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DR.ME



DR.ME
Interview (2023)
 



I would like to start with the origin of each of you. Please tell us about your background, such as what kind of environment and community you grew up in, and what kind of culture and music you were into when you were younger.
Ryan (DR)I have a bit of a scattered place of origin: I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa but moved when I was around three years old to Manchester. After my parents separated I then moved to Perth, Scotland where my mum was originally from and I grew up there. I would say Scotland shaped me more than South Africa as I don’t remember anything from that time. Perth in Scotland is a very small town with little to nothing to do— beautiful Scottish landscapes for tourists but harsh in reality living and growing up there. There were two groups of kids: Moshers who were into “mosh” music (Slipknot, Pantera, Nirvana…) and skating, and NEDS, who were into techno music and drinking alcohol outside shops at night. I sort of floated in-between both of these groups, spending my time at the skate park with my BMX, playing roller hockey, drinking outside the shops and drawing cartoons. I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was older. Inspired by Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Matt Groening, I used to create whole worlds of characters and create mini comics with bizarre storylines. At school I was known as the “art kid” because I was one of two people who were good at art, so I would spend my days drawing pencil portraits of Nas or Snoop Dogg, as that was the kind of music I was into at the time—hip hop and nu metal, with Tupac and The Offspring being my favourites. Growing up in Perth and having the friends I had taught me to always remain humble and thankful for what I have. When the time came to finish school, I had the opportunity to go to art school and leave Perth for the big city, which is how I ended up back in Manchester. I attended Manchester School of Art to study foundation in art and design as initially I wanted to be a fine artist; but Manchester’s deep history of music and design swayed me towards graphic design so I decided to study design and art direction. It was here where I really began to dig deep into graphic design, visual art and it’s also where I met Eddy. My late teens and early twenties were also pivotal in my development as an artist and designer. I was surrounded by extremely talented raw artists and musicians in Manchester. My closest friends formed the band WU LYF who rose to meteoric fame and even played on Letterman!




WU LYF
Photo: Jonathan Flanders
 
SOLIDARITY WORLD TOUR Poster art WU LYF
 
WU LYF - HEAVY POP @ Letterman Show
05/01/12

 


I got to go on that journey with them, travelling the world on tour and creating art and music with them. After they broke up leaving one seminal album, I played keyboards in a band formed by the drummer Joseph Manning with my best friends Jono and Craig, all the time working with Eddy on developing DR.ME.
Eddy (ME)I grew up in a town called Kendal in the Lake District, which is in the north west of the UK, and is mainly known for producing a very sweet cake that walkers use to give them energy called Kendal Mint Cake. My dad was a maths teacher and my mum was, and still is, a fine artist making tapestry weavings. Neither of my folks listened to a great deal of music at home so I found music through the various record shops in Kendal and recommendations from friends. These varied from Jeff Buckley through to The Streets, along with Supergrass and other indie superheroes that are now deeply uncool (hello Cooper Temple Clause). I had a good group of friends and played in bands with them; as I could play the cello to a fairly high level, it ran to reason that I could play bass. These friends went onto more success with music than me as they played in the bands Wild Beasts and Woman’s Hour.



‘End Come Too Soon’ farewell tour print for Wild Beasts
 



I think I realised quite early that I had more of an interest in designing the tapes and CD covers. I don’t know why this was, possibly because I loved looking through the CD booklets of my favourite records and finding out more about a band or artist because of their aesthetic choices was kind of like unlocking a secret about them.
Which people and works have influenced the development of your aesthetic and taste?
DRPeter Doig, Dash Snow, the movies of Harmony Korine, cut-and-pastes of William Burroughs, Saturday morning cartoons, my dad’s record collection, The Fluxus Movement, football scarves, Southern Rap, cereal packaging, music videos of Michel Gondry, David Beckham, my mum’s drawings as a kid and more all play parts in developing my aesthetic and taste.
MEI remember going to a Bridget Riley exhibition in Kendal and just sitting in front of one piece for ages— it made me feel sick but in a good way haha! My mum went to art school with the mother of a creative called Stephen Smith (aka Neasden Control Centre). I think when I was sixteen or seventeen, she invited Stephen around and he brought a copy of his book that’d just been published. It’s an amazing book of very experimental painting/typography/collage that just stopped me in my tracks. I asked whether he did this for a living and he said “yes”. Well, that was it for me— this was what I had to do.
When and how did you first become interested in art and design?
DRI think the first person to really turn me onto art and design, or at least present the idea of pursuing it as a career rather than a hobby was my art teacher, William Wallace. I vividly remember him showing me the work of Scottish painter Peter Howson and I was blown away by the extreme compositions and the crazy details. I was equally blown away when he showed me the graphic design work of Neville Brody, especially his work for The Face magazine.
MEAs I mentioned, my mum is an artist so I think it’s because she was always sketching, making tapestries or going to exhibitions. It definitely comes from her. I’m not sure how old I was but I used to go to life drawing classes with her when we’d go to St. Ives in Cornwall on holiday, so maybe that was when I started to take it more seriously.
I read that the two of you met on your first day of enrolment in the Design Department at Manchester School of Art. Can you tell us how you chose this school? Also, what was the greatest thing you gained there that led you to your current activities?
MEYes, we were actually paired together on the first day to work on a collaborative icebreaker brief due to our names being next to each other on the register! I remember I applied to do the art foundation at the School of Art but due to my portfolio not being strong enough I didn’t get in. So, I went to do my foundation at Salford University. I made no friends but spent every day working as hard as I could as I wanted to study at the same university that had produced Peter Saville and Linder Sterling. I’d also been to visit friends who were studying at the School of Art and knew straight away that this was where I had to study—the smell of the linseed oil, the parquet and the wooden lockers.
DRI chose to study in Manchester because I never got accepted at Glasgow School of Art, so Manchester was my second choice. Coming a from small town in Scotland, the idea of moving to London at the time felt too daunting so Manchester felt like a manageable option. The course we studied on was great, the tutors were amazing, but being completely honest the greatest thing we gained was each other; and the most valuable lesson we learned was when we interned for illustrator Mike Perry after university for three months.  




Mike Perry studio, Brooklyn


Here we learned how to independently run and manage a successful studio, and we took all this information back to Manchester with us and set up our studio. Our teachers at Uni tried to stop us from working together, which I guess pushed us to want to do it more.