Pigeon Magazine:
I wanted to talk to you because you do a lot of interesting stuff. I remember we met at “The Mummies” show a few years ago and you were selling those kick-ass shirts and art prints for the band. I still get made fun of for wearing the shirt of course, because it says “kick me” on the back, which is always just great.
Travis Haight: I was helping them out actually by manning the merch tent a bit. The only thing that was mine out of all of that stuff was the print I did. A little drawing based on one of the scenes from some behind the scenes set photography while they were shooting for their Mummies film. I just tried to help raise money because they wanted to wrap up the documentary movie and they needed some extra funds.
I mean, dude, it's still been a few years and they have not wrapped it up yet.
Pigeon Magazine: I know, I've been keeping an eye on it from afar.
Travis Haight: Yeah, I think it's just too big of a production and they're doing it all themselves. John Waters was going to direct it, but they couldn't afford to do a union picture. So they had to go more indie style with it. Fortunately and unfortunately a bit. Still cool as hell though!
Pigeon Magazine: Wild shit! So I’m gonna deviate a little bit, but what got you into it all? The biz, as it were… Were you a kid? Were you an adult? Did you just go, "Oh, I like being creative and I'm gonna stick to doing that!”
Travis Haight: Oh man, just as far back as I can remember.
Honestly… I think I was like four years old or something when I drew my first character, which he kind of looked like some ridiculous version of Dino from the Flintstones. Except, he was standing up and had a big old gut and was just all kinds of stupid looking.
I love doing it though. And then my parents were my biggest supporters. I think the main key to it was that it really sucked. My parents were all like super supportive and just kept pushing me. They saw how into it I was, so they kept buying me paints and markers and crayons and pens and all that kind of stuff. So I just never stopped going at it. By the time I hit high school I realized they had some photography classes, so I started taking that like crazy and just working in the dark room.
Then we had “photo one” and “photo two,” but I took “photo two” like four times and then became the TA where I just helped everyone, rolled film for everyone, and helped them in the dark room. The teacher would just let me have access to as much film and paper as I wanted. So I was in there constantly, just obsessed.
So between those two things, it kind of just led to a creative career.
Pigeon Magazine: So, you always knew?
Travis Haight: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Pigeon Magazine: Was it your mom or your dad that supported it the most?
Travis Haight: I think both really. Mostly my mom because she was the most present.
My dad was working the night shift and then just got high and went fishing all the time if he wasn't sleeping all day from working overnights at the mill. He was a rad dad though. He just wasn't there a whole lot when I was younger because of that whole “providing for the family” stuff. Hahaha!
Pigeon Magazine: So you were a TA in photo class, the “savant” of photo. You also do illustration professionally, and you make toys too? I thought I saw something like that…
Travis Haight: Unfortunately, I've only done one so far. I'd love to go harder in toys. I just need some financial backing or just dedicate myself to it completely. The one I have designed was this guy, “the Phony Oni” which is huge and I also did like a shorter seven inch version.
Honestly I would have liked to have redesigned because this much detail in a smaller version didn't quite look as cool. I'd like to have simplified it more maybe, but whatever. It’s out there and they sold pretty well. We sold out of all of them!
Pigeon Magazine: That's amazing, dude. If you can sell out of something like that, that's incredible. So fucking awesome! You went from photo to illustration to making toys. Not something that a lot of people can say that they did. So, what what would you say was it that drew you to just kind of keep pushing it?
Travis Haight: I don't know it was weird after college and everything I kind of fell into professional photography more than everything else. I pursued that hard for a while because I started working with magazines and it was just going well. So I was working with mostly tattoo magazines like old school hot rod and chopper magazines and then just random other stuff here and there like bizarre magazine. Once in a while a newspaper or two as well. At some point when I left Arizona and moved to Portland, I was just like, “man, I miss drawing and shit.” That's always been my first love. I had seriously neglected it because photography started going so hard.
So my girlfriend at the time said, “dude, make a new Instagram. Just start drawing regularly and start posting it.” And I really have her to thank for pushing me to get back into it.
Shortly after getting all back into the funk stuff, I became an officially licensed Dead Ed Roth artist.
Pigeon Magazine: So how does one become a licensed Ed Roth artist?
Travis Haight: I guess it's just the brand and it's like it's all owned and operated by his widow now.
And it was a pain in the ass because she's up there in years. So it's like dealing with my parents as far as like email communication or text or anything. Dude, it took me like a year and a half to lock things in and get one shirt and one sticker made. And that's all I've done so far. It was tough!
Pigeon Magazine: So now what does that allow you to do?
Travis Haight: The way they do it is you can do any one-off things as far as paintings or sculpture, anything like that with the characters and it's all good. But if you do anything that goes into production as far as like a bunch of shirts or a bunch of prints or stickers, that kind of stuff, then you just have a contract in place where they get a percentage and you just have to pay the percentage up front. It’s just assuming it's all going to sell and then you have to get a couple samples made. Sent to her, and she signs off on it. Make sure the quality is up to snuff.
It’s an easy enough process once it gets going.
I can’t say enough though, about how hard it was to get it. I had to literally harass these people to make any kind of movement on it. Which, that's one thing about me, I am not opposed to just harassing people and making shit happen!
That's how I started working with magazines too. I would just go to Barnes & Noble, take pictures of the mast head and like the list and just email the editor, the assistant editor, like anybody, and just be like, "Hey man, I do photography. Can I shoot for you?" And they ignore you for like a year, ignore several emails, but eventually I’d start sending them some shit. Just keep bugging them and like all of a sudden you're working with a bunch of people that you’ve been trying to talk with.
Pigeon Magazine: I'm so glad you said that because that is exactly where I wanted to get to. And it's no secret. Like I mean I know it. I just love it when people start talking about it because that's how you fucking do it. You have to constantly berate people through e-mail or similar if you don't know anyone. Be that annoying person!
Travis Haight: Yeah, it's kind of over said, I guess, but at the same time, I think most people don't take it seriously and don't really apply it.
You truly are the master of your own destiny. The only reason I started working with the mummies all the time and my other favorite band, Califone, is I just fucking hit them up.
I just set up a photo shoot with Wayne White, another one of my favorite artists. He’s such a badass and he's super down, so we put something together immediately.
Just reach out to people, make shit happen!
Pigeon Magazine: I freaking love that and I love that attitude right there cuz that's what it's all about.
Pigeon Magazine: Building off of getting the work… What would you say is your process?
Travis Haight: It's probably nebulous really. It's kind of all over the place. As far as drawings, I have a list of what I call “shit to draw.” Whenever a random idea pops in my head, I just add it to the list and then whenever I feel inspired I’ll just chip away at that list.
With clients it's usually just asking a million questions. Get a sense of what they're looking for, the target audience, all the classic marketing kind of shit to make sure you're creating something that speaks to their audience.
On the photo side, I really like to wing it.
I'll have a model or a band or somebody randomly hit me up and I schedule a date and a time and we'll meet up somewhere and then we'll often not even know where we're going to shoot. I prefer not in studio because it's kind of cold and boring a lot of the time. Then we'll just wander LA or just outside of the city somewhere and just see what we come upon, what we can make happen.
It usually ends up working better than when I've hyper planned shit.
The other thing I like while winging it is that it is kind of the challenge, right? You might end up not finding anywhere particularly cool looking to shoot and that's the challenge. It forces you to rely on perspective and composition and how to make them pop and work in whatever environment you throw them in. So it can be a little nerve-wracking, but it's also kind of fun.
Pigeon Magazine: In those approaches, what happens when people come at you and they don't like it? What do you do?
Travis Haight: I try to not have an ego in anything I do. I’m hired to do something that's going to represent somebody or their company. So I'll change it and work with them until we get to where they are happy. We are in service after all.
If they ask to change it so much that it's going to require a ton more time, or it’s just completely different/out of scope… I'll just be like, "That’s gonna cost ya.” It's fine. I'll do whatever you want, but had you told me this from the beginning, I would have done this the first try.
Pigeon Magazine: So, last question or last questions-ish. We'll see where it goes. What would be your ideal next client or project?
Travis Haight: probably just a few things I have in the works right now.
That Wayne White photo shoot that I mentioned to you, like I just want to work with more artists.
Doing more portraits,, working on work they're also passionate about. Also working with LA's Wasted Youth who just did their first show since the 80s at Alex's Bar. I got to do the flyer for that!
Alex ended up putting me in touch with the band and the band wanted to use what I had come up with for their name as their new logo!
So, I got to do that and going to work with them more like do some shirts maybe.
Pigeon Magazine: What would be your advice to anyone that's maybe right where you are right now or maybe just starting out?
Travis Haight: I don't know like to anyone starting out… I used to frequently get asked when I worked with magazines all the time and I'd be all like “straight up don't go to art school dude.”
It’s a ton of money and like the teachers you could feel like were checked out and didn't even seem like experts. Like it all just seemed like a big bogus bullshit scam.
And then uh their whole like they're supposed to help you find a job afterwards.They didn't do shit. They would send me a list like a link to a Craigslist job posting. Like what the fuck are you doing?
I learned the most during all those years doing my commercial photography internship where I worked at like a downtown Phoenix studio under the guidance of this photographer Julio Siorio, and just I learned so goddamn much.
I always tell people just find somebody that's doing what you're into and then just like latch on. Ask a bunch of questions, see if you can assist, help out wherever you can and just like start experiencing it and seeing how things function. Then start applying it to your own thing until you can branch off and do your own thing fully.
Put yourself out there, share your work, keep doing work like keep practicing and like always just be doing shit. Like that's the main thing, just do shit! Not to quote Nike or anything…
Pigeon Magazine: 100 million%!
A pro-photographer and artist in every sense of those words. Travis Haight has been a designer for major brands like Pepsi and Asics in the past. He’s been a heavily awarded and featured photographer for publications like Vogue Italia, the infamous “Front” magazine out of the UK, Tattoo Magazine, Thrasher, and so many damn amazing editorials it will seriously make your head spin. Travis is also a licensed Ed Roth “Rat Fink” artist and has even made his own kick-ass toys! This dude is the real deal. When we say “FUCK NICHING DOWN” we really mean it and Travis has created his success by doing just that. Currently he is Based out of Los Angeles, California while looking for a quiet life somewhere off the coast of Oregon in the near future. We have been so delighted to have a sit with dear Travis and get the good words straight from the messenger's beak on building a creative career worthy of the punk-rock gods.
