Born in 1951, Edwin Pouncey has managed throughout his career to mix his two passions, which are music and comics. As far as music is concerned, Pouncey is a regular contibutor to the British magazine The Wire and is actively involved in other music publications such as The Sound Projector or Resonance, a review edited by The London Musician Committee. He also has a weekly radio show on Resonance FM, which is considered by many as the best station in the world for radio art and experimental music. As far as graphic arts goes, he’s been working for more than twenty-five years under the pseudonym Savage Pencil, his peculiar style making him the ultimate rock’n’roll and underground cartoonist. In both domains - music and graphic arts - Edwin Pouncey / Savage Pencil appears to be a prominent London figure.

Do you mind being considered as a rock’n’roll cartoonist ? What’s the link between music and drawing in your work ?
I don’t mind being considered as a rock’n’roll cartoonist at all, because I’ve always felt that my work is pretty much associated with music in a way. I’ve got a feeling that, although I can’t play a proper instrument, it’s a bit like playing music when I’m drawing. Both activities, music and drawing, are linked because I listen to music when I’m drawing. So what I’m listening to comes through. I don’t sit there in silence and draw, I have to have something else at the same time. And the more interesting the music is, the more involved the drawing becomes. I sort of manage to pick up that vibe and put it through in the drawings.

Do you consider yourself as a musician then ?
I was in a band called The Art Attacks. That was in the late ’70s, but we weren’t a punk group though, I don’t think so anyway. To be a musician, I think you have to know the basic structure of music. You have to figure out how to play a chord. As far as playing a chord goes, for example, I’ve got no idea. Even worse, I have no interest in learning how to play a chord either. I’m interested in noise guitar. Because, like I’ve said before, that to me is close to drawing, except instead of ink and paper, I’m using sound, air and electricity.

Do you think being a musician helps being a good music journalist ? What is necessary to be a good music journalist ?
If you really don’t know anything about how music is structured, I think it helps to write about music. Because otherwise it becomes too academic, like musicology. And who wants to read that ? I’m fascinated by it, but also frustrated when I read a book about somebody’s music I’m really interested in, and it’s illustrated with examples of musical scores that I do not understand. I think what makes good music journalism is if the research has been done properly, otherwise it’s a waste of time.

You wrote an article about Mego in a recent Wire issue. So are you also into electronic music ?
Yes, I am. When I got interested into Mego, I didn’t really know much about the label to be honest. I only had a few records. I like the attitude and the ideas that the Mego label is trying to put forward. There is something there that is really new and vital, I think. And that has rock’n’roll beat in it as well, I can hear rock’n’roll in-between all those glitchy beats.

What is your opinion about comic books and comic fanzines today ?
I now feel that the comics I am interested in reading and producing - underground comix - are just dead. I don’t know how it is in France, but in England it looks pretty dead to me. There are no comics I really want to read at present. There were some little guys doing these things from home, like Shock or Escape. It’s a one or two-men operation that is totally independent, real underground. Real art people don’t know, and probably don’t want to know, that experimental comix and music exist.

What were your influences as a comic artist ? I recently read an article you wrote on Rory Hayes...
Rory Hayes is obviously an influence. When you say influence, do I sit there and stare at someone’s work forever and ever ? No, I don’t do that. It’s more subliminal than that. I wouldn’t really say I’m influenced by anybody particularly. I suppose the person who influenced my "Rock’n’roll Zoo" period during the late ’70s and early ’80s was Cal Schenkel who did the cover art for The Mothers of Invention.

Were you also influenced by horror or gore movies ?
I guess so. I just don’t think about it too much. I’m well aware of what you’re talking about, and I’ve always liked monsters anyway.

I read that you described yourself as a hardcore surrealist. What do you mean by that ?
Well, I’m always striving towards the extreme in my art, so I suppose if I’m a hardcore surrealist, I’m an extreme surrealist. I attempt to search out and try to evoke the most extreme examples of that particular art form. I mean, I’m pretty interested in extreme stuff, especially music.

Can you tell us about The Battle of the Eyes ?
The Battle of the Eyes were an art group made of Andy Dog, Chris Long and myself. Like you would form a rock’n’roll band, but we’d be drawing together instead of playing instruments. What we did was to work on one project and release it like a record. One of the things we released was with Roli Mosimann’s and Jim Thirlwell’s band Wiseblood. We published a comic called Nyak-Nyak ! which was inserted into their Motorslug record. It was three huge sheets, all double printed with our art and graphics, including a story by Lydia Lunch.

What’s the story behind that Dead Duck / Antiquack compilation you did which was released on EMI in 1999 ?
EMI approached me and asked if I would like to be part of this CD compilation series called Songbooks. Other people involved were Robert Crumb, Hunter S. Thompson, Gilbert Shelton, Peter Bagge’s, Ralph Steadman, Ivor Cutler, authors Iain Banks, Clive Barker and Gerry Anderson. So I said, "sure". I’d had this project for ages, which was to do a comic with a record based around my Dead Duck character. But that never happened because I didn’t have any money, so when EMI asked me to do something for Songbooks I thought, "good, now we’ll do it". I still had all the drawings, and so I started revising them as the original version was too pornographic and EMI would just freak out if I showed them that. Then I wrote all these stories, which was quite interesting. Writing them not as comic book stories, but as text. I then asked them if I can get this friend of mine called Rob Brown to read them out in a recording studio, which they agreed to. It was phenomenal, they just let me do anything. EMI had a launch party for it all at the Abbey Road studio, and the press were invited. And after all this happened, nothing. There was no announcement about it or anything in the music press, it was just dead. I think they just deleted it all. So anyway, that was my big break in the corporate music business that never took off.

What about this gap between underground and institutionalized art ?
To me, to infiltrate something like EMI or UNESCO - I was part of a comic exhibition at the UNESCO in Athens once - is a kind of victory, a personal revolution in a way, where I am just able to give a bigger audience something different to look at or listen to. I’ve always said this about EMI, I was very grateful that they gave me the opportunity to do the Dead Duck Songbook, that was a fantastic thing to do. It remains one of my favourite projects and I’m really proud of it.

Do you think that the term "underground" still means something today, or that it’s an old notion ?
It’s an old notion that probably not many people today would know what it meant at all. But I think there still is an underground, even though it might not call itself that today. People are still doing interesting work, and nobody is interested in it. Those people who are involved in it will hear the music, will see the art, will read the comic books, the novels, the journalism. But if it broke through to a massive audience it wouldn’t be underground anyway. It can be very disarming. Some people put a lot of effort in it with very little reward, but if you’ve got a vision and you want to pursue it, then pursue it, I’d say.

Do you have a vision ?
I suppose I do, yeah. I don’t know what it is at the moment. I’m sort of figuring out my next plan of attack. But I don’t know if it’s going to be comics. At the moment I’m doing a lot of etching, which is quite a challenge. But I don’t think I’m going to cause a revolution within the fine arts scene. Like everything else, those people who are interested will see the work, and those who never heard of it won’t see anything. So I suppose I’m going towards fine art in a way, but in a way that is completely unorthodox, because usually you need an agent or you need a sponsor. But I’m not really interested in that. Now I’m just interested in hacking out these visions from sheets of metal.

Did you have the same kind of experience of the ’70s like your friend Stefan Jaworzyn had ?
No, I don’t think so. I suppose the ’70s were my kind of era as well. It kind of made me in a way. But I don’t think I had the same experience as Stefan, I think I’m more cautious than he is. I didn’t really go into all that drug stuff, I avoided it all, I really did. Because I was too scared of it. For drawing, my drug is music basically, I don’t take real drugs. I didn’t take any LSD, never ever in my life. People often asked me this, but the point is I exactly know what that is, I know a lot about psychedelia and psychedelic experience. I think I’m naturally psychedelic, I can have a trip, reach states of altered consciousness without taking anything. This sort of comes through in the drawings.

Your drawings are full of demons, sort of satanist symbols. Do you believe in the power of magic and symbols ?
Yeah, I believe in magic a lot, but I don’t really want to practice it. Otherwise I would be doing that all the time. So I don’t really want to dabble with it because I know how dangerous it could be. But I’m very interested in it, through reading Crowley and also Austin Osman Spare. He was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, but he was also an artist in his own right. He is an inspiration to me, particularly now that I’m doing these etchings. I have to really sort of clear my brain and just let my inner self take over and see what images come out. Because the drawings don’t need to have a narrative aspect then that means they can be freer. That’s very liberating. It’s more liberating than dangerous, and for me, it works.

How does your current work look like ? Is it always black and white or do you use sometimes colours ?
Well, I do use colours but I don’t really like them very much. When I use them it’s like one or two colours really stripped down. I think colours get in the way of the drawing, they flatten it somehow. Sometimes the work demands colour so I have to provide it, but I don’t really like that. Don’t you think black and white is just better, harder and stronger ? Just stripped down to its most basic thing. You wouldn’t colour in a written passage of music or a page of a novel. I think I succeed in drawing powerful things. Sometimes they materialise from nowhere and surprise me. I don’t know where they come from. When this happens I think, "where did that come from ?", and that feels wonderful.

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