Dan Richards - The Beechwood Airship Interviews

You don’t generally do interviews, do you?

‘Not loads, no. I prefer to do them over email really ’cos I feel rather inarticulate when I’m speaking – lots of “ers” and “ums” and “hmmms”. Whenever I’ve done it, talked to someone for an interview, I always feel like such a twat afterwards. I think, “Why did I say that? I should have said something else.”’

Bill Drummond told me he wasn’t happy being called an artist for a long time. Was that an issue for you?

‘I don’t mind saying I’m an artist now. I used to say I was “sort of an artist” but as you go on you meet people, grown-ups, adults, and they say, “What do you do?” and you can’t really get away with that so I just say, “I’m an artist” and it covers everything.

“Commercial Artist” I quite like. That’s what graphic designers used to be called; artists for hire. I don’t mind being for hire! (Laughs)

In a different world I’d be painting pub signs; doing something useful. I want to be, you know, a bit useful, because I’m a Jack-of-all-trades, master of absolutely none.

I’d love to be actually good at something, you know? Do one thing. That would be great!’

Richard Lawrence is very good at one thing.

‘Richard is, yes, and I think this is why I get on so well with him – because he says, “I’m a technician. I’m not an artist.”’

He does! Your relationship seems very complementary in that he’s the practical print mechanic, able to make your ideas about lino, text and printing happen pretty quickly.

‘He really can, yeah. I wouldn’t be able to work those bloody machines, they terrify me!

When I went to art college, the first people that I connected with were the technicians. There was a guy called Tony who was the print technician and we got on straight away; he was a real local boy from Devon and while all the tutors were talking about stuff from their sixties educations which had nothing to do with what I was about, he was someone who actually knew what he was doing and how to do it – that was much more interesting to me.’

Were you working as a ‘sort of artist’ before you began work with Radiohead?

‘Not “working”, no. I was officially a job seeker – £39.70 a week. That was alright for a while. I was a clandestine artist – not a spray-can artist, I didn’t have the means. I had a paint pot and a brush.’

Then you got the call.

‘Yeah, “Do you want to have a go at doing a record sleeve?” and I said, “Yeah!?” I didn’t know how to do it. I know how to do it now because I’ve done it lots of times. I’ve learnt on the job, as they say …’

I want to ask you about the bears; they’re your bears, they were on the Six Inch Record sleeves, but they’re Radiohead Bears to most people. *

‘I’ve been working with them for ages. I’ll use my stuff in their stuff. It’s hard to separate; I mean, it doesn’t separate – I do their artwork. Their artwork is my artwork.

The bears began when my eldest daughter was quite little, about one, one and a half – they wake up devilishly early in the morning and you’re in this weird state, it’s dark and there’s nothing to do but make a cup of tea. I used to draw stories and tell them at the same time. I was telling a story to do with toys, abandoned toys … it’s really bad when I think about it, luckily she couldn’t understand …’

Was it a bit dark?

‘It was a bit dark, yes – all the toys that are discarded by adults, sitting in this attic, got really fed up and so these cute teddy bears came down and ate the grown-ups … scary bears who’d started off nice and then became (bares teeth and howls) “Grawww!!!”

And that was it, it was just a drawing that was in a sketchbook and then I drew a load of them marching down a dark alley and then I started using them with Radiohead – the website first and then on a t-shirt and then it turned into all sorts of things.’

Around the time of Amnesiac *I remember you put out a very scribbly poster of bears flying through a city and people looking up concernedly …

‘That’s Thom’s drawing. He drew that; that was weird that one. At that time there was a lot of faxing back and forth “Phish, pheee, phew”; he’d send a fax, I’d draw on it and send it back, but that particular drawing of the flying bears, I’d done one at the same time – we did them on the same night, it was really weird – without telephoning or anything like that. We were both having some sort of mental flood or storm or something. I remember it intensely; drawing like mad with a biro, almost going through the paper with it. I think I scanned and faxed it to Thom and he scanned what he’d done and sent it back and they’d both been done at the same time and they were pretty much of the same level of biro intensity … that happens quite a lot with us, we work together a lot and do this thing of swapping where I’ll do something and then say, “You do something” and he’ll do something and say, “Now you do something”, so we’ll pass it backwards and forwards. We’ve painted large canvases where one person will do something until the point where you think, “I’m finished” and then the other person would go along and “Shhhhhhh” do something to it. We’ll basically fight over the ownership of the canvas until one or other of us owns it – which is a hard thing to do but, you know, you’ll get to a point where you think, “Right, that’s mine now, I’ve got it.” It’s like fencing but with a piece of artwork.

We’ve done it remotely with fax machines and lately with emailing.’

Do similar battles happen with the band musically, do you think?

‘I really don’t know. I hear them making music and some of the stuff for Kid A. *(Laughs) … I mean, Kid A is apparently quite dark but earlier versions of it were really dark – much more upsetting really … they got rid of some of the bits, some sections and sounds which were just too much but I … I’m a sloganeer, I’m into sorta like “BAM BAM BAM!!!” but they’re into a more musical art thing, something that will last and something that will work in different situations, so certain things they did, I said, “That’s brilliant! You’ve got to keep that!” but they decided, “No, it won’t work in time. It works now but it won’t work in a year’s time …”

I don’t have the same level of quality control because, I mean, with the way that I’ve worked with Radiohead and so on, there’s five of them and Nigel.’ *

Six?

‘I would say 5 + 1 rather than 6.

With the artwork there is me and Thom, which is very different to 5 + 1. We’re 1 + 1, which, compared to 5 + 1 … what comes out of that is very different. I mean, obviously, we don’t go ahead with stuff if the other members of the band aren’t comfortable or happy with it.’

Has that ever happened?

‘No … although I’ve gone wrong a few times.

With In Rainbows I was going to do all this architectural stuff with the software that’s used to create optimum car parking spaces …’

The 2006 tour posters and merchandise were grey, I remember.

‘Yeah. “Any colour so long as it’s grey.” All the t-shirts were grey – it was possibly one of the most insulting things I could have done. Immediately afterwards we set up in Tottenham House, this decaying stately home near Marlborough, to work … and I’d been there for two days or something – had been obsessed by this book The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler *– was in this dreadful nihilistic state, preoccupied with car parks and all that sort of thing, thinking, “There. Bam. Right. This is how it’s going to be” … but they were playing the music and it was the most organic, spiritual, sexual, sensual, beautiful thing that I’d heard them do and I realised that what I was doing was completely wrong and that my head, my mind, my response, had gone awry.’