The artwork of Jeremy Clark has appeared under the name "Hush" on the cover of Slug and Lettuce and on such record covers as the CONTROVENE LP to name a few. His medium is mainly pen and ink yet has a totally unique and distinctive appearance. Jeremy can often be found behind the distro table while touring with hometown bands such as KYLESA and BARONESS, usually with pen in hand. We have long admired Jeremy's work and are pleased to have him appear as our featured/cover artist for PE #58. This interview was conducted via email by PE's Mel Hughes.

PE: What is the earliest age you remember drawing?

My mom says I've been drawing since before I could talk. She has an attic full of boxes of scrap paper, church bulletins and school papers that I scribbled weird giant mice and robots all over. I always had low grades in school. To me it was eight hours of drawing time. Add Southern Baptist parents and I had another several hours a week to draw in church. I would find dead wasps in window sills and do my best to recreate them. Or dollar bills. I was obsessed with the line work on money. In sixth grade I was grounded for drawing the cover of IRON MAIDEN’s Killers in church.

Being an artist was never what I set out to do. I just couldn't sit still. Always had to be fidgeting with something. So I doodled on everything. In high school I'd burn through sketch books really fast. No white space left untouched.

PE: How did you get into punk and what attracted you to it in the first place?

My family was military. In the 80's all my friends on the base were metal heads. So I was introduced to aggressive music and bad behavior at an early age. Confining a bunch of kids in a fenced in area is a great way to breed problems. The problems our parents warned us about. Those were violent times. It wasn't until I was in high school in Tennessee, the middle of nowhere, that I discovered punk rock and stopped getting into so much trouble. I started skate boarding and meeting punk kids. The power of the mixed tape changed everything. Friends would make me tapes. Like 7 SECONDS on one side CORONOR on the other. Metal and punk blurred together for me. No one there was strictly one sided. Underground music was fairly hard for us to find.

All our punk came from the mall. SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, DESCENDENTS, BLACK FLAG, DEAD KENNEDYS, MINOR THREAT, etc. There was no internet. No zines. No direction. Just Thrasher Magazine.

I began sneaking out to shows when I was 18. Only the local metal shows were all ages. Punk shows were always in bars. But bars were all 18+ then. I drew flyers and demo tape covers for friends' bands. I even did some hand drawn skate decks. I was terrible at skating but everyone liked my decks.

Once I moved to Savannah Georgia I began to meet a more diverse crowd. This is where I started to find real underground music. A whole world of people from every where with their own ideas. Shows and distros, zines and books. There was so much I had never seen or heard of before. Crust and sludge made up the local scene. Bands like DAMAD, TANK 18, and DAS KRIMINAL. I fell in love quick. So brutal. And the way everyone lived was so against what I had ever seen. Living in groups and working just enough to get by. Life did not have to end with work. So much more time for drawing and adventure. I began doing more flyers and record covers and after a drought of shows I began booking shows at my house and any other nook and cranny I could get away with. THE UNPERSONS 7” was the first fairly big record cover I ever did. Also one of my favorites to this day.

Then I was turned on to Slug and Lettuce and started sending in random heading illustrations to Chris Boarts and it blew my mind when they were printed. Ten years later Slug and Lettuce was my most stable illustration job. I also did a cover for the CONTRAVENE LP. The back cover was actually a depiction of my first house I did shows in. All my roommates are there. I'm hidden in there. All our dogs and friends. Its more of a family portrait than an album cover.

Some of the other bands I've done art for: ACCUSED, KYLESA, UNPERSONS, CHGRONICLE A.D, CONTRAVENE, GRIMPLE, WAKE UP ON FIRE, DESOLATION, GUIDED CRADLE, KAKISTOCRACY, NUX COMICA, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, CAVE CANEM, HAWG JAW, SKELETON WITCH, RON LUNG, SHANK, LEECH MILK, WORDS THAT BURN, DIE SCREAMING, LEX VEGAS, HELLEN KELLER, COUGH, CAPSULE, THE BRICKS, NEGATIVE FEEDBACK and more I'm sure I'm forgetting.

self-portrait