I loved surrealism and abstract painting, and anything related to those. I always thought painting was the highest form of art. What led me to drawing was seeing so much self-important, pretentious, conceptual-type art in university. I wanted to reject that by making quick, fun art.

Taboos are always going to be interesting.Our [ with Michael Dumontier] style has its range and there is room for explicitness in violence, but not at the expense of our classy, highbrow image.

I think the overall mood of the music informs the artwork, but I've found that good lyrics can be inspirational, too.

Each painting is its own world, but a lot of times I do see the paintings as one page from a story. You can imagine what has happened before or after. Sometimes they are worded as being a part of a story, especially the paintings where characters are in conversation.

I remember the university as being very encouraging, especially to experimentation. I think you always get a lot of musicians in any art community, and it seemed like a lot of people I knew worked on films that got made locally.

I grew up on a farm with only two TV channels. I didn't grow up around much culture. When I got excited about painting, I never really got further than what would have been in a modern art history textbook.

I love Inuit art, and most anything you would find in a folk art museum, as well as children's art or children's book illustrators or illustrators in general - all the kinds of work that my paintings would draw comparisons to.