of Montreal art director David Barnes on design for bands and working til 5am

“I like working at night when the world is quiet and all the residual energy is loose and flowing around in the atmosphere because most people are asleep and not gobbling it all up,” says David Barnes. “I’m not sure if that’s a real thing or not but thinking that way motivates me to stay up til 5am working distraction-free, feeding off the dreams of others.”

If that’s the case, then our collective dreams are very, very strange; and uniformly, surreally brilliant. David Barnes (who works under the name “the Bee with Wheels”) is an artist, illustrator and art director for of Montreal, a band as renowned for the ludicrous, mesmerising pomp and glitter of their stage shows as their experimental, verbose and sexually charged paranoia pop. The shows frequently use circus-like levels of fantastical scenery and props, performance artists, nudity and costumes with levels of gauche and frippery that would make RuPaul look positively normcore. These visual aspects are mostly orchestrated by David, working with his brother Kevin (of Montreal’s frontman) to try and realise the band’s odd blend of heavy-lidded, imaginative nihilism and pop power. We spoke to him about designing the band’s sleeves, looking to a “completely nonsecular creative being” for inspiration and designing a beer bottle label that recalls “a more dangerous version of Jean Claude van Damme.”

Why “the Bee with Wheels”?

It’s based on a character I used to draw all the time of a bee with a skull head and wheels for legs. He was the first character I drew that wasn’t just an individual but an actual species. Plus it’s sort of easy to remember because it’s four simple words but you don’t normally hear them together so it sticks in your mind.

What does being of Montreal’s art director entail?

Basically I oversee the visual aspects of the live show. With the help of talented friends I make the animations that are projected onto costumes and sort of write little sketches for the characters to act out on stage. Right now we are doing a lot of video projection mapping, so we make all white costumes and puppets and then project animations onto them to make them into sort of 3D characters and atmospheres to transform the stage the band’s playing on.

I suppose the goal is to be as transportive as possible for the audience. Going to see a band play is already an escape and we just try and take it that much further.  I really want people to not recognise the stage even though they may have seen tonnes of bands play there before. I just listened to an interview with Henry Rollins and he told a story of David Lee Roth telling him that when a person buys a ticket to your show that is a contract between you and them saying that you’re going to be the spectacle they paid to see.  Even though I just heard it put that way, it’s something that Kevin and I and everyone in our group has always taken very seriously. So we work hard to evolve and write and make new things for every single tour.  

Your imagery for the band is incredibly detailed – where do all those characters and creatures come from?

Well my my ten-year-old niece just told me a few days ago that there is an entire race of these other-dimensional aliens that live inside of us and that I’m one of the few people that can see them. She said it in a creepy whisper so for lack of a better explanation I’ll trust her. She’s never lied to me before.

What are the considerations in designing for a very visuals-heavy band like of Montreal?

I basically listen to the new album thousands of times in a row and let it seep into all the forgotten nooks and crannies of my mind. Once I am fully saturated I just sort of follow my instincts and draw with confidence, knowing that my interpretation is 100% valid because I absorbed the music as much as I could. 

Does Kevin set the brief, or are you given a pretty free rein?

I’m given free rein and I try to listen to everyone. I love the feeling of brainstorming, the back and forth tennis game of an idea’s evolution is where it’s at for me. You can have a fully-formed idea that would be just fine as it is and then someone could just comment on it in a way that makes you go, “oh wait,” and you move it in a direction you hadn’t seen before.

What other artists do you admire?

I tend to lean towards comic book artists with my drawings like Jack Kirby, Alan Davis, Frank Quitely, etc. In the art world I don’t know they get the credit they deserve for sheer output and creativity. Especially Kirby, this poor kid from 1940s New York that grew up with little to no schooling to create more than half of what superheroes are today. With the stage show I kind of think of it in terms of sketches like Monty Python or something.

What do you look to for inspiration?

I don’t know if there really is a god or not but I enjoy thinking of god as a completely nonsecular creative being. This thing that created everything from black holes, to humans, to tornadoes, to squids. I like looking at what actually exists, realising how strange it all is and then remixing it for lack of a better term. It’s funny to me that if I put tentacles on a horse, god would be like, “ya I thought of that but decided not to”. I just want to make the things god decided not to.

Talk me through your process.

I feel the most satisfied when I’m not over-thinking what I’m doing. I live for the meditative nature of creation. When you’ve shut yourself off from the outside world and it’s just you and your brain. Sometimes it can feel that way. Like there is your brain, and it’s full of all the things you’ve learned and absorbed your whole life, and then there is a separate part of you that’s sifting through all that information and you can almost end up arguing with yourself or debating with yourself. But then there are other times when it all comes together naturally and fluidly. That’s the best to me. That’s when you’re thinking super-fast and making quick choices and executing instantly. And if in the end you don’t like it, then you just try again. I’m never going to be done making things anyways.

What’s a typical day like in the studio?

I like working at night when the world is quiet and all the residual energy is loose and flowing around in the atmosphere because most people are asleep and not gobbling it all up. I’m not sure if that’s a real thing or not but thinking that way motivates me to stay up til 5am working distraction free, feeding off the dreams of others. My mind really wakes up around 10pm and I’m happiest when I have like 20 things to work on so that while one thing is drying I can add a layer to another one. I can create a one-person assembly line and get lost in the process and then all of a sudden it’s morning and 20 things that didn’t exist before are here on earth now.

Tell me more about your image for the bottle label.

My brother and I watched a bunch of bad 80s and early 90s action movies growing up – Commando and Blood Sport and the like. Basically I designed a more dangerous version of Jean Claude van Damme by adding a poisonous spider and a feral cat with a deadly snake fist.