INTERVIEW WITH MID FROM DEVIATED INSTINCT

I interviewed the artist Rob "Mid" Middleton about his art & his band Deviated Instinct in Die Wurst #5 (sold out) I am reprinting this interview here.

The 90s East Bay Punk Scene was heavily influenced by Crust. Even though I fancied myself a Proper Punk (Somewhere in between Chaos & Drunk), in the fractured world of Punk the tendrils of Crust were everywhere & there was no avoiding it. Being into Warhammer got me into Bolt Thrower & Grindcore before almost anyone else. Also Profane Existence was one of the best zines around & it was like half Crust!

I can’t discount the influence of Crust aesthetics on my work & I credit Mid with being an originator for so many of these. While I credit 1987 era Games Workshop as a central influence on me, they were directly lifting aesthetics from Kerrang! in the hopes of further connecting the huge Metal scene with the huge gaming scene. For me, the connection was natural & I still appreciate it. Hats off to the GW!

While it’s been a decade since we’ve been truly DIY, (I was writing this in 2021, so I'm talking about 2011 when we brought on our first employee.) that is still the mentality of GOBLINKO. DIY & with no budget. I love the packaging, the stickers, the “zine babies”, the fold-out cassette inserts, the whole deal of DIY Punk. Mid’s art reminds me of all of this & the good feelings of communicating with the few like-minded souls via the post back in the day. I don’t miss the loneliness at all, but it at least came with a tremendous aesthetic!

SEAN: Your art & personal style helped define what one expects from Crust Punk bands, what went into forming your personal style?

MID: Hmmm, it’s difficult to say, do I even have a style? I often worry that I don’t focus enough on one style or whatever that I’m just a jack of all trades, master of none. I get bored if I do the same thing too long though which is why I like to chop & change between the way I work. I guess with regards to Crust Punk, the work people would know me for would be all the detailed black & white, pen & ink dot work etc. Obviously at the beginning I was just trying to emulate the artists I admired & was inspired by such as Nick Blinko, Pushead, Squeal & Nick Lant (who did the early Subhumans records). They were who inspired me to pick up a black pen in the first place then I was mixing that with comic artists that were blowing me away. I was a big 2000AD nerd back in the 80’s & artwork to stories such as Slaine by Glenn Fabry & Simon Bisley & artwork to Nemesis the Warlock. Plus some of the early White Dwarf magazine art, especially Ian Miller who was a huge inspiration. I guess I was just ripping off various elements from all those guys and it kind of melted together & something of my own formed. Also I was reading a lot of fantasy novels & all that wild imagery filtered through as well as all the Celtic Knotwork books I was getting from the local library. It’s just about being a sponge & soaking up as much inspiration from everywhere. SEAN: Did you guys play any roleplaying or war games back in the day? If so how did that world influence your art? MID: Yeah, back in the early-mid 80’s I was quite into the original Dungeons & Dragons games, I had the classic blue & red boxes. An old school friend was really into being a Dungeon Master & would plan out games for 3 or 4 of us to play. I was also really into painting little figures, especially the old metal ones, I had quite a large collection of Orcs that were all super detailed painted up. I have no idea what happened to all those, I don’t know if they just got lost between house moves over the decades or if I gave them away. As I mentioned before, all that imagery definitely fed into my art back then. It really only lasted a few years though & I’ve not played anything like that since. I don’t have the patience. Sometimes I feel like it would be great to really get into RPG computer games or something. My daughter is a coder within the Computer Game industry, she often gives me her old kit when she upgrades to something. Like she gave me her old Xbox & all her games a few years ago including Skyrim which I used to enjoy watching her play when she was younger, I just don’t have the time or patience to invest in it though. There’s never enough time in the day to do all the drawing, or playing guitar or reading books or watching movies I want as it is so I always feel like any time I’d spend on games is time I should be doing something more creative and productive.

SEAN: I view Punk as some kind of religious sect now, how has it grown & changed with you as you have grown & changed as a person?

MID: I’ve been asked this question in various forms a few times over the years and I have to say as time goes on it gets harder to really know how to answer it. To put it in context I started buying Punk records & really getting into it when I was 12 in 1979, I’m 55 now, so that’s erm.... (have to think hard a minute here) that’s 43 years of being involved in/with Punk to some degree as I and the world around me changes beyond all recognition. It’s really difficult to sum that up into one feeling or observation.. As to Punk being like some religious sect, really it’s multiple sects, as Religion itself could be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc etc so there are so many different factions that don’t have a lot in relation to each other. There are kids who’s idea of Punk is solely based on warped tour stuff & Pop Punk, then there’s street Punk or those who like to get the old tartan bondage trousers out for their annual trip to Rebellion festival, then those who are just into tough guy or youth crew Hardcore & so it goes on. Obviously back in the early days of the late 70’s there were bands that sounded nothing like each other but they were still all loosely playing under the straightforward punk banner before there were a thousand different Punk subgenres & scenes. Now it seems that you have to immediately nail your colors to the mast of which club you want to be a part of & there’s not a lot of room for cross pollination. Deviated Instict obviously exist within the DIY ‘crust punk’ subset, although we also seem to have a certain audience from the Death Metal scene. I don’t really know where I as an individual really fit in these days, both within Punk as a whole & the world in general. Maybe it’s just a reflection of the way things are these days that many of us feel somewhat untethered. I’ve lived in the same small city, Norwich, all my life & while I love it here & the pace of life suits me I do miss there being no recognizable scene here so it’s difficult to really be involved on a day to day level sometimes. Sure because of the internet etc I’m always in contact with friends all over the world but I really wish there were DIY spaces or some sort of Punk community here, generally I have to travel to experience that & what with the pandemic & lack of travel over the past couple of years I am feeling quite disconnected. There is nothing like traveling to a festival somewhere overseas and then just bumping into friends from countries from every corner and just immediately feeling grounded like these are my people, this is my tribe. I look forward to getting back to that. Despite its apparent disparate elements Punk rock is still the glue that holds us together in one way or another.

SEAN: 2021 is wildly different than the 80s or 90s, how do you deal with all the intense changes that are happening almost daily?

MID: I don’t know, the same as most, just try to go with the flow I guess. It’s difficult, I know there’s a certain degree of looking backwards through nostalgic heavy rose tinted specs but I do often find myself wishing for those simpler, care-free days of the 80’s before the internet & smartphones & everything that goes with it. I know a lot of that is more to do with me being younger & having less commitments & a different mindset as much as it is about the world around me but it really does feel like we are in the end times much of the time now & that ‘progress’ is nothing more than a fast track to oblivion. Generally I do consider myself a pretty positive & optimistic individual but it really does get harder & harder to hold onto that kind of mindset as time goes on. In truth of course there really was no such thing as the ‘good ol’ days’ & there was plenty to get angry & depressed about back in the 80’s. I really have no idea where we’ll be as a planet & species in another 10, 20... 50 years but it doesn’t look like being anywhere good. In truth I know that ‘going with the flow’ is most of the problem & I should be kicking back against it a lot more but most of the time it feels as hopeless as pissing into the wind. Some days I feel more positive than others, I guess today isn’t one of them, sorry, ha ha.

SEAN: Who are some of your favorite current artists?

MID: So many great artists out there, too many too many to remember or mention. Going back to the old pen & ink style there really isn’t anyone one working in that medium better than Sean Fitzgerald at the moment, his stuff blows my mind. I’m also always blown away by everything Jeremy Hush does, his recent Tarot Deck was amazing, so much talent. Other artists I find really inspiring at the moment include Caitlin Hackett, Lauren Marx (I recently picked up her book Sacred Decay, a real thing of beauty), Marco Mazzoni, John Baizley from Baroness, just to name a few. I’m always being inspired by so many wonderfully talented individuals.

SEAN: Do you have advice for the kids out there?

MID:  Eek, I don’t know. The best advice anyone can follow is very simple..... just don’t be a dick. That’s all anyone needs to remember and strive for. Don’t be a dick. Art wise it’s just keep on keeping on, ride those waves & keep pushing through. I’ve spent so long over the past decade or so struggling with creative block & just these past 6 months I finally feel like I’m back in the creative flow. I’ve really felt like just giving up at times & it’s always a struggle to find the time & energy to create when you’ve just gotta get through each day but when it comes it’s always worth those times of struggle. Thanks so much Sean for giving me the opportunity to ramble on. I hope there are a few interesting bits to glean from amongst the general waffle. Oh final piece of advice, adopt a cat from an animal rescue shelter. Your life will instantly be enriched a thousand fold.