The Hidden Talent of Miniature Tigers’ Lead Singer Charlie...

http://bit.ly/1QhpLaX


http://bit.ly/1QhpLaY


http://bit.ly/1QhpLaZ


http://bit.ly/1jQDxmB


http://bit.ly/1QhpO6A

The Hidden Talent of Miniature Tigers’ Lead Singer Charlie Brand

To see more of Charlie’s drawings, check out @charliebrand on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.

Charlie Brand (@charliebrand) began playing the drums and guitar when he was an 11-year-old kid living in Arizona, and has worked obsessively to build a career as the lead singer and songwriter of the pop band Miniature Tigers. But even in those earliest days of musical discovery, he always loved to draw, and in the last few years, he’s become a prolific cartoonist.

“A few years ago, my favorite artist, David Hockney, started doing these iPad drawings,” says Charlie, referring to the famous British pop artist and painter. “And I thought that was really cool and interesting — a way to make art anywhere regardless of what materials you had. So I started drawing on my iPhone just for fun, and kept doing it to the point that now I’m doing it almost every day.”

With four critically acclaimed albums and seven years of touring under their belt, Miniature Tigers have become pop-rock standouts. Though life on the road can be tough, it has given Charlie ample time to practice his art.

“I’ve never been able to tour and write music at the same time,” he admits. “It’s so hard to find the space and mental wherewithal to want to write at the end of the day. But sitting in the van for hours and hours, instead of endlessly checking my social media, I can pepper in some drawing time, and then I feel like I did something creative today and impacted my brain in a positive way.”

Being on the road also provides him a nice daily dose of inspiration for his work, which tends to focus on the everyday moments. He draws detailed sketches, styled like something you might see in the New Yorker if it was aimed more at the Vice audience. The drawings are often based on photographs he secretly snaps, but universal enough to let the viewer do some emotional work, too.

“I’ll see something — a scene or an image or someone talking — and it catches my eye and triggers my imagination in a way that a superhero kicking a hole in a wall does not,” explains Charlie. “I just like very human things, because I think you can put your own meaning in there as a viewer. Even with music I’ve been more drawn to stories about people, personal to my own life, stories about relationships more so than political messages or anything.”

Frequent subjects include his girlfriend, bandmates and other friends, along with interesting characters he photographs at restaurants, gas stations and other assorted locales. Some are digitally colored, others black and white. Much like his songs, they’re slices of life, distinguished by their oddities and accidents.

“One of the things I always look for in music is flaws and things that aren’t perfect; if someone is recording a take or playing a wrong part and they hit a wrong note or the vocal isn’t quite right, those are the things I really respond to,” he says. “I try to apply some of that to the drawing, because I notice that when I draw, if it gets too perfect, it loses the feeling of my drawing. But if I do something and say, ‘I really f—ed that line up,’ I end up leaving it, and it ends up being my favorite part.”

—Instagram @music

by via Instagram Blog