Mint

Matt Bradley was born in Southern Missouri, grew up in Arkansas, went to grad school in New York City, and won’t get into the gory details of why he’s not in San Diego….but it’s cool. The weather’s nice, right?

White Box Drum, Matt Bradley

Record Drawing, Matt Bradley

Guitar Drawing, Matt Bradley

LP: So Matt, when it comes right down to it, Miller High Life, or Bud Heavy? Explain.

MB: This is kind of a false dichotomy, both kinda suck…but forced with a decision I’d go with the “Champagne of Beers.” Bud Heavy not only reminds me of all the douche-bag frat boys I went to undergrad with, but it’s also got a strange sweetness that’s off putting (often referred to as a green apple flavor by beer nerds).

LP: If you could rock one guitar solo in a stadium full of people, which would it be?

MB: Easy! Since I was a teenager, I’ve fantasized about playing “Orion” by Metallica in front of a high school football stadium full of people who didn’t think I was cool in Junior High. I’m over the rejection of being a squirelly teenager, but I still close my eyes and picture myself playing that song in concert any time I listen to it. It’s actually one of the first songs I ever learned on bass guitar, but I’ve never been good enough to pull it off on lead axe.

LP: Best mustache of all time:

MB: never been much of a mustache guy (probably because I can’t grow one), but I guess you can’t mess with Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead). 

LP: How does your experience growing up affect your work?

MB: Well, my work is all about my experience growing up. That’s my total reference point. The passion and fetishiztion of music cultures and scenes, how they shaped me and gave me my strength and personality…that’s the totality of my conceptual framework.

LP: Discuss the use of non traditional and “low-fi” materials in your work.

MB: I guess that relates pretty specifically to the last question. I try to make material decisions based on conceptual aims. The desired message of a piece dictates the medium, so if I’m trying to convey the feeling of being a teenager who wants to be a rock star, I have to use materials that would be at a teenager’s disposal (which for me happened to be pre-internet, pre-garage band, pre-youtube, etc.). I actually built a fake guitar out of a piece of cardboard when I was a kid so that I could jump around my room and pretend I was Eddie Van Halen. So, when I got older, remaking that cardboard guitar with an adult level of knowledge about the specific size, shape, technical specifications, etc., seemed like a pretty good way to not only reference the energy of that time in my life, but also how it carries over into adulthood. As a kid, I was just concerned with having something to hold in my hands and run around with. As an adult, I was concerned with how many frets Steve Vai had on his seven string guitar from the cover of “Passion and Warfare,” but it still needed to be made out of cardboard to connect to the pathos of the original scenario.

Plus, I’m honestly kind of bored with slick highly polished work. Haven’t we seen enough pretty pictures on archival grounds? I have no interest in art as a marketable sell-able product. I believe art is an enterprise of ideas, not objects and pictures. If ideas happen to take the form of objects and pictures, fine…but that’s certainly not my only agenda for making stuff.

Matt just made a killer mix tape for Lindsay’s blog. You can download it here.

Also, check out some of Matt’s video projects here.

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Lindsay Preston is an artist and graphic designer from San Diego. In “Lindsay’s Quick Queries”, Lindsay brings you work by contemporary artists, and answers to the questions everyone has been wondering about them, like “pancakes or waffles?”