Dave McKean can't remember a time when he wasn't drawing.
Growing up as an only child, he spent many hours sketching from film stills in books, Marvel comics, and drawing the surrounding countryside. His father, when he wasn't working for an airline company, also drew, planting the seeds of creativity in his son's mind at a very early age.
In 1982, the 19-year-old Dave attended the Berkshire College of Art where he pursued what he thought he wanted to do — graphic design. But pretty early on, disillusionment set in with the limitations of the discipline, so he turned his attentions to perfecting the craft of drawing.
Such was his talent that he received paid commissions for illustrations from one of his tutors who ran a design company. He also produced images for book covers and record sleeves, but his confidence as a professional artist was not immediate.
"You go through levels," explains McKean. "It got to the point in school where I was always being asked to do the poster for this or that set design, so your confidence gets built up. But my first day at art school totally trashed that, so you have to start again. It was only by the third year out of four that I felt I was pulling my own weight, and by the end I thought I was doing okay. But then you go out into the real world and the levels keep rising."
Did you feel that you learnt much at art school, or do you believe you can either draw or you can't?
"I have mixed feelings about that," he says. "I don't really believe in things like talent. I do believe that people are born with a set of skills, but I think they are pretty abstract. You may be born with good hand-eye coordination, stuff that's handed down through the genes, but you can be taught how to draw.
"My art school had a fantastic drawing teacher and he certainly changed the way I drew and opened up my abilities, showing me how to look and understand things. If you have that little bit of skill which helps you get a result, then that can be encouraged. That's usually why some kids in school can draw very well — because they have been patted on the back a few times."
While at art school Dave met Neil Gaiman, a friendship which would lead to a marriage of storyteller and illustrator extraordinaire. Bypassing English publishers, McKean approached both Marvel Comics and DC Comics with his folio of work during his first trip to New York, as at the time there was little life in the British comic scene beyond 2000 A.D. Greeted with enthusiasm but no concrete opportunity, he returned to Britain in 1987 to commence work on his first graphic novel, Violent Cases, written by Gaiman.
When the pair revisited DC with this published piece of work, their fortunes changed with the commission of a four-issue miniseries, Black Orchid. He dismissed the opening as "not being too difficult to get, down to good timing." The dark comic he did with writer Grant Morrison in 1989, Arkham Asylum, went on to sell a quarter of a million copies. In essence, it sent 250,000 mini-portfolios of his work around the world, resulting in further assignments.
Since then, McKean has dreamed up subsequent graphic novels with Gaiman, such as Signal to Noise and Mr. Punch — surreal stories with a foot firmly based in reality. Not one for science fiction or futuristic fantasy, the partnership preferred offering stories that had something to say.
Aside from executing hundreds of covers for comics — including the Sandman books, a book cover for Stephen King, illustrations for [The New Yorker's review of Pulp Fiction], a film for Channel 4 and his own programmed musical project — he has also designed CD covers for artists including Tori Amos, Skinny Puppy, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Machine Head and Fear Factory. Record covers, he says, come through word-of-mouth recommendations.
In 1998 he did the sleeve for "Obsolete," continuing his working relationship with Fear Factory, one which he says differs from his dealings with other bands.
"All of these covers are very different," explains Dave. "Sometimes I don't even talk to the band, I just talk to the record label and go off and do it. But in Fear Factory's case they were very hands-on. Roadrunner were very keen to please them. I really just dealt with the band on the phone and kept the label up to date with what we were doing.
"They had a kind of story involved in the CD, so they had specific ideas and images. I went away and did 12 to 15 sketches, just really rough black and white doodles that I faxed them purely for composition. Originally the idea was a combination of human parts and technology, but I fancied doing something that would tie in with their story a little bit, but would look like museum objects. I was thinking that if humans were obsolete and computers were putting together versions of people they would take guesses and liberties, so these constructions on the front were the computer museum of the future, looking back on the human race from this point of view. That's where the brain/sperm image came from."
So would we ever see Dave McKean down the front at a Fear Factory gig?
"I missed them when they were here," he explains, "but you are more likely to see me at a Front Line Assembly gig, as I was a big fan of theirs before I got the commission."
Artists frequently have a more rock n' roll lifestyle than musicians. How does your art fit in with everyday living?
"I certainly don't have a rock n' roll lifestyle," laughs McKean. "I work in the night — that's probably the only odd thing. I work in the middle of nowhere and it is very quiet so I can get work done. I really love it. It's a great way to spend my time and I love working on my own, but there is enough contact with friends and art directors and going out photographing people that I am not here all the time."
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In the last couple of years the computer has played an increasingly important role in his work. By scanning in photographs, illustrations or creating an image from scratch, he can distort and manipulate the original beyond recognition.
"I put off buying a computer for years, as I hated the idea of sitting behind a monitor screen all day," he says. "I like to get my hands dirty. But it is such a powerful tool that it is hard to ignore. The main thing for me is to have complete control over the manipulation of the image and to get it just right. There are all kinds of things I have started using, like 3D model stuff. I don't like the crispness, cleanness and shininess of them, but there's an awful lot that can be done to give them some depth and some age.
"The Fear Factory brain thing was a 3D model and I think it's got a bit of soul to it, but out of the machine it looked like a plastic toy, so it takes a certain amount of manipulation to give these things some texture. It's all there in the computer; it's just down to the user to get at it."
A lot of your work seems out-of-focus...
"I guess I like that kind of mystery," reflects McKean. "When everything is pin-sharp, you know what you're getting, but if it is a bit blurry around the edges and a bit indistinct, it allows for a bit more interpretation. It's hard to make out whether the face of the guy on the Machine Head cover ('Burn My Eyes') is a mask, a painting, or just lighting on somebody's face, and I like that. I like to keep people guessing."
Are you someone who is constantly inspired?
"I carry a sketch book around with me all the time and make doodles, draw things and ideas come up," he says. "I try to spread my work between my own projects, books of photographs, my own stories, and commissioned work, so I find a nice balance. If I just do my own stuff I find that I tend to repeat myself as I am looking in all the time.
"A lot of the music I do covers for I like, but it would not have necessarily been something I would have bought in a shop. It is great to be able to listen to all kinds of things I wouldn't have listened to and get inspired by that."
How would you recommend budding young illustrators set about making a career for themselves?
"The advice I always give is initially to go to art school," he explains. "It gives you three to four years to play with no commercial pressures and to discover what you do best and look around at what other people are doing. It is far better than sitting at home stewing, masturbating really...
"If you have gone through that process it is simply a question of getting a portfolio together and finding some sort of identity for yourself. You really only do that by doing it. By that, I mean make an image every day, do something the next day and the next, and then do another. The worst thing to do is think, 'If I can just draw this one picture' and put your whole life into that one drawing.
"You have to do it every day, and as you actually get around to making a living from it the turnaround time becomes increasingly fast. In art school we had six weeks to do a project. Now I am lucky to get six days. You have to react very quickly and emotionally to a brief, and that is a skill you learn."
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Dave McKean is currently working on album sleeves for Front Line Assembly, Buckethead, and a new band called Lowcraft.