Lets start right at the beginning. Where did you grow up, are you a child of the seventies?
I grew up in Dulwich, South London. I was born in 1970.

What were your favourite toys as a kid?
My favourite toy was Lego. It's all about constructing alternate realities.

Growing up what kind of cultural influences do you think helped shape you and your work?
I was brought up on Richard Scarry and Tintin. As a teenager I was into Judge Dredd and 2000 AD. Then I discovered Gary Panter, Mark Beyer and Charles Burns in Raw magazine. More traditionally, I was into Paul Klee, Alexander Rodchenko, Bauhaus, Constructivism. I had a bit of an Abstract Expressionist phase but grew out of it.

How old were you when you started to draw?
Whenever I could hold a pencil. I was really into drawing Richard Scarry-esque animals carrying firearms.

When did the potato heads begin turning up?
Not until I was studying for my M.A.. I have always been drawing cartoon characters, but I was always dissatisfied with them. So I tried to think about them in a more academic way, paring them down to only the essential parts. The potato is such a zen shape.

At what age did you realise you wanted to take up a career in art and design?
Pretty young.

How did you hook up with Holmes or Silas and Maria as they later became known as?
I went into Slam City Skates with a book I had made about skateboarding whilst I was still at college and introduced myself. When I moved back to London to do an M.A. Slam was starting Holmes and I started doing graphics for that and adverts for the Slam.

Your work has some pretty serious sociological commentary running through it, what if you can pinpoint it do you think was the catalyst for this awareness?
I read a lot of existential novels as a teenager.

Can you explain to us the concept of World Of Pain and how it translates into your work?
World of Pain is the universe that my characters live in. I try to make it a very logical universe, and there are lots of rules for why things are and how people should behave. I realised that sometimes I want to draw things that wouldn't happen in the World of Pain universe, so I developed the concept of the potato-headed multiverse, so I can have different realities existing concurrently.

Is world of pain an expanding dimension or is it very defined and fixed?
World of Pain is one dimension or universe in the multi-dimensional potato-headed multiverse.

In the past you have put an incredible amount of detail into some of your illustrations picking out the environment the subject is within and the gadgets and lifestyle toys especially in the early work you did for The Face magazine, are you a gadget freak or do you just love detail?
When I made those illustrations for The Face I was into drawing things because they made the drawing more real and easy for people to identify with. I soon realised that the reality of a drawing could be purer and more beautiful if I didn't refer directly to things in our universe. This lead to World of Pain: trying to envision a very pure cartoon reality.

What is a typical day for you?
Wake up. Stretch. Five mile run. Espresso. Read cyclingnews.com. Work.

Do you always remember to eat breakfast?
No.

I would consider your contemporaries to be artists like Pete Fowler, Kaws and Barry McGee in the way that you are all pushing the boundaries of what you do, not allowing yourselves to be typecast. Do you find your self compared to them often and how do you feel about such comparisons?
Sometimes I am lumped in with Pete. I admire what all those chaps are doing but I don't feel especially connected to them. Pete freaks me out because he works so hard. I find drawing quite a traumatic business.

Where do you get inspiration from and which artists work do you try to follow?
These days? Jim Woodring, Charles Burns

Martin

Evil Martin and Bubba

Keith

Policeman

Lars

How does it make you feel when you see your toys selling for so much money on web sites like Ebay?
It freaks me the hell out.

Why was the Policeman so difficult to pick up – I was told they only got to 2 UK shops - one in London and one in Brighton?
The Policeman was sold through the usual Silas accounts, but there weren't many of them in the first place. I got to make him because of doing the World of Pain exhibition in Tokyo, and quite a lot of the Policemen were sold there.

I imagine your biggest market is Japan?
It is. Hopefully things will catch up over here one day.

You have just created a new company called 'Amos' for your toy range, what has happened to 'World of Pain' as a company, are Silas and Maria involved in Amos?
It's a tangled web... Amos is its own thing. 'In-Crowd' is my range of figures made by Amos. World of Pain was never a company. Hopefully at some point I will get my shit together and do another World of Pain project. If there is another World of Pain toy it would be made by Amos. Does that make sense?..

So what future products are coming out of Amos?
See above. For the time being I am concentrating on the In-Crowd.

I love the new Amos range - 'Forever Sensible Motorcycle Club', what was the inspiration behind this?
I went to Tasmania and started drawing bikers not long after that. I don't really know why.

What make and model bike do they ride?
Something that does excellent mileage.

Zombies

Forever Sensible Motorcycle Club

Do you find people are more interested in the toys or the illustrations.
I think it is about fifty-fifty. in terms of what people connect with. For me, drawing is the fundamental thing that I do. The toys are a nice counterpart to the drawings. They involve so much more process. Making the toys has liberated my drawing somewhat; I feel like the toys are an outlet for my neat side, leaving me free to make crazier, messier drawings.

You must have been approached to have your characters animated and brought to life, is this area something you see yourself migrating into?
It would be nice.

In your book James Jarvis Drawings there is a small sketch that looks like it may be the rear packaging design for an Elf figure, was this a project that didn't happen?
I started off with the idea of making an elf figure for the World of Pain expo in Tokyo but in the end settled on the Policeman

The character I am really waiting for you to put out as a toy is the 'Old One', do you have any plans to release him?
He keeps shifting shape. I can't decide definitively how It should look.

What is your personal favourite toy that you have produced so far?
The Bearded Prophet.

Have you ever been tempted to spray the words "Repent the End Is Nigh" on a public wall?
All the time. Also 'YOU LITTER, YOU SCUM!', or words to that effect.

I was in traffic today behind a guy in a big Volvo who threw rubbish out of his window, in the rear window he had a 'keep Britian tidy' sticker! You don't seem to see too many people these days declaring the end of the world, do you think the time is right for a revival?
A large, doom-laden placard brandished on a busy high street will always brighten up an afternoon.

In the World of Pain correct public behaviour is tightly enforced, in fact the cop is quite busy ensuring a high degree of discipline. How important is good behaviour to you?
Incredibly important. I have a real need for rules in everything: making tea, crossing the road, tying one's shoelaces... I really like it that in Japan pedestrians always wait for the green man before crossing, even on a completely deserted road at 5 a.m..

I love the references to psychedelic culture in your work, how important is it to you to intertwine your musical taste into what you do?
I think a lot of the references just slip in there without my thinking about it too much. I tend to have my characters spout the lyrics of whatever song I am listening to.

Before I let you go can I ask you some more music related stuff, starting with the character Lars. Can you describe the Sound of Lars band? I imagine a cross between van Halen and The Sabbath filtered through some hardcore seventies Scandinavian bearded rock?
For me Lars' sound is a mixture of Neu, Slayer and early Sabbath.


Heavy Metal appears regularly in your work, are you a bit of a rocker then?
Who doesn't like to rock?

What’s your top five rock breaks?
The bit in the Led Zeppelin song 'What Is and What Should Never Be' when the Bonzo bangs the gong and the riffing starts. 'Loose' by the Stooges. The middle eight of 'Don't Look Back' by the Remains. 'Silent
Scream' by Slayer. 'Teenage Riot' by Sonic Youth.

"Teenage Riot" is an amazing song, I need to find me some Slayer LP's I think every collection should have some serious rock! Are you into any funk or soul music at all?
I love early Parliament and Funkadelic. Also Cymande, Chambers Brothers. Everyone likes the classic Stax-type sound. I was into Hip Hop more in the late Eighties and early Nineties. First Black Sheep album, that type of thing. Now I like all sorts, but most of all Sixties psychedelia.

Do you buy vinyl?
Basically, I am a vinyl head. Occasionally I flip out and decide I want to get rid of everything and live a more zen existence.


What is the most you ever spent on a piece of vinyl?
I think £25 for a copy of Neil Young's 'On the Beach'.

How many records do you own?
About 600.

What are your top ten psychedelic records?
'Bull of the Woods', Thirteenth Floor Elevators
'Autosalvage', Autosalvage'
'S.F. Sorrow', The Pretty Things
'I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die', Country Joe and the Fish
'The Notorious Byrd Brothers', The Byrds
'United States of America', United States of America
'A Dream for Julie', The Kaleidoscope
'2000 Light Years from Home', The Rolling Stones
'I Shall Walk', Tom Dae Turned On
'Alabama Bound', The Charlatans

I read someplace that you have just completed a film project on drawing, what is this? can you tell us more? Release etc?
I started making it for an expo I was in in Venice, but didn't finish it. I am in an exhibition at the new Zaha Hadid-designed art gallery in Cincinnati early next year and I am aiming to finish it for then.

What are your ambitions for the future and are there other disciplines you would like to work within?
I want to do the ultimate World of Pain encyclopaedia. I have been mulling over it for some time. Also, I would like to become a professional cyclist.

peace and happiness to James for letting me bug him for a few moments of his life :) find out more about this artist at... http://www.jamesjarvis.co.uk