Shannon Ward is making music, drawing comics and loving East Asian movies.

Creative brilliance in the making.

I spoke with him to get the raw, complete and utter lowdown. So sit back and be inspired!

This interview contains strong language.

Rawle Austin: Could you introduce yourself to Growlersworld.com readers?

RA: How did you nurture your artistic talent?

SW: My older brother was a great artist and he inspired/motivated me to draw and to keep drawing all the time, so its all thanks to him really.

RA: How often do you practice drawing?

SW: Nowadays its everyday, I'm doing another story for www.straightjab.com and www.puroboxeo.com so I'm drawing every lunchtime, but I can kind of lose my 'drawing mojo' and draw nothing for a few months.

RA: Can you take us through your artistic process from idea to finished piece?

SW: Erm, that’s a bit tricky, if it’s my own idea, its generally a case of ‘what do I want to draw?’ I have a think, come up with a few looks and kind of blindly stumble into some sort of coherent story!

RA: Who are your favourite five comic book artists and why?

SW: Ooh, nice question comic boy! Off the top of my head:

1 - Mike Mignola (probably my biggest influence, a comic god)

2 - Frank Miller (need I explain?)

RA: Why should people read comic books as a storytelling medium?

SW: Because they just should! You get to see ideas movie studios would never back, you get to see things on a scale you never could in films, it’s the diversity of art and imagination of the stories that you just can't see anywhere else.

RA: What advice would you give to someone keen to start comic book art?

SW: Keep drawing, keep drawing and finally, keep drawing.

RA: When did you start playing the bass guitar?

SW: I think I was about fifteen? Bought the shittiest cheapest bass in the world, then destroyed it by painting all over it, I still have it actually.

RA: How did your band, Shrewdness of Apes come into being?

SW: I'll try to keep this brief… me and fellow founder Ian Ashford were about 15, goofing around listening and discovering grunge music.

So now we had a singer, bassist and guitarist, getting a drummer is a very long and dull story, but basically the marvellous Ollie was the younger brother of another of Ian’s classmates and as soon as he was old enough we got him to drum for us (we then changed our name to ‘Snooze’).

He then recommend his school friend and quality guitarist Nick to join us to ‘heavy up’ our sound, not long after that Ian left us, and here we are back as a four piece (and finally settled on the name of 'Shrewdness of Apes')!

Not so brief in the end… soz mate.

SW: Quickest and shittiest answer is ‘post grunge’ but we have pretty strong grunge roots, but are more eclectic, heavier, punkier and weirder.

RA: Who are your top 3 favourite bass guitarists of all time and why?

SW: Not really a bass guitarist fan, but I'll give you 2?

1 - Timmy C: Rage, Audioslave (lovely sound, very interesting player, never plays too much, never plays too little).

2- Les Claypool: Primus (total fucking showoff, but he is brilliant, so why shouldn’t he showoff?)

RA: Who are your top three favourite bands and why?

SW: 1 - Faith No More (gods, complete and total musical influence)

RA: What do you like about performing live, in front of a crowd?

SW: The buzz, watching the crowd enjoy our songs, the way the chemistry of the band and songs change from gig to gig, very cool and never boring.

RA: What are your ambitions for the band?

SW: Nothing much, sign to a small label and an album available in shops would be enough for me to die happy.

RA: How did your love for East Asian movies get started?