Torn Hawk

The artistic exploits of Torn Hawk’s Luke Wyatt involve an assorted cast of oddballs. Think skateboarding cowboys, drunk frat boys and an old man who’s wet his pants. They appear as fleeting characters interfering in his glitchy ‘video mulch’. But why make art in the first place? He has no choice, it’s a consequence of a disciplined routine and an innate desire to manipulate people through music. Or perhaps because Mr Rogers told him he was special.

Phone Interview by Zofia Ciechowska. Video mulch by Luke Wyatt.

‘That’s all I need to be an artist: exercise, sleep, food and a workspace’

Where is Torn Hawk taking you these days?

I have a full-length record coming out in October. I should probably leave the details of that up to the official people. I don’t want to screw anything up, but it’s a full-length statement that is probably a little more evolved than my other stuff and also a little more structured, less dance-oriented. It’s not a new direction. What people perceive Torn Hawk to be has actually been curated by the labels that have released my stuff. With this new record I have a little bit more leeway.

How about your first explorations into art, what were those like?

When I started misbehaving in high school I developed an affinity for being a weirdo and liking transgressive music. It’s a cliché to say that you felt marginalised at high school but I think that’s the time when the people who are going to get into this stuff get into it. I got a video camera and carried it everywhere. Before I got kicked out of college, I would go to dumb frat-boy parties and shoot candid moments of assholes doing stuff and I’d cut it up and record music over it.

Your video This Is Crime and Lace starts with two guys in cowboy hats skateboarding. What’s up with that?

That’s high-school footage of my buddies. They went into my garage and put on some cowboy hats and started skateboarding. I went on a cross-country trip with them. We were hanging out with some old man who peed himself and trying to help him. I have hundreds of tapes, but can’t find those. Some are at my mom’s house, others got confiscated by one of the guys – probably because he doesn’t want that stuff to leak. He was actually holding on to them for me when I was moving but now I just think he’s hiding them or burned them.

‘That’s how I perceive music: as medicine. I take it to feel different things, like you would with drugs’

How did you transition from these spontaneous shenanigans to treating your work as art? What enables someone to become an artist?

Always set up a space where you’ll make the art, so that when you come back with an idea you have a place to make it happen immediately. Half of the battle is organisation and discipline. Let me pat myself on the back for a second here – my ability to organise is actually more important than my ideas. That’s what’s hard to do in the world I’m in where there’s so many distractions. I wake up in the morning, go to the gym, I eat and start to work in the space I’ve prepared. That’s all I need to be an artist: exercise, sleep, food and a workspace.

With such a routine, what allows you to keep taking risks in your music and your ‘video mulch’?

We have a superiority complex when we do this shit and we think it’s going to work. My mom had always spoiled me and said I was special. Mr Rogers also said that, so I took that to heart. I didn’t think it was ironic so I kept on doing stuff ’cause I knew I would succeed. Anybody who does this and thinks it will work out has to be a little crazy. Otherwise you’ll be scared and make decisions you aren’t happy with. I know some talented people who just ducked out and are working normal day jobs. You keep on going. I can’t do anything else that makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I have no choice, I guess.

What part of this process still moves you deeply?

Harmonic and melodic aspects of music drive and move me. That’s also why the new record uses more of those tools because when you are making purely rhythmic music you are not deploying those tools to manipulate people emotionally. I’m into manipulating people, in a good way. That’s how I perceive music: as medicine. I take it to feel different things, like you would with drugs.

Torn Hawk plays Somewhere Else on 20 September at OT301 in Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members before midnight.