Many of our favourite bands and musicians blow us away with their talents, but quite often you find that they’re gifted individuals on and off the stage. That is certainly the case for Heavens Basement drummer Chris Rivers. Chris has recently opened up a Facebook page showcasing his skills as an artist and honestly, it’s blown us away! We caught up with him to learn more about the sudden bursts of incredible artwork coming from his page.
Let’s start at the beginning, so when did you decide to first pick up a brush and create something on one of your broken cymbals?
I’ve always been interested in painting since a young age, there’s a lot of artists in my family (3 of them art teachers) so along with music I’ve always been around art. I started doing a lot of painting about 3 or 4 years ago, first started painting my used drumheads from shows and putting them on merch at the end of the night. A lot of them I would just do with sharpie pens in the back of the tour bus but as time went on I found my artist tools growing on the road, I remember visiting an art store on a day off in Chicago to buy some paints to spend the following day’s 11 hour drive painting some drumheads. Using paints on the road is a challenge for things drying etc so I would usually take over the bathroom on the bus to leave all my stuff to dry! Heaven’s Basement has an equipment lock up in Indiana for all our U.S based equipment, as well as having my drums there there’s also a big bag of paints and brushes haha.
Anyway, in terms of painting actual cymbals, the first one I did was only about a year ago, I was at our guitarist Sid’s house where Heavens Basement tends to do a lot of our writing etc, I have a lot of broken cymbals and had some downtime so I thought I’d give it a go, I was blown away with the results! How the oil paint works on the metal looks great. As well as cymbals and drumheads I’m doing a lot of my work on more tradition canvases as well.
What inspires your artwork? How do you come up with your concepts?
Initially it was through travels on the road, I’ve done a lot of drumhead paintings that have something relevant to the country or city we were playing a show at for the specific one. I’m doing a lot of my artwork at home now whilst Heavens basement is off the road so I’m finding inspiration from all sorts of areas, mainly everything fucked up and weird that I can put a twist on.
How would you describe your art?
I’m still finding my style but I’m interested in anything that has a weird / dark twist to it. Almost all of my stuff has big elements of surrealism to it. I’m doing stuff that ranges from portraits like a recent series of paintings I did based on images from David Bowie’s Blackstar / Lazarus videos to complete fantasy weird stuff from the imagination. In terms of influences I’m really inspired by a lot of the obvious greats, especially the old masters. I love how dark the artwork is by an artist like Rembrandt, the style which van Gogh painted with and how amazing the paintings are by someone like Monet. There are so many amazing artists in the world, past and present, I’m in awe everyday at some of the things I’m discovering and it’s inspiring as I’m keen to keep experimenting with lots of different styles.
Do you find you have a ‘perfect’ time to paint or do you just create as and when you’re inspired to?
It mainly tends to be evening / early hours but at the moment it’s just anytime I have free. As long as I have a clear vision to what I’m doing then it’s fine. There are times though when I’ll sit there for hours without a clue to what I’m doing. Some of my paintings have started from just throwing a random mix of colours onto the canvas and seeing what images you can find within the shapes / colours. I’m feeling the most creative I’ve ever felt, I’ve got about 6 months worth of ideas in my head that I want to do including some of my most ambitious paintings yet (in terms of the size etc) the frustrating thing is I’m inpatient and want to do it all now, I’m trying to create a 26 hour day! Life is the busiest it’s ever been for me, my artwork, my band and my 6 month old girls. It’s all keeping me busy but I love it that way.
I see you’re creating a children’s book and providing the illustrations. Who came up with that idea/ did becoming a dad inspire it and can you tell us what the book is about?
It’s called Zak and Jen’s Astronomical adventures.
It basically started with a series of paintings I did in early 2015 which I released for that Valentine’s Day, the paintings feature 2 characters, a boy and a girl in space. Throughout the year I did another 3 or 4 paintings with the same 2 characters and I actually started thinking of doing some kind of children’s book with them but I didn’t have a clear story or the time to sit down and attempt to write something, then one day I woke to an email from Natalie Page who was enquiring about one of the paintings, Natalie had followed my band for the previous few years and I didn’t realise at the time but she was an author and in the email she commented on how the images would make for a cool children’s story, so it was perfect timing really. I asked Natalie to write what she had in mind for a story, and as soon as I read her first draft I was sold! There are now around 25 images that will feature in the book which will be published sometime this summer. I’m really excited to get it out there, I think myself and Natalie have come up with something really different to everything else that’s available. Being a father helps for sure! I’ve read the story to my girls a few times and they seem to like it (he laughs).
There’s also another book in the pipeline that I’m doing with another Author that I’m really excited about, it’s completely different to the book above but they’ll be more details on that later this year.
Are the characters based on anyone you know?
The simple answer is no (he laughs), the theme of the paintings were two characters that were never quite together. There was a common theme of them always trying to get a heart to the other but never quite making it!
I’ve been told things are going on in the background for Heavens Basement, does this mean you’ll have plenty of broken Cymbals coming up to work with?
Of course, we’re always working behind the scenes! Only last week I broke another cymbal in the studio to paint!
If you’d like to pre order your copy of Zac and Jen’s Astronomical adventures, you can do so here Pre Order Zak and Jen’s Astronomical adventures.
Check out Chris’s work here Chris Rivers Artwork.
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