Vince Ray has managed to transform his obsessions with flying saucers, rock & roll, fast cars, wild women and kinky sex into a way of life. Ian Lowey investigates the weird, twisted and lowdown world of this artist and voodoo blues musician.

'Drawing people having sex on every page soon got to be boring, so I began to draw people having sex on motorbikes and then made them into people from outer space'
People tend to think that I'm either American, old or dead, laments the painter, illustrator and shit-kickin' Rock and Roll guitarist Vince Ray. But given that his gloriously warped visual creations are largely rooted in the American trash and B-Movie culture of the 1950s, then folk can perhaps be forgiven for making such assumptions. However, having met the man at his garret on a quiet backstreet in North Clapham, I can happily confirm that though he looked a little weary after a hard day at the easel, this Nottingham-born artist is very much alive. And what's more, he has a good few years to go yet before he picks up his bus pass.
But while this may come as a disappointment to some of those who may have harboured such romanticised notions about Mr Ray, Vince's flat-cum-studio more readily conforms to type when it comes to popular preconceptions of what the living/ working quarters of an artist and musician should look like. Cramped and a little unkempt, the living room wall showcases his collection of five guitars including his beloved Gretsch 6120,
whilst the table is buried beneath a mountain of books, papers, comics and other ephemera. Meanwhile, the kitchen doubles as Vince's actual work area, meaning that dirty mugs and dishes compete for space with canvasses, mixing palettes and half-squeezed tubes of oil paints. And within this classically bohemian environment, Vince leads what he describes as a 'contented, hermit-like existence' writing songs and working on commissions of various sorts, which can range from individual canvasses to t-shirt designs and illustrations for magazines.
At the time of my arrival -- and prior to our heading off to the artist's favourite local tandoori for a swordfish vindaloo washed down with a couple of iced Zombies -- Vince was putting the finishing touches to one of a series of paintings he's doing for Wildcat; the Brighton-based piercing and jewellery specialists who also happen to be sole distributors of Vince Ray merchandise. For these days, Ray's deliciously twisted and often overtly kinky designs adorn an ever increasing array of wares, including ashtrays, mugs, prints and even toilets! He designed the cover for The Damned's 2001 album Grave Disorder and recently, he also applied his trademark imagery to a range of shoes and boots at the behest of the decidedly upmarket mens' footwear emporium Jeffery West. As such, Vince has come a long way since he began his career in illustration in the early 1990s, scripting and inking porno comics for a publisher of top-shelf magazines.

'There's a wonderful way you can play with the innocence of something that's retro or vintage, which means you can draw something which is quite controversial but still get away with it.'

Contracted to complete three pages per day at £30-a-page, Vince recalls that it was hard work, but it kept him fed and watered for a full two years. What's more, it provided him with the opportunity to introduce and develop certain elements which have become a mainstay of his art ever since, as he explains; 'Drawing people having sex on every page soon got to be a bit boring, so I began to draw people having sex on motorbikes and then made them into people from outer space.'
Sadly, the comics weren't a commercial success, but they helped establish Vince's name as a proficientand reliable illustrator, which in turn enabled him to pursue further his own artistic obsessions with cadillacs, fast women and the vintage trash aesthetic generally. And along the way, he discovered he wasn't the only one mining this rich seam of iconic, retro imagery.
'I became aware of the American artists Coop and Kozik and realised that there were other people out there who are into what I'm into.'
Subsequently, Ray along with Coop and Kozik as well as other key Americans such as Robert Williams, Shag, Mark Ryden, Von Dutch and Mitch O'Connell, to name but a few, have been lumped together asthe main players in what has become known as the 'Lowbrow' art movement, which rose to prominence in the United States in the mid-Nineties. Yet, like artists in any field, Vince has decidedly mixed feelings about being labelled part of any movement.
But what exactly is Lowbrow art anyway, when it's at home?
Well, Vince explains that the phrase was first coined by Robert Williams who courted controversy in the late-Eighties with a notorious cover he did for Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite For Destruction album, and who now runs the graphic art magazine Juxtapoz out of San Francisco.'Lowbrow is chiefly concerned with the idea that art can be made from things to do with tattooing, freak shows and fairgrounds, hot-rods, comics and things which people don't generally consider to have artistic merit, and using that imagery to create your own personal vision. It's wonderful that the Lowbrow thing has happened, because it's like a return to good old fashioned commercial art. Having said that, things have gone downhill rather quickly, because suddenly it's just turned into stock images of devil girls and eightballs and flame motifs.'
Well, it could be argued that the ubiquity of such iconography is solely down to the popularity of one of Lowbrow's leading lights, Coop. But like Robert Williams, Vince Ray's work is less singularly figurative and with its extensive use of lettering (Vince is also a former signwriter), is more directly influenced by pulp fiction and B-movie poster artwork. As a consequence, its far more overtly humorous than the output of his American contemporaries, with pieces like 'Night of the Zombie Cat Girl', 'Thee Legendary Hot Rod Sex Vampire' and 'The Astounding Tale of the Man Whose Face Disappeared in a Lady's Skirt' -- serving as enticing and eye-catching sells for books and films regrettably never made nor written.

As a straight-down-the-line Rock and Roll musician, Vince, is quite consciously buying into a longstanding lyrical tradition of comically unreconstructed, greasy, knuckle-dragging, chest beating misogyny.

'There's a wonderful way you can play with the innocence of something that's retro or vintage, which means you can sometimes draw something which is quite controversial but still get away with it.' Says Vince.
And it's a pertinent point. I mean, when looking at his paintings and illustrations, it's easy to overlook the fact that two themes which predominate are sex and violence. Why, even as Vince is pointing this salient fact out to me, I clock one of his pieces which depicts a young razor-wielding woman slapping a castrated penis on a dressing table and proudly proclaiming, 'At last, a penis of my own!', whilst an unconscious male lies prostrate on the bed in the background. Sure, it's grotesque and distasteful, but asfar as penis envy gags go, it's damn funny. And because it's just such a ridiculous cartoony image, it's difficult to imagine anyone really being offended by it.
Interestingly, Vince points out that in his drawings and paintings, the women are usually dominant and predatory, which may explain why he has become such a firm favourite on the fetish scene,
'However, in my music, it's the other way around!'
Sensing a candid sexual revelation in the offing, I press Vince further on this, but he attributes this state of affairs down to the fact that as an artist he simply finds women more fun and satisfying to draw in terms of costume (stockings, pointy bras and high heels seem particular favourites). On the other hand, as a straight-down-the-line Rock and Roll musician, Vince, with songtitles like Non Stop Tight Skirt Action and Woman Killer Blues, is quite consciously buying into a longstanding lyrical tradition of comically unreconstructed, greasy, knuckle-dragging, chest beating misogyny. And why not? In reality, Vince is as affable a fellow as you could hope to meet (though he might not appreciate me saying so), but I can't think of too many Rock and Rollers who have made a career out of portraying themselves as sexually non-threatening, well-rounded human beings with the utmost respect for women, can you?
But apart from that one significant difference, Vince sees both his music and art as being part of one very singular vision. However, it was only after playing in various musical combos over the last decade, that he eventually realised that the only way of 'getting something done in the shape of how I truly wanted it to be was to form my own band, The Vincent Razorbacks.'