Exclusive Malleus INTERVIEW x New Poster x Giveaway

So I got in the G4 and flew over to Italy for a sit down with the Malleus Rock Art crew. Well not really, but they were kind enough to do an interview for the blog. They also have a badass new poster for the group Eyehategod, seen above. There will also be AP art print on black paper. Both will be on sale this week.

But they wanted to give you readers one of the regular ones for free. So leave a comment and I will use the Random Number Generator to pick the winner.

LEAVE SOME WAY OF CONTACTING YOU YOUR EB OR GP USERNAME OR AN EMAIL. ENTRIES ACCEPTED UNTIL TUESDAY MIDNIGHT

Thank you again to Lu, Urlo and Poia for taking the time to do the interview and my friends for helping me with the questions.

Be sure to check out Malleusdelic.com to see more of their work and a link to the store to buy posters.

And now I give you Malleus :



So how did Urlo, Poia and Lu meet and start Malleus?
Urlo: Poia and me are friends since about 20 years.
We started playing music and we developed our skills together doing xeroxed posters for our band and such.
Then we met Lu and at the end of 2002 we started in doing silkscreened posters.
This is a short story. I don't know the end, tough.

Poia: Urlo and me were playing volleyball on the seaside, several years ago: there we met Lu and we all three immediately decided to print our first silkscreened poster using water, sand and a sieve.

Lu: Luckily we met Egi and Rosanna and they teached us that paper sometimes is better then sand for printing...

What came first the art or the music ( Urlo and Poia are in the band UFOMAMMUT) ?
Urlo: The music, but not Ufomammut.
Poia and me were in a band called Judy Corda, we played a sort of Psychedelic progressive metal, it was cool, we were young and stupid.
Now we're old and stupid.

Poia: Just like the chicken and the egg...Considering Malleus beginning, we can say that music came first. Urlo and me began playing together in 1991. (almost 20 years ago! My God!). So since the beginning we began to create black and white DIY concert posters for our band, Judy Corda. But I've always loved to draw, since i was a child. So art came first for me. (Not totally sure, I've always loved to listen to music in my parent's house. Expecially the beatles.

Did anyone go to a formal "Art School" ?
Urlo: I'm an architect on paper, but I don't like it too much.
I've never been to an art school, I don't like art and neither school.
But in some way I do art and I've been to school...:-)

Poia: I'm self taught. I started in drawing cars and dinosaurs when I was very young...since then I've never stopped. I've only changed subject:-)

Lu: I was in an art school for 5 years and I must say... don't do it. I continued to study art at the university but in an only theorical way cause i'm sick of people pretending to teach you how to do art, I preferred to learn more about the great geniuses we had in Europe.

Since visiting Chuck Sperry and the Firehouse Crew last year have you cut anymore rubylith ? Do you even want too ?
Urlo: We don't cut rubylith that much, we've a big roll of it and sometimes we use it but being quite lazy we prefer to print films with our little old printer.

Poia: you'll need too much patience in cutting that. So I decided to cut my hair.

From concept to printing how much of the design is done by hand versus the computer? How much of the design is influenced by the client?
Urlo: All the drawings and fonts are by hand.
We rarely use fonts right now and computer design.
We've arrived to a point in which we want to experiment with hands, we think it's easy to use patterns or computer backgrounds and fonts... they're cold and we don't feel them too much in this moment.
Once we've done the drawing by pencil, we ink it and we scan it to a mac, then we colour it and work on colour separation.
With our PC we print films and we handprint the final art.
Like people say in Milan: TAC... the work is done

Poia: We use computer for trying differents color schemes too. But pencil, ink and paper is still what we prefer.

Lù: We always prefer to be free on what we do, but of course clients are important and sometimes we have to follow their ideas in some way. It's not so bad cause many times they have great suggestions and it's cool put them all together.

Malleus has a rabid fanbase in the USA, are there as many Malleus fans in Europe as well?

Urlo: We're still trying to understand the difference between hate and love. People love us everywhere, it's quite difficult to walk in the streets of the World nowadays.”

Poia: Modern poster art is not so popular here in Europe. It 's a very underground thing, many people still think at the rock poster like something on city walls advertising a concert, displaying the smiling photos of the band. So poster artists are considered strange animals.

With current economic conditions worldwide are bands and record companies cutting back on having posters created ?
Urlo: Don't know. There's a crisis, but it's first of all in human minds.

Poia: Strange job, it suffers economy in a different and nonlinear way. Sometimes people buy less posters, sometimes bands want more posters...

Lù: sometimes people are blind or indifferent ...

Is it hard balancing the responsibilities of Malleus and UFOMAMMUT?
Urlo: We're like a mother with 2 children... they're totally negligent and always asking for money to buy games.

Poia: They are strictly connected since the beginning, having quite the same people involved. We try to improve the two things, using our skills or (lack of skills) in the best way possible...

Movie posters have become very popular in past few years, do you see Malleus doing any in the future ?
Urlo: Why not. I think we'll have to change something soon if we want to survive in this cruel word. People forget You quite easily and quickly and we'll have to work on new things.
We'll conquer Hollywood and Bollywood very soon.

Poia:Of course! I love cinema. But not people eating popcorn. I hate them, too noisy.

Lù: I'd like to do a poster for Tarantino movies... he's very close to old italian B movies, and he love blood and gilrs, like we do.

Does Malleus have any plans to return to the USA anytime soon? What is your favorite city in the USA ?
Urlo: I'd like to go to NY. And I hope to come with Ufomammut for a tour.
No Malleus for a while, sorry.
San Francisco is rad, LA is cool and Portland very nice.
But the best I've seen is Zabriskie Point.

Poia: No plans at the moment. I've enjoyed all the west coast cities, the national parks , the desert, San Francisco and the elephant seals near Big Sur.

Lù: I liked San francisco of course and LA but in a strange way.
But the most strange sensation was the feeling I just have been there... I just saw all these things somewhere. Then I realized I've watched too much american movies in my life.

Have you thought about attending one of the Flatstock events ?
Urlo: Yes, sure.

Poia: We've been two times at Flatstock Europe, we'll see what's going on in the future.

Last piece of art done by someone else that you bought ? Do you have anyone else’s work hanging on your walls ?
Urlo: I've some Kozik, Griffin, D'andrea, McCarthy, Pazienza, Alan Hynes/Christian Hall, Button Factory, Firehouse, Malleus, some movie posters like Barbarella, some Japanese print and some Malleus (sorry...).
I don't buy art, I steal it.

Poia: two Dinosaurs by Jay Ryan. I love Dinosaurs and Jay's work. I'm bored to see Malleus things, I prefer to have other works on the walls.

Lù: Fortunatly we don't have wives and little children so we can hang bloody girls and a Kozik “Hitler Mucha” on the wall

Vinyl toys and figures are popular right now, will we ever see something designed by Malleus?
Urlo: we did a few but at the end I hate puppets.
I prefer Godzilla, well, Hillszilla... a big huge dinosaur killing all the toys.
I had Big Jim when I was a child and I think it has changed the boring times of my childhood... Now I'm old and I don't play anymore. I'm a really serious man.

Poia: We already designed a couple of them some years ago. But it's not a kind of thing that satisfied me too much...

Lù: world is full of human puppets, I don't need to create more

What other artists do you like ? (You can't mention Firehouse or FUCKING GAMBOA) LOL
Urlo: Hiroaki Samura, Sergio Toppi, David D'Andrea, Andrea Pazienza, Takashi Miike, Vania Zouravliov, Mignola, Santa Claus and JorgeG the Mexican master of San Francisco.
And many many many more

Poia: I' ll add to the list Rick Griffin, Moebius, Andreas, Schiele, Klimt , Toppi, Ashley Wood...

Lù: Kenneth Anger, Ginsberg, Tsukamoto, Man Ray, Kawasaki, Kozik, Banksy, Dalì, McCarthy, Leopardi, Kerouac, Burroughs, Manson, Schiele and many many more
Are there any other artist you would like to work with on a project?
Urlo: Sure. But they don't want to work with us. We're nasty people and they know.

Who signs "Malleus " on the posters?
Urlo: The only one of us able to write: Poia
Poster or art print that you create that you are most proud of ?
Urlo: Ketsueki, Witch and Watching You.

Poia: I like “Watchin' you”, the Kiss / Floyd cow.

Lù: Ketsueki, the last Eyehategod and Verdena
Piercings on a woman good or bad ?
Urlo: It depends on the woman...

POIA: I'm not against piercings on a woman, I like some kind of them , when are not too many, or too big. I don't like the stretching ear rings, or the tongue piercings, when they cause problems in speaking...

Lù: I don't have piercing and i'm more beautiful without

Music Groupie chicks or Art Groupie chicks ?
Urlo: I take advantage of the fifth amendment right to refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.

Poia: Land Office Worker Groupie chicks.

Lù: what about groupie dudes?

What's the story behind your work being archived at the De Young museum? How did it come about ?
Urlo: It's a long story and I think it'd be better to have a little mistery in this interview...

Poia: ..we disguised ourselves as Rodin sculptures, then during the night we came out and put our posters in the archive.

Lù: I'm only a little bit sad cause our posters are not archived in Europe too... but who cares.

Is there a band for whom you've always wanted to do a poster, but haven't?
Urlo: The Beatles and Pink Floyd...

Favorite: Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath?
Urlo: Eyehategod

Poia: It is impossible to choose. Too many differences.

Lù: Neurosis