The Interview : Septerhed

Interview with LA based street artist Septerhed. Photographs courtesy of Birdman, Jennifer Leigh Strauss Photography, and Septerhed.

Neighborhood Watch : What is your message?  What do you want to say to the world?

FUCK OFF AND DIE!!!!!!! j/k.

I have a new message every time I make a new piece. If there were one central theme it would be: a reaction to reality. That's what Septerhed is sometimes, just a reaction. I just made a piece that addressed all the toxicity of our environment. We live around toxic things and we use toxic substances. We live it. I live it. We are ok with it. Why the fuck am I living in a building with a warning saying that there are chemicals known to cause cancer? Why? It's integrated within my DNA. My message is my reaction to that. I don't care that I am killing myself. I don't care that I am going to die. Thats the truth. I am living around all these things and ingesting all these things. There seems like there is not much I can do about it. I believe what the concerned if not slightly paranoid people say as much as the people like me that don't care, or at least live that way. As a human part of me feels guilty for not caring, so there is a battle going on between how I feel and how I want to be perceived. I am going to document this feeling with a symbol, a texture, a pattern, a shape, a logo, a word, and hopefully somewhere it will make sense to someone besides myself.

Neighborhood Watch : You play the guitar.  Does music influence your designs in any way?

 I do a lot of things musically. I play the piano and create melodies and sing and program beats and do many other things. Music was and always will be 1 of my greatest loves. I love to record and experiment with noise. I do it quite often as it serves me therapeutically. I love noises that I hear throughout the day. Nothing specific, just the beauty of certain parts of the way things sound. I feel that art is music for the eyes. Music transforms our souls. It takes us places and opens up our memory and makes us feel, the same way art does. Everything I do is influenced by music. Nothing specific, just in general. It feeds my soul. It entertains me. It sets the mood to generate the concepts to execute the art. We all have moments that we live when we hear a certain part of a song and we realize something we never realized before, became grateful for something we took for granted, were able to let something go that bothered us, became inspired. Sometimes music is just the background soundtrack that keeps parts of my brain occupied that get in the way when I am being creative. I love it. I love to listen to everything from Bob Dylan to Dubstep to Behemoth when I am designing.

Neighborhood Watch : The range of your artwork is pretty impressive.  Do you have a system when you put up new work in order to help yourself cover so much ground? 

Yes. It's called "All or Nothing". It works like this. If you're gonna do something give it everything you've got. My method is only my method and everyone's is different. When I go out I am a machine that doesn't fuck around or stop to think. I just get up as much as possible.The survival of street art is similar to Octopus birthing statistics.  If you were an Octopus and you were going to have 58,000 kids and only 2 were going to live, wouldn't it make more sense to have 696,000 kids so 12 could live?

Neighborhood Watch : If you could say one thing to Obama what would it be? 

Nothing. I haven't talked to a puppet I could trust since I was 2.

Neighborhood Watch : If you could get your art up on one building, any building on the planet, what building would it be? 

Well it would be one that I would build. It would be a mile long and a mile high. And I would print out an 8.5x11 sheet of paper with no hierarchy, no distinguishing colors, all muted with a clever saying about political whatnot on the forehead of a stenciled celebrity. Then I would paste that on top of my tower of babel and cap it with a phonejacks paster.

Neighborhood Watch : What is your favorite color?

SKY BLUE FOREVER or clear.

Visit Septerhed's website here.

Or friend him on facebook here.