me, and Mark shared it, was just spot on for the mood of the album." "In the beginning, he had no concept. It was an education album by album for him, until the end he wanted to design it himself. It's funny because you have to go back to square one with some people and explaining what you're doing exactly. What typography is, what type is, how it can be different sizes and how many different ways you can approach the same photograph. With Mark, I had to even go back beyond square one. It was a long process, but really fruitful in the end. It's nice to go through that process with someone who was basically very visually unaware. Once I made him aware, with a bit of education, he was running the show by the third album, which sometimes happens." -Lush "Of all the bands, they gave us the most freedom. They were content to say, 'This is the music, what are you thinking about today?' and then step back. It was almost tricky to get a response out of them sometimes. I think maybe they had too much respect for what we were doing. It was complete freedom with them, 100%. I enjoy the collaborative ones like the Pixies and Ultra Vivid Scene in particular. I'm going back a few years though now, aren't I. Kurt Ralske did the first Ultra Vivid Scene album back in 1988. But he left the label a few years ago." Vaughn Oliver, along with Chris Biggs and Paul McMenamin, has been the in-house designer for 4AD records since 1980 when he did a sleeve for Modern English, several months after the label was started.