Pelukas & Tiñas II

Finally, our most adventurous reporter, Zirus the virus bring us, with quite some delay for which we apologize, the second part of the craziest artist interview-feautre in this place. It’s the replica interview to the previous one (see here) mantained by Zirus and Tiñas. Now Pelukas takes revenge and talks about his twin brother Tiñas.

Hey Pelucas, the tape is rolling…

Wassup man? What a pressure! (laughs)

You know I’m calling to interview you, right?

Yes

We know it was a big surprise for you that we interviewed your brother to get more info about you.

Yeah, well, there’re just a few surprises left…

Do you agree with the things he told us?

Pff… With some of them he freaked out a little, he’s such a motherfucking liar. He’s nuts. He makes up stories; he’s such a schizo! But, you know, he’s a good guy… I don’t know if I agree (thinking) just let it be, let it be!

Man, I know you and he described you quite well!

No…not in all of the things. It’s all your fault, you sucker (laughs), it’s all your fault, you fucking missionary!

Come on! It’s just a little Graffiti gossip .

Man, I don’t know. He said a thousand things that I don’t remember now. My memory is failing lately…

That’s because you’re not spiteful.

No… I’ve got just love for my brother and it’s mutual… since we used to touch each other when we were kids.

Really??!! You discovered sex together?

Sure, man, it’s normal. We used to jerk off together and suck each other (laughs) that’s why I got nothing against him!

El Tiñas told us about your life in Cabeza de Manzaneda or about Heavy metal… what would you say was influential from your childhood?

I don’t know… Manzaneda was great.

And the Salesians? The urban camp? [note: as the name says, it’s a substitute of the summer camps for kids from Vigo whose parents couldn’t send them to the country. They would hang around with the “best kids” in town]

The Salesians! Nobody survived that! You either came out of there as a junky or a schizo. At the urban camp we would be drawing and stuff, singing a lot of shit and it was a dick salad (laughs). We didn’t have girls in my school until we were in 8º EGB (8th grade of elementary school). Eight years without women! Then we got out of there and that’s why Alex (Tiñas) started drawing so many dicks, and he still does…

You’re the one that draws dicks!

No, no… he’s the one… well, I draw them stuffed and he draws them empty.

Good shade, maybe it’s because of the frustration?

Well, we also have Castilian genes. From the countryside steppe. It’s pretty tough there. There’s this iberic stuff, very virile. Spanish macho, you know?

But do you identify with all that?

No, not at all… but some Castillian gene survived all that (laughs). Pff, I’m starting to talk bullshit! Like Alex! (laughs)

Can you say five words that describe Tiñas´personality?

(thoughtful) eeeh… obstruct, knickers, concrete, insect and wigs! (note: pelucas means wig in Spanish) Fuck, man, I don’t know, I’m going nuts, these last days have been all alcohol and schizophrenia. You got me in a bad moment!

The other day I talked to Alex and he was in the Doñana Park (Natural Park in Andalusia) in a van, going nomad through the Andalusian coast.

Motherfucker! He’s doing fine. He went with his friends, these freaks, political madmen, that will save the planet!

Fuck man, they’re nice people…

Yeah sure, but I gotta defend my own freaks, my friends.

So it’s rancor what’s moving you.

Nooo, well, yes it is. You gotta throw it out, isn’t it?

Is nature important to Tiñas and his work?

Definitely. He’s got naturist and hippie chinks.

Why did you get these names?

Alex, when he was in the polytechnic school in Vigo, got his from the scooter boys and his friends because he would cut his own hair and would look like a dog with mange, with the dandruff and the bald patch. He actually loved the name (Tiñas, which is ringworm in Spanish). I got mine from my brother and some other friend. At 16 or 17 I dyed my hair and I had a wig. It was the time when Beakman was on TV. They used to call me Beakman and then Pelucas. I would go out and the drunks would pull my hair thinking it was fake! There’s a guy people call Wig in every town!

And you kept the name…

Yes, I identified with it, because deep in me I loved the wig… and I had a great time combing it like Nancy. (laughs)

And now Tiñas have another AKA: Liken.

Well… he thinks he’s the nature itself. Sometimes he thinks he’s got the divine word of the Nature. You know, the lichen thing and all the shamanic stuff, he likes all that shit.

We enter here the point of drugs we discussed with your brother. What you have to say about that?

Well, it influences it, but not anymore. I don’t use drugs. They used to make me search for the hidden part inside me. Hidden images, they boost it a lot.

What about him?

The same. But he didn’t like them very much so he went into this straight edge period but, at the end of the day he was the biggest junky. He did it because he cared about us, really. But, you know, it was a good influence for the drawings. I did my best drawings on lsd. Arriving at home and not being able to sleep and do these incredible drawings.

You told me about the Bisolvon for drawing…

But that’s recently. It’s like opium, it relaxes you but your mind is very active and you feel great. For drawing it’s like a trip. Like the Incal.

I talked with Tiñas about the big contrast between you and him, but I want to know your opinion.

What Alex says always make sense. We’re like two brain hemispheres separated. Like if someone would have separate our brains. Well, actually that’s what I believe happened. Tiñas went for the fight and punishment way and I’m more like the crazy one…

Hedonist? Do you like living well?

Of course! Hedonism, lack of self-control, dirty tricks and transparence! (laughs). No, seriously, happiness… we’re going to be fucked up anyway so…I prefer the destroyer, nonsense, and stupid way.

Talk about Los Niños Especiales (the special children: www.nenosespeciais.tk/)

…pff… it isn’t really anything. It’s what it is. We’re a bunch of friends, we hang around together. We don’t have any project or so… Los niños Especiales is just a sentence that you can identify with or not. I probably know lots of special children that Tay, Tiñas or Kiko don’t know, but they are still specials even if they’re not in the group. It’s an open group. It’s the antigroup. No woman no crew! Vigo´s crew! I don’t know what we are… I’m in no condition to answer that.

So, it’s a “death to all groups” kind of group, right? We’re all specials, isn’t it?

Yeah, that’s exactly the thing! I love them a lot because they’re special. No, I hate them!

Let’s get to the important issue. I want you to make clear a few things about your brother.

He’s got a strong character and that reflects in the things he does, in his drawings, but sometimes he’s just too much. Sure, I’m like his reflection, you know? All his bad moods come to me. He’s a little dictator, when we’re doing things together. He won’t let me paint. When he sees a big ears guy with legs he starts hitting me and spoiling what I’m doing.

Tell me something about his work.

His drawings are very serious, sometimes a little too much. Some are extremely apocalyptic, chaotic, and violent…but I counteract that (laughs). His way of working is completely different to mine, is loving and methodical. Behind all this hate you can see a light of pure love. He’s a loving teddy bear with an incredible power. Thankfully he started drawing, other way he would be at Rebullón (note: Vigo´s Mental Asylum). Sometimes he says something and the next minute he’s saying the opposite. Black holes, tumors, illness, he’s a little schizo. I think he needs a cig. Some parties and orgies! You can see a lot of fear in his drawings. Sometimes we think he’s in this sect with crazy people from Gracia, the guys he lives with (note: Gracia is a Barcelona neighborhood). But the sect is his own brain, he can’t be sicker. His dream would be sticking tubes and cables, but not up his ass, everywhere! Like Tetsuo, his self-destruction! He always draws dicks and pussies, but less lately. I used to like it a lot because he draws them with lots of strength, lots of love (He is really tender! at least with me….we love each other) the thing is that he cannot cope with this and he rather keep going with his mental therapy of lines and tai-chi… of black holes! (empty phalluses, waiting for a factory to fill them in!)

Many of these characters are these tumors you are talking about, represented by the black circle (social tumors, personal tumors…)

Yeah: catastrophe, apocalypses… black holes, and empty phalluses.

You talked about Incal, the comic by Moebius and Jodorowsky. You see Moebius as an influence in Tiñas work?

I don’t know… Alex influences himself. I think he is influenced more by real life images and things he sees first hand, nature… Much more than by other artists.

If you had to choose a clear influence in his work what would it be?

Clear influences… Buff, that would be really long! things like scrap yards, industry, press photos, the goods, the evil. What really influences him is the circumstances under which human beings live, his own nature, human shapes, human body and obviously self-destruction… From what you cannot run!!

And to finish things off, one question I made to your brother in our previous interview: Is there something you would like to ask your brother that you never had the chance to ask in person?

What I would like to say to Alex is; I hate you motherfucker! we should join again, sew us together again cause things are much more complicated now. The wig with the ringworm! We should create the definitive monster. You are fed up with drawing so many and none satisfy you completely. Come… come with me. I’ve got needles and rope. We could share our sickness and my freaks will be your freaks! We would be ready to destroy the city with our misunderstood love!!!

Incredible ending, Pelucas. A big hug and good luck in your Centro European exile!

Interview by: Zirus the virus.

April 27th, 2006 10:28am Administrador