I had a chance to talk with Brooklyn-based illustrator and designer Steak Mtn., AKA Christopher Norris. Over the years, he has made a name for himself through projects with bands, including The Draft, Atom & His Package, and Fake Problems. You’ve probably, however, seen most of his designs through Against Me!. Chris has built a creative relationship with the band that includes doing artwork for 7-inchs, tour posters and most recently, The New Wave Collection, a line of t-shirts that represents every song on the band’s most recent album New Wave.We chatted about drawing and design, how his relationship with Against Me! began and what he has lined up for Steak Mtn.

Why did you move to New York from Florida five years ago?
Chris: I came here with a girl I was dating. She wanted to go to school. Right about that time, I started taking what I was doing a little more seriously. I didn’t have a college education. I was just in crummy bands and toured and I ended up laying out and drawing pictures for records. You’re not really world-weary until you get into a big city and see that you aren’t the only kid that draws pictures.

Read more of my interview with Steak Mtn. after the jump!

Since you didn’t have a college degree, how did you get involved with it? Was it through research of past artists like Raymond Pettibon and going ‘oh, that’s how they did it’ and then taking your own route with it? Did you read a lot of books about design?
Chris: I went to an art high school, some bullshit like Fame. Minus the dancing in the halls and everything else, obviously. I was into drawing as a kid. I was an idiot who drew, didn’t have any friends, stayed in, watched movies and read comic books. I hate drawing. I hate doing all this shit. It’s garbage. It’s boring to me. When I left high school, I was like ‘I’m never going to draw a fucking picture again. I don’t need to. I’m not in school anymore. I’m just going to be in these crummy bands.’ The typical post-high school fake-ass Aaron Cometbus bullshit. ‘I’m going to go on a Greyhound and go nowhere! Write a zine about it.’ I did a lot of that for the first two-three years I was out of high school. I ended up in a few bands. It was almost by default that I started putting together the records and seeing the things I really liked. Coming back to design and drawing again, I realized I wasn’t terrible at it. Clearly a lot of the early work I did for Combatwoundedveteran and Reversal of Man, even Atom & His Package, [was] clearly influenced by Sam McPheeters from Born Against. More importantly in his period with Men’s Recovery Project. I started reading more books and looking at designers like Saul Bass, who designed movie posters in the 50’s and 60’s. Then going back to people I liked as kid like Gary Panter who worked on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, who was part of the L.A. punk scene. Atom & His Package, that was one of the first bigger things I did, post my crummy little enclave. Which eventually steam-rolled into other things, which eventually steamrolled into Against Me!.

Is that how it came about? Did Against Me! see your work with Atom & His Package? Did Atom see your work with Combatwoundedveteran?
Chris: Atom saw the stuff with Combat. Atom came through Tampa a few times and I worked at record store there. Eventually, he stayed at my house a couple of times, talked about art, movies and we really clicked. Not saying I’m great but those records before me were really bad looking. I remember just being like ‘your record looks stupid. Why don’t you let me do your record?’ He really liked the Combat record and was like ‘yeah, they are retarded looking. Let’s go ahead and try that out.’ That’s about the time he signed to Hopeless. I did Redefining Music. With Against Me!, I knew Warren and I knew James, just from being around. James was in some punk bands from Tampa and St. Petersburg before he joined Against Me!. Warren went to college with my girlfriend and I knew him because she set up shows. I knew about Against Me! but I wasn’t a fan. I just wasn’t on board at that point. I knew everybody except Tom essentially. At some point, when they left No Idea and went to Fat Wreck Records, Var from No Idea was like ‘why don’t you do the 7-inch?’ The gingerbread 7-inch (“Sink Florida Sink” b/t “Unsubstantiated Rumors”) was actually an image I had for a really long time. I was looking for the right band and the right person to put the money into that. Var showed it to Gabel and he was like ‘this is the most retarded shit we’ve ever had. Let’s go with it.’ He was very happy with it. From there, Tom and I started talking a lot and realized that we have a lot in common and we could talk to each other creatively. I started opening up my brain to the band a little more and realized they weren’t some Billy Bragg bullshit. He was into shit that I really liked, like The Jam and The Replacements. I started to hear that a lot more in the band and I was like ‘yeah, ok. I like it.’ They are clearly my favorite band to work with. It’s not really the easiest group of people to get in with. Tom’s very protective. It’s a bit like a fortress and he wants to hold onto it as much as possible because it’s his thing.

People either love it or hate it. Not a lot of people are just like ‘oh, they are ok.’
Chris: Most bands are pretty middle of the road. My Chemical Romance. I don’t love it but it sounds good because they’ve got a good producer. It’s not terrible pop music. That’s the deal with those kind of bands like Fall Out Boy and your, well, I was going to say Panic At The Disco, but we both know that is fucking terrible. [Against Me!] are really a polarizing band. If there was anything I could get out of this racket, I would still really want to work with them because they really are this gigantic ball of fire.

I was thinking of Scott Sinclair and SINC and how he defined the look of Hot Water Music. Do you want to be like that or do you want to be independent of that?
Chris: No, I like that. I want that. I know it’s corny but I’m thirty and I don’t have a college education and I work fucking retail. This is my career. I say that I hate it but if I really fucking hated it, I wouldn’t do it. I would just be a jerk at Taco Bell in middle management. This is clearly a job to me. It’s an enjoyable job and I get to do cool shit and I get to meet cool people. Ultimately, I’ve always been looking for my Metallica. Even five years before I took it seriously, I really needed that band. If I could not work with another band again and only work with Against Me!, I would. Tom might want to go in a different direction visually, that’s fine. At this point in time, I’m the guy. Nothing makes me more excited, at a completely base level, than pissing off 15 year olds, that live with their parents and have no fucking clue about how the way the world works. The fact that Tom Gabel can do whatever he does and make a bunch of kids who can’t even pass social studies in high school mad is brilliant to me. To be a part of that at some level, even if I’m at just supplying the coat, is awesome.

How did the whole idea for The New Wave Collection come about?
Chris: Early on last year, Tom and I were bouncing some things back and forth. We were having a really good creative streak. Tom’s idea essentially was like, ‘ten songs on the record, ten illustrations to go with the songs in the booklet, plus you do the cover.’ We were working towards it and at some point in time we hit a hitch. Tom and I just weren’t seeing eye to eye. Tom was like, ‘in all seriousness, here’s my deal. You are my closest visual conspirator. We have a really good repertoire and it’s all really exciting but you’re not producing what I want to see at this point in time. I’m not getting somebody else. I’m doing the record. I’ve written this record from the ground up. It’s going to be our signature record. I want to make sure everything is right and in place. I have an idea for the record and I’m going to go ahead and do the artwork.’Based on that, I stepped back. I let him do the thing, he was right. Somewhere in there, I still had a lot of illustrations, ideas for songs. Tom said around the time they were mixing in February of last year, ‘we have some things coming up. I’m going to want you to do the 7-inchs.’ The first 7-inch, “White People For Peace.” The illustration of the guys raising up the flag was one of the first things I had done for the record and it was something that really stuck with him. It’s obvious but it works inside the context of exactly what Tom is saying in the song. That piece is probably the most political artwork I’ve ever done. He was like ‘you know what would be cool, if we went ahead and did a t-shirt for every song on the record. We have the resources to do it. Let’s get it done by the end of the year. Go.’ I had kind of a terrible personal year. My apartment flooded [and] I broke up with the girlfriend I came to New York City with. Shit would have been done sooner if my deal wasn’t so stupid.

Say a band like My Chemical Romance came to you and said ‘hey, design a t-shirt for us.’ Do you have to have personal investment a project?
Chris: Absolutely not. Not at this point. I can’t really afford to. I don’t really want to farm it out to people. I am associated with Against Me! I know Tom Gabel doesn’t want me working for every Tom, Dick and Harry. I don’t want to either. It destroys the power of what I’m doing with them if I work with everyone that comes to me. I’m not being cocky but I get a lot of e-mail. It’s usually bands that are lower in popularity. At this point, if it’s Against Me! or higher, I’ll do it. I’m working on Green Day shirts. Green Day is kind of a band that I believe their record collection and that’s usually what it is for me. If a bunch of douchebags like The Killers came up to me and were like ‘hey, can you do a bunch of shirts for us?’ Sure, because the pay would be ridiculous. More importantly, they would be getting some bullshit design that I didn’t give a fuck about. They wouldn’t tell the difference anyways, because they have no fucking clue. I’m sure their managers are making the decisions. A band like Green Day or even a band like My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy, I believe all those dudes. Pete Wentz, he was in Racetraitor. I believe he owns Gorilla Biscuits records. You can tell even with the most bullshit pop culture bands when somebody gets the joke.

You’re still working a full-time job?
Chris: Absolutely. I work eighty hours a week. Forty a week on Steak and forty at my crummy job. If I was living in Tampa at this point, I wouldn’t have a job. I’d be doing Steak Mtn. full-time because it’s like five dollars to live there. Since I’m situated in the most ridiculously-rent-controlled-high-end-$900-for-a-box city, I have to have a day job. I wouldn’t be living here if I wasn’t personally involved with people.

What was it like the first time you saw someone wearing a t-shirt you designed?
Chris: It’s really weird. I usually react more to the people around me. Like the last time Against Me! played here at Terminal 5, a 2,000 person club. My girlfriend was like ‘holy crap! People are wearing your shirts.’ I get it because they aren’t with me at the desk drawing the picture. That really informs on how much I disconnect with something. When my mom calls me and is like ‘Christopher! That Against Me! band. I saw some kid…’ She always sees the one I didn’t draw. That enthusiasm, I react more to that because those are the people that matter. More recently, the feedback I’ve been seeing with The New Wave Collection is like ‘oh wow, people are stoked.’ In some instances, they are more stoked on the images than they are on Against Me!. It’s useless to get a big head about it because it doesn’t pay my rent but it is cool that people like it.

Steak Mtn. on Myspace.