N.A.S.A. (North America/South America) comprised of inveterate music fans Squeak E Clean (Sam Spiegel) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales) are launching their long, long awaited album Spirit Of Apollo on Feb 16th. Featuring wildly eclectic cameos from the likes of Tom Waits, Fatlip, Karen O, David Byrne, Sizzla, Santogold and Kool Keith, Spiegel and Gonzales tapped leading artists and animators to create music videos including Shepard Fairey, Sage Vaughn, Mark Gonzalez, Barry McGee, The Date Farmers, Splunny and Marcel Dzama. Dazed caught up with Philadelphia’s Splunny, who created and animated the surreal, day glo psychedelica of “Hip Hop”, featuring Fatlip, KRS One and Slim Kid Tre, recovering after the album’s launch party in New York.

Dazed Digital: How was the launch party in New York? Best story from the night?
Splunny: I lost my coat and credit card and woke up with a maroon table cloth covered in candle wax next to me. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm glad we conducted this interview post-release party, otherwise our conversation would be additional blank spot.

DD: When did you start as an artist and what led you to draw as a way of expressing yourself?
Splunny: I started drawing whenever I was able to. I loved to draw tanks, planes and army men.  When I was finished, I'd trace the missiles, bullets and bombs and play out the battle.  The great thing about drawing, as a kid, was that I could draw whatever interested me at the time and hang it on my bedroom walls. I had the makeshift Michael Jordan posters next to the Punisher doodles.

DD: What work have you done in the past, where and who for?
Splunny: As far as video work goes, I've made three for Spank Rock. "Backyard Betty"(Album teaser), "Lindsay Lohan's Revenge"(Pase Rock w/Santogold and Spank Rock) and "PU$$Y" by Spank Rock. Otherwise I've been doing a lot of random zine stuff to keep myself busy drawing.  

DD: How did you get involved with this project?
Splunny: Sam Spiegel saw the 'PU$$Y' video I did for Spank Rock. He sent me an email while I was working on a shitty job in Atlantic City, NJ. At the time, I was staying in a casino, playing a construction worker (bridge builder) silhouette behind a video screen for a team leadership sales pump-up meeting. When Sam contacted me and said, "I'm doing an animated movie right now in conjunction with a record I'm making called NASA. I wanted to see if you wanted to get down." I was more than willing to put the hardhat down and get creative.

DD: What's the video about for you and why did you decide to create this narrative?
Splunny: I think, for me, the video is about playing with the, often overused, notion that 'Hip Hop is dead.' Most people who say that miss their youth. I think it's funny. A genre of music doesn't die, it evolves. You can't love every aspect of something that is forever changing, unless you don't have fun with it at times. I'd like to think that the duffel bag of hip hop is what everyone is after. Whether it be the ’90s or a sub-genre of rap, I think it's great that people can feel so strongly about an art form that they can embrace and make it a part of their identity. Either way, the mourners will love what they've been missing when it comes around again.

DD: How was it working with Squeak E Clean and the artists, and what did they want from you visually?
Splunny: Sam is awesome to work with. He gave me complete freedom and you can't get much better than that. No one asked me for visual elements. Sam simply mentioned he liked the 'PU$$Y' video. I figured that if I just stuck to that aesthetic a bit, we'd all be happy. As for Fatlip, I only worked with his voice on the track until I met him at the screening in LA. A bunch of us took Fatlip out with us that night and he probably doesn't remember it too well.

DD: Your style reminds me of the simple clean clever graphic design of people like Geoff McFetridge, mixed in with the psychedelia of Peter Max... who are your influences?
Splunny: My biggest influence these days has been the Internet. My girl thinks I'm addicted. I love the old Sesame Street animations and comic books from my childhood. I also have quick, random obsessions that keep me busy. I just got over collecting houseplants and now I'm brewing tons of beer. I would assume that these short-lived interests play a part too. Most importantly, I've been influenced by my friends. I work out a lot of ideas by constantly talking about them and never shutting up. Usually, I mentally commit myself to so many ideas, but end up with only a few physically made. Hopefully, they are the good ones.  

DD: There's also a playful surrealism in your work... why is that?
Splunny: I think it comes from everything I've consumed. Growing up, the cartoons and films I watched were so absurd and unrealistic. I appreciated that. My dad loves B-Movies and I think I inherited the same gene. One of his favorites, for example, is Wes Craven's “Deadly Friend”. A computer whiz's robot gets killed so he implants the chip into his girlfriend's brain who happens to be on life support. The robot girl then seeks revenge and blows up the old Fratelli lady fromThe Goonies head with a basketball. It's an amazing scene that you can't help but love. It's so bad, it's good has become my pitch to my lady when we rent movies. She doesn't usually buy it.  

DD: What was animation like as opposed to drawing a static image? How does that change how you think as an artist?
Splunny: Animation takes forever. Honestly, it drives me fucking crazy, but I love the end product. A static image needs to stand up against so much, while in animation, you have 1000s of static images to save you or, I guess, bury you. There is definitely a different process involved with making animation.  I'm not a big fan of storyboards and prefer to draw and animate on the fly. This process makes it more difficult, but it keeps me interested. I need to find ways to keep myself excited about the animation. When you're constantly staring at a slight variation of the same image, over and over again, you need to find ways to remain inspired.  

DD: Which animator did you work with to bring this idea to life?
Splunny: I actually did all of this video by myself. I tried to get an intern, but no one wanted to sacrifice their time by the poolside.

DD: Fatlip did your post-screening Q&A in LA and talked about "painting with light"... what's your aesthetic?
Splunny: I wish I could paint with light. I''ve always wanted a meth-binge of imagery, but I don't think I'm there yet.  Probably just at a nitrous-binge for now.

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