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Artist Mike Clift has drawn gory, zombie-heavy record covers for bands like GutRot, Nocturnus, DiamondHead, and Skinlab. He’s probably best known for his sleeve artwork for reunited locals Psychotic Waltz, whose drummer Norm Leggio went on to run Blue Meannie Records.
“I used to put my phone number on my flyers, and I got a call about doing [Psychotic Waltz] artwork. They also contacted the infamous artist Pushead, but luckily my design beat his out.”
His declining profile after Psychotic Waltz split in the late ‘90s resulted in some imaginative rumors. “Please tell people I didn’t die trapped beneath a German castle, nor have I OD'd on heroin. The sh-t you hear after being gone awhile.” The military veteran did, however, wind up living on the streets. Numerous times.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29511/
Clift was recently signed to appear in an upcoming full-length film about homeless military veterans, Shame on America. "I have been chosen as a subject for the film, as the filmmakers are very interested in my story and my ability to connect with people through my activism and my art. I have the look and the gab to be a spokesperson for veterans and, by using my position within the Occupy Movement, and linking my various projects together, we feel we can produce a very powerful indictment against the establishment and get some real work done."
Clift has long been involved with a program called Vets First!, which claims an 85 percent success rate in helping veterans get housed up with the services and support they need, without relying on any government assistance or dependence on the federal Veteran Administration (VA). "One focus of the film is the gross inefficiency of the VA and the horrendous lack of a safety net for our returning vets, as well as the attendant problems associated with PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder]: homicides, suicide, employment, etc."
When first contacted by the Shame on America filmmakers, Clift was homeless and had lost contact with most of his family. "The Shame team will get [my kid] Jordan and I together as the climax of the movie...honestly, they really got me a place to live and do my work in four hours, what no shelter program could, what the VA wouldn't. Amazing. A job on Monday. Unreal. Plus, the whole movie thing, touring for the premiers, media, etc."
While the film shoots, Clift will be living at the VF compound in Anaheim, serving as both subject and consultant for the movie. "I must say, it is quite awesome. My own room in an awesome house, one of three on this gorgeous property with a pool, lawns, and fruit trees, rabbits, and cats."
Aside from his work with Vets First! and the Occupy [Fill In You City] movement, Clift says "I am starting a non-profit called R.O.A.R., Rockers Organized Against Repression, using the knowledge I gain from working with VF!. I will be getting a mainstream silk screening job, then a bank account, and -- possibly -- a vehicle."
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29509/
Clift’s artwork for the cover of PW’s 1990 album A Social Grace paid $250. “They made a bunch of T-shirts, stickers, even a billboard…I charged $500 for the cover of [1992’s] Into the Everflow, and that became my standard price for several years.”
Clift toured Europe with Psychotic Waltz in 1993, receiving equal billing (and equal pay, $100 weekly plus per diem). “I was introduced as a sixth member and doing a lightshow backdrop of cued film clips that I synched up to the songs with a 16mm projector, two slide projectors with four carousels, and a 26-inch ten-speed wheel with colored gels and blockers, so I could do dissolves with the slides. Buddy would introduce me as part of the band…I signed autographs with them, and I even spotted a Psychotic Sun or Red Jester cover tattoo every now and then."
"Amazing, the power that band had over there. People would follow us from gig to gig, give us HUGE Dutch buds, they’d wave banners; very supportive.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29510/
“I was able to live in Germany for a year, milking it for all it was worth, and thereby got turned on to tattooing from selling my paintings at tattoo conventions. I was literally traveling with a roll of canvas on my back, with a pack full of paints and brushes. I did quite a bit of work over there, 275 paintings and hundreds of little touristy postcards that I would sell wherever I went, little drawings of the place I was in, stuff like that. I was earning my daily bread, and setting up shows and viewings through my contacts as I was merrily gallivanting around Northern Europe.”
His work for Psychotic Waltz led to wearing many different career caps. “I worked on the PW stage show and new shirt and merchandise designs, plus I had my own silkscreening business, I was doing covers for Diamondhead and Disbelief, plus I was selling art to a record company in Germany that would use it for their bands. It was a sort of kick for me to find my art in foreign record stores, though some of the bands were stinkers. For the most part, I was earning a living from my art, and that’s all that really mattered to me.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29512/
He describes how he went from Psychotic Waltz covers to drawing the locally-published comic book Tipper Gore’s Comics and Stories for Todd Loren’s Hillcrest-based Revolutionary Comics. “I met Todd in 1989 through a guy named Vinnie, who worked in Todd's rock merchandise mail order business, and Todd and I hit it off. His sexual orientation may've played a part in this, as I was young and cute at the time, but he showed a real enthusiasm for my art and told me about his upcoming horror comics that he planned to do, specifically to piss off Tipper Gore.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29513/
“I was all for it, man. I was stoked, because all this was hitting at the same time as Psychotic Waltz for me. He offered me 80 dollars per page, and we wrote the stories together and met quite a bit at his place, or he'd take me out to eat and stuff. He was living in the UTC area back then, and he got kinda weird at home, showing me his safe. He was paying me cash as I turned in each page of artwork, and one time he tricked me into watching a porno tape - yikes! - but please do not think I’m trying to disparage Todd."
"He was one of the sweetest guys, and very polite and apologetic when he noticed my discomfort. I am so grateful to Providence that he and I connected and had that time. He had a huge hand in launching my career. He licensed a line of t-shirts of my work, he let me do the horror comics, and he brokered a couple painting sales for me. He was awesome. I was bummed when his death occurred.” Loren’s June 1992 murder in Hillcrest remains unsolved.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29514/
Clift also designs and applies tattoos. “These days, I charge $100 an hour for tattoos. I’ve tattooed some Psychotic Waltz imagery on my cousin, but most band tats I do are usually Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, AFI, [and] bands with distinctive artwork and logos.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29515/
"After nearly 20 years of being a metal artist,” says Clift, “I have quite a few stories. One is about Alice in Chains at the Bacchanal...lets just say it involved the late Layne Staley, dope, and a coat hanger.”
Artist Mike Clift has drawn gory, zombie-heavy record covers for bands like GutRot, Nocturnus, DiamondHead, and Skinlab. He’s probably best known for his sleeve artwork for reunited locals Psychotic Waltz, whose drummer Norm Leggio went on to run Blue Meannie Records.
“I used to put my phone number on my flyers, and I got a call about doing [Psychotic Waltz] artwork. They also contacted the infamous artist Pushead, but luckily my design beat his out.”
His declining profile after Psychotic Waltz split in the late ‘90s resulted in some imaginative rumors. “Please tell people I didn’t die trapped beneath a German castle, nor have I OD'd on heroin. The sh-t you hear after being gone awhile.” The military veteran did, however, wind up living on the streets. Numerous times.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29511/
Clift was recently signed to appear in an upcoming full-length film about homeless military veterans, Shame on America. "I have been chosen as a subject for the film, as the filmmakers are very interested in my story and my ability to connect with people through my activism and my art. I have the look and the gab to be a spokesperson for veterans and, by using my position within the Occupy Movement, and linking my various projects together, we feel we can produce a very powerful indictment against the establishment and get some real work done."
Clift has long been involved with a program called Vets First!, which claims an 85 percent success rate in helping veterans get housed up with the services and support they need, without relying on any government assistance or dependence on the federal Veteran Administration (VA). "One focus of the film is the gross inefficiency of the VA and the horrendous lack of a safety net for our returning vets, as well as the attendant problems associated with PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder]: homicides, suicide, employment, etc."
When first contacted by the Shame on America filmmakers, Clift was homeless and had lost contact with most of his family. "The Shame team will get [my kid] Jordan and I together as the climax of the movie...honestly, they really got me a place to live and do my work in four hours, what no shelter program could, what the VA wouldn't. Amazing. A job on Monday. Unreal. Plus, the whole movie thing, touring for the premiers, media, etc."
While the film shoots, Clift will be living at the VF compound in Anaheim, serving as both subject and consultant for the movie. "I must say, it is quite awesome. My own room in an awesome house, one of three on this gorgeous property with a pool, lawns, and fruit trees, rabbits, and cats."
Aside from his work with Vets First! and the Occupy [Fill In You City] movement, Clift says "I am starting a non-profit called R.O.A.R., Rockers Organized Against Repression, using the knowledge I gain from working with VF!. I will be getting a mainstream silk screening job, then a bank account, and -- possibly -- a vehicle."
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29509/
Clift’s artwork for the cover of PW’s 1990 album A Social Grace paid $250. “They made a bunch of T-shirts, stickers, even a billboard…I charged $500 for the cover of [1992’s] Into the Everflow, and that became my standard price for several years.”
Clift toured Europe with Psychotic Waltz in 1993, receiving equal billing (and equal pay, $100 weekly plus per diem). “I was introduced as a sixth member and doing a lightshow backdrop of cued film clips that I synched up to the songs with a 16mm projector, two slide projectors with four carousels, and a 26-inch ten-speed wheel with colored gels and blockers, so I could do dissolves with the slides. Buddy would introduce me as part of the band…I signed autographs with them, and I even spotted a Psychotic Sun or Red Jester cover tattoo every now and then."
"Amazing, the power that band had over there. People would follow us from gig to gig, give us HUGE Dutch buds, they’d wave banners; very supportive.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29510/
“I was able to live in Germany for a year, milking it for all it was worth, and thereby got turned on to tattooing from selling my paintings at tattoo conventions. I was literally traveling with a roll of canvas on my back, with a pack full of paints and brushes. I did quite a bit of work over there, 275 paintings and hundreds of little touristy postcards that I would sell wherever I went, little drawings of the place I was in, stuff like that. I was earning my daily bread, and setting up shows and viewings through my contacts as I was merrily gallivanting around Northern Europe.”
His work for Psychotic Waltz led to wearing many different career caps. “I worked on the PW stage show and new shirt and merchandise designs, plus I had my own silkscreening business, I was doing covers for Diamondhead and Disbelief, plus I was selling art to a record company in Germany that would use it for their bands. It was a sort of kick for me to find my art in foreign record stores, though some of the bands were stinkers. For the most part, I was earning a living from my art, and that’s all that really mattered to me.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29512/
He describes how he went from Psychotic Waltz covers to drawing the locally-published comic book Tipper Gore’s Comics and Stories for Todd Loren’s Hillcrest-based Revolutionary Comics. “I met Todd in 1989 through a guy named Vinnie, who worked in Todd's rock merchandise mail order business, and Todd and I hit it off. His sexual orientation may've played a part in this, as I was young and cute at the time, but he showed a real enthusiasm for my art and told me about his upcoming horror comics that he planned to do, specifically to piss off Tipper Gore.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29513/
“I was all for it, man. I was stoked, because all this was hitting at the same time as Psychotic Waltz for me. He offered me 80 dollars per page, and we wrote the stories together and met quite a bit at his place, or he'd take me out to eat and stuff. He was living in the UTC area back then, and he got kinda weird at home, showing me his safe. He was paying me cash as I turned in each page of artwork, and one time he tricked me into watching a porno tape - yikes! - but please do not think I’m trying to disparage Todd."
"He was one of the sweetest guys, and very polite and apologetic when he noticed my discomfort. I am so grateful to Providence that he and I connected and had that time. He had a huge hand in launching my career. He licensed a line of t-shirts of my work, he let me do the horror comics, and he brokered a couple painting sales for me. He was awesome. I was bummed when his death occurred.” Loren’s June 1992 murder in Hillcrest remains unsolved.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29514/
Clift also designs and applies tattoos. “These days, I charge $100 an hour for tattoos. I’ve tattooed some Psychotic Waltz imagery on my cousin, but most band tats I do are usually Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, AFI, [and] bands with distinctive artwork and logos.”
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/aug/13/29515/
"After nearly 20 years of being a metal artist,” says Clift, “I have quite a few stories. One is about Alice in Chains at the Bacchanal...lets just say it involved the late Layne Staley, dope, and a coat hanger.”