So back when I released TRANSLATE issue #10 I intentionally only interviewed bands associated with Hex Records. I snuck in an interview with CHILD BITE as a hint that I'd be doing a record for them in the near future, but didn't say anything. The intention was that people would say 'wait a minute, they haven't released anything through the label!' and then a couple months later I'd spring the freshly released MULTICULT/CHILD BITE split 12" on them as a surprise. Of course, that was over a year ago. Things kind of got delayed but I still kept the release a surprise, which came a few weeks ago.
That all being said, I always intended to put this interview up online because it's an awesome interview and it helps promote the record.
There's still a few copies of TRANSLATE #10 (and for that matter #11) HERE if you like physical media, and, of course, you can get the split LP HERE.
Do you both do screenprinting?
SK: No, it’s just Sean. Basically, I was doing screenprinting posters with a guy for a little while and the print shop he was at was looking to expand. I knew Sean was looking for a job and I just played Molly Matchmaker, and he was into screenprinted posters and that sort of shit, and he lived like a mile away and at the time did not have a car. So I said to the guy, ‘as long as you’re willing to train somebody, this could be the perfect person.’ This is a person who is into it and just wants to learn. So then Sean dove into that and hasn’t come up for air since.
It works out well for logistics of being in a band- an artist and a printer.
The main thought that comes to mind is, ‘that saves some money!’
So, you, Shawn Knight, handle most of the artwork, while Sean Clancy, you handle the screenprinting?
SK: Right. And another thing that has developed is that since Sean is screenprinting all the time he’s trying out different things from projects he’s doing at work and will hit me up with an idea, or loose direction based on a printing process, or the ways some colors will work together. So that will plant a seed with me and inform the art. So in a way it’s kind of merging.
So I take it that right now printing posters is not really happening all that much? I assume it’s mostly shirts?
SC: Yes. Plus, our shop is mostly t-shirts anyways. I sort of lucked into having a boss who likes screenprinted paper gig posters. So he just wanted to offer it as an option, even though he doesn’t really make that much money off of it. I essentially have one of the only, if only, flatstock screenprinting jobs in the metro Detroit area.
There’s a lot of people who do it out of their basement, or for fun, but I’m really the only one who has it as a real job. So I’m really grateful for that.
Gig posters is basically over. One of our main clients was The Fillmore, which is this big 2500 seat venue here in Detroit. I was doing posters for them 2-3 times a month. That’s gone because there’s no shows. But we also do a lot of really high end art prints for this Detroit online gallery called 1xRun and they do a lot of timed art releases with different graffiti artists and modern graphic artists, or whatever. Luckily they have been popping. They hit us with some really insane projects over the last few months. They’re very intense, labor-intensive art projects so that has been a lot of fun.
We also have connections with Third Man Records and they have been doing, more recently, limited screen printed LP sleeves. So I’ve done some jobs for them. One was a Stooges live record and I did like 1500 of those. I’m also currently working on a live Paul McCartney thing they’re doing. I had to print a sample that he looked at and approved, so that was wild.
So gig posters have been gone, but these other avenues of flat stock work have slipped into the cracks which makes it so I still have a job.
I can print t-shirts, and I do for Child Bite, I just don’t really like doing it. It’s frustrating. On a micro level the processes are a lot different with the inks and the way you’re printing.
The way Shawn hooked me up getting into the screenprinting business is awesome and I really haven’t looked back since. I’ve always been grateful for that. It’s what I’ve done for probably the last 8 years now.
So Shawn, you get a chance to collaborate with the screenprinting end with Child Bite, but as a result of your own art seen as part of the band, do you get offers to do art with other outlets such as show poster design, or art for other bands?
SK: I haven’t done a ton. I was doing posters for awhile. One of my first screenprinting things was a Child Bite 7” that I did with a different guy, and we were doing it all ghetto style without a legit set up and the registration was all funky, but who cares.
But I was doing posters for awhile. I’m not sure what other people’s perception of that world is, but I got a little burned out. It was really saturated and I think the people who do collect that stuff were running out of wall space, or ran out of money. A lot of the projects I’d do I could be picky enough because I was never reliant on art jobs for my income. For some reason I try to not rely on that because I think it starts to kill it for me a bit and then I start to not enjoy it. I like to try to separate myself from ‘here’s what I do for money, and this is what I do for enjoyment’. I never really got to the point as a poster artist that other people did. I never made a big dent in the art poster scene.
Sometimes I’d do projects that I financed myself just because I wanted to do it, and then it would turn out great, but I’d end up losing a few hundred bucks on it! It got a little heartbreaking, like, ‘why am I signing myself up for this?’ I already do that enough by being in a weird band! (laughs)
So with art and screenprinting I had always been trying to do new things, and Sean is like this too, we’re always looking for what comes next. What else can we do? That’s what makes it exciting, instead of doing the same thing over and over.
So I would try new techniques and that would sometimes carry over into the band. For instance, I did a few posters on this holographic paper. One was for The Melvins, a couple others for shows in Michigan, and that eventually seeped it’s way into a Child Bite project where we did these 7”s that had die-cut covers, but also had this holographic paper insert. I think that was the origin of that idea and an example of how my art has carried over into band stuff.
I get the impression that between your art, as well as the screenprinting end, Child Bite has made some connections whether it’s an opportunity to tour with a band you made posters for, or design work for other labels. Am I wrong?
SK: One thing that didn’t exactly make something happen, but it sort of sweetened the deal is sometimes when we do tours with bands we offer up to design and print posters for the tour. That’s not something that every opening band can produce. We did that both times we went out with Unsane, we did it with Voivod, we did it with one of Phil Anselmo’s bands.
SC: Most recently we did that with Today Is the Day, but, of course, that tour ended early because of quarantine stuff.
But yeah, it was always a nice way to sweeten the deal and the headliners liked it. We would ask them about making a tour poster and then splitting the money at the end of the tour in a way that’s favorable to the headliner. Always at the end of tours they would be surprised because we would hand them a wad of cash because we sold 40-50 posters. We would just cover our nut and then split it 40-60 or something. Plus, we would sell them so they didn’t have to worry about it. Plus, it brings their fans to our merch table. It’s subtle, but it’s cool stuff that also plays to our advantage. At the end of the day it’s just awesome because I’m a nerd and I love screenprinted posters. Whenever a band has one I get excited about it so I always want to bring that sort of shit to the table in case there are other little me’s running around the world who also get excited by that stuff.
SK: (laughs)
SC: Not related to me ‘me’s’, more like in a cosmic sense. (laughs)
SK: Just jizz flying around everywhere on tour.
These sorts of things that bands would normally outsource you tend to keep in-house and it seems that it has been that way for as long as the band has been going.
SC: Pretty much. As much as possible. None of us are pressing our own vinyl. We’re not getting that far. But as much as we can. A) It’s fun because it’s a creative outlet, and B) we’re a weird band where the peak of our mountain is not very high. But if we’re going to commit to this long-term art project that is Child Bite we do have to think logistically about how we minimize the sacrifice as much as possible while producing what we think is cool shit and has value on some artistic level.
It’s always about efficiency, saving money, minimizing the amount of sacrifice.
SK: A lot of times we’re doing those 7”s, or the records with the screenprinted B-sides, it’s all stuff that because we can do ourselves it ends up being mostly elbow grease. If we didn’t have access to this equipment, and these skills to do it, and we just tried to get someone else to make that same product we would have to sell all these records for $30 each or something. There’s just so many man hours being put into them.
It’s the glory of having awesome shit. And I think we just want to have this long trail of rad stuff to look back on that we’ve spread around the world.
SC: We’ve imbued ourselves with these skills, so how can we take advantage of them, and offer up some shit that would cost any normal person an astronomical amount of money? We win because we get to make this cool thing. You win because you get to get it for a totally normal price. Even with our music we’re trying to do things that other people aren’t willing to do, or would not think of doing. In a world of repeats and remakes, as much as we can possibly muster, we’re trying to do something that is new. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t know. It’s a new step on new ground, and I think we would rather hack through the jungle then tread some path.
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