- Brian Chippendale might not be a household name, but he's well known in creative circles in Rhode Island and well beyond.

He's one example of how the smallest state in the nation sometimes punches well above its weight and influence.

For this episode, we took the cameras out of our studio and into his, to capture Chippendale's creative mind in its natural habitat.

(door creaks) - You gotta go right up there.

So like this is the collage zone, you can walk- - [Ian] Brian Chippendale is a longtime force in the underground art scene in Providence.

We met almost 25 years ago when I was reporting for the Providence Phoenix on gentrification and the threat it posed for the local artists and musicians who helped to put the city on the creative map.

Chippendale was a founder of the fabled live/work performance space, Fort Thunder, located in a neighborhood not far from Federal Hill.

He's played around the world as part of the noise rock duo, Lightning Bolt.

- The mic is here.

- And Rolling Stone calls him one of the 100 best drummers of all time.

(uptempo drum music) Even if you're not into that style of rock, Chippendale has a lot to say about his adopted hometown of Providence, and the value of the local arts community.

We spoke recently at his work studio in South Providence.

(soft synth music) (Brian mouth drums) - Brian, how are you?

- I'm hot.

- It's a little warm.

(Brian laughs) One of the things you're known for, being one of the founders of Fort Thunder, which is this kind of legendary, bygone hotspot, creative center of the Providence underground.

It was around roughly from 1995 to 2000, ultimately fell largely due to the kind of development pressure that was hitting the previously forgotten part of Providence.

Buddy Cianci was mayor at the time, whatever his flaws, Buddy was a ballsy guy.

He talked about how he was a supporter of the arts.

Why do you think he supported this proposal for kind of a bland strip mall that resulted in the demolition of the warehouse where Fort Thunder was located?

- Oh, man.

I never actually thought why Buddy Cianci might've supported that whole thing.

I don't know.

Maybe they bought a lot of his spaghetti sauce, perhaps.

I mean, what was funny about Buddy Cianci, yeah, so Fort Thunder was this huge warehouse, 8,000 square feet.

And we started in '95, and when we started there were other artists in that building.

There was like some bands.

And then the bottom, there was like a huge flea market.

So it was like a really wild zone, just like weird stuff happening in the flea market.

Weird stuff happening with the artists.

But Buddy actually came over at some point, 'cause we got on one of these sort of artists, you know, they would do these artist tours, like citywide studio tours.

And he showed up for one of these things.

Like we cleaned the place up, as well as it could be cleaned up, which probably seemed clean to us and probably looked insane to other people.

Much like my own studio.

He came over at some point and he was like into it, and everyone sort of raved about... Like when occasionally city people would come over to the space- And that was when it was still like thriving and still real- - Yeah, when it was still thriving.

By the time it kind of hit its heyday in 2000 or 1999, there was a huge building next door with like, I think two or three more spaces.

There were multiple spaces in the building behind us, which hadn't had artists previously.

It had just exploded with just this like... It was an incredible area.

There was so much stuff going on.

Any given night, there were just artists everywhere.

Like, I went to Rhode Island School of Design.

I started in '91.

When I first got there, like kids would graduate and they would go to Brooklyn, or they'd go to LA.

Which they still do to this day.

But there was this period, like kind of like later nineties, when people just started staying.

They were sort of like, maybe I'll stay for a couple more years, take part in this kind of scene in Rhode Island.

And like the dynamic was changing, it was really rad.

And then, yeah, and then it just got utterly obliterated.

I don't know why.

Who knows why Buddy... I just think, you know, somebody just waved dollar signs around to the right people.

Mostly our landlord.

I guess he was sick of chasing the rent from these dirt bag kids or whatever, and just unloaded the whole building.

And you know, there were a lot of buildings in the mix.

There were a lot of different landlords.

I think our landlord held out.

Like part of the reason... I mean, Fort Thunder got a lot of attention, and there was like a lot of stuff around Fort Thunder, like having to do with that development.

But for the most part, the real reason we lasted a little longer is 'cause I think our landlord who hated us was just trying to get more money outta those guys.

(Brian chuckles) So we stuck around.

- [Ian] Yeah.

- And now, that building was knocked down, so now what was Fort Thunder is just a parking lot, you know, there was like a Staples for a minute.

I think it went out of business, and like a Radio Shack or something, - Shaw's Supermarket.

- There's the Shaw's opened up, and then went outta business.

And then the Price Rite took over.

So it wasn't like this... Yeah, it's not necessarily, you can't hold it up as this wonderful development.

- Bountiful example of economic development and vitality.

- Yeah, you know, obviously on different different scales, but New York's had like really amazing artistic areas.

Like there's legendary artistic space... Like areas and parts of the city.

And I feel like they've kind of grown.

There's like vast gallery areas in the city and in New York.

And if Providence, if they'd let that go, I think like it's something really magical and sort of long lasting could've happened in there.

But just got sliced down.

- Yeah, you talk about like gallery and art areas in New York, like SoHo- - Yeah, like SoHo is- - East Village.

I mean, they used to be super affordable, artists moved in, and it seems like a common story that artists are kind of the vanguard in these places, and then they become hip or quote unquote "hip" over time.

And you know, the rent goes up, the artists get moved out.

I mean, is there something inherent that made it impossible to sustain for Thunder and the activity that was going on around there?

Or do you think with the benefit of hindsight, could that have been preserved?

- I mean, it would've been... Who knows, because it's true.

It's like, you know, I think about like, SoHo is this artistic area that's known worldwide.

Like everybody knows about SoHo.

Not everybody, but a lot of people like... I think you come to New York or something, you're like SoHo, it's this sort of legendary artist area.

But what is SoHo now?

I mean, I don't go to the city very much, but I suspect it's- - It's like a bastion of the super rich.

- Yeah, totally.

Yeah, if Fort Thunder had stuck around, it might've actually kind of... We might've left for our own reasons at some point, because, I don't know, when you legitimize a thing, you kind of have to bring up certain standards and sort of change aspects of it.

And it could've fallen apart in a whole different way.

It's unknown, But it wouldn't have probably become like, you know, a parking lot or something.

So, whatever the decision that was made was definitely not the coolest decision.

- You grew up outside Philadelphia, went to school at RISD, dropped out of RISD, and you got involved in the underground art scene here.

I think you've said in some other interviews that you had gone to a loft party downtown, and that might have planted the seed to look for a building like the one that became home to Fort Thunder.

Tell me a little bit about how that came together.

- Yeah.

I was like a suburban kid from outside of Philly, came up to Rhode Island School of Design.

And me and my roommate, my roommate, Matt Brinkman, who then we went on to start Fort Thunder together with a whole other cast of characters.

Yeah, there was a... I mean, it was this band called Glory Hole that was like a RISD band.

And they played a loft party downtown.

And we went down there maybe as freshmen, and it blew our mind.

We went in there and there were like, you know, like the cool kids that were a couple years older, would just had this like land in there.

Well, it felt like a land.

And you know, it felt crazy, it was loud music, they were kind of doing whatever they wanted, and it blew our minds.

And we were like, "This is what we want to do."

And then a few years later, we kinda landed on this space, which became Fort Thunder.

And yeah, it kind of defined, redirected where my life went, I think.

Because not only was Fort Thunder this cool space where we could have parties and create art at all hours of the day and night, but also, I got to be in this band that, you know, it's like we're a loud band, an aggressive band, and sort of ferocious band.

But that space allowed us to become that.

Like we were sort of this, I don't know, like a plant that grew to the size of its pot or whatever, and the pot was huge, and the walls were thick, and it kind of defined what we became or what we could become.

And there was a Providence sound at the time.

It was just like all these like super loud bands that were sort of abrasive.

And I think a lot of that was formed because you could just have these shows in these spaces, and you're not bothering the neighbors.

- The demise of Fort Thunder was a long time ago, but it seemed to help establish some of the themes or ethos that you continue up to this day.

You seem to really embody a DIY do it yourself approach.

A kind of anti-materialistic approach.

(Brian chuckles) Well, you know, you've got a lot of stuff here.

You've got a nice Lego collection, books, music.

- But we're not in it for the money.

I mean, we are.

- Anti-consumerist is maybe a better word.

- Yeah, I mean generally everything... You know, I'm very much into like making stuff, and not- - Let me ask you this though.

I mean, was that kind of a conscious decision?

Or was that an ethos that developed over time?

- When I was a kid, I got into Fugazi, this band.

And Fugazi, like the label Discord records... Like every record you bought from them said like, "Do not pay more than 5.99 or 6.99."

Like, they kept their costs super low.

And then Fugazi was known to like... Their shows were $5.

Like, not only were they generous with their music, like they just worked so hard while they're playing, and it felt like they were just very generous.

They were just like a giving band.

Like, "Don't pay too much for our records, don't pay too much for our shows.

Like, be a part of this community."

It felt like this very community oriented thing.

I always say there's like this direct correlation of Fugazi and then like coming to Providence, and like throwing shows.

My roommate, best friend of the time, Matt Brinkman, was just like a huge show thrower.

Like he was all about like, "We gotta throw shows!"

It was just this like community building activity.

- It really helped put Providence on the map in a bigger way.

I mean, there were people in Boston and well beyond who knew this was a cool place to go in Providence.

- Yeah.

And it's grown.

It's sort of become mythic in retrospect too.

There's like legends about Fort Thunder, whether they're true or not, but I like hear stuff.

And a lot of people were influenced, you know, by this sort of like maybe aesthetic of it, and like this idea of the wildness of it.

We always viewed everything as like, we were sort of going to the event as well.

So it was just like, we don't wanna charge that much 'cause we wouldn't be able to get in, even though we're throwing the show.

But I think it really was this feeling of like, we're all in it together, let's keep it cheap so people can come.

It was always donation based.

This whole community was built, and it was awesome.

It was like a magical time.

- Yeah.

A movie came out this year, the "Secret Mall Apartment", about how some artists who were kind of contemporaries of yours created this secret apartment in Providence Place, until it was ultimately found out a couple years later.

- So, Mike Townsend lived in Fort Thunder for a year or two.

I can't remember if it was that long.

But we were friends and we skated together, and we kind of like explored together.

- I think one of the takeaways from the "Secret Mall Apartment" movie was how city fathers like Buddy Cianci and others were kind of shortsighted in not really recognizing the value of the underground.

And I don't know if like vindicated is the right word, but did you feel affirmed by the message from the "Secret Mall Apartment" movie?

- Yeah.

I mean, he was banned from the mall.

And I think didn't they have like some kind of event where he was like allowed back in for the first time?

- Yeah.

- I didn't necessarily feel vindicated, because at the end of the day, people are struggling for space and nothing's changed, and the city still makes bad decisions.

Like right now, Atlantic Mills, which is this huge mill on the West Side, is kind of fighting for its life against, you know, an ownership change.

And it's like nothing's really changed.

I always likened it to... Because I love gardening.

With gardening, it's always kind of like, there's these things that want to grow.

Like you have these volunteer plants that always come back.

And every year you're like, "The tomatoes are back!"

And you know, this is back and this is back.

And a lot of people fight that stuff, and they're like, "No, we don't want that."

We don't want the things that naturally grow here.

We want the things that we want.

And at the end of the day, you can tear it all out, and you can plant what you want, but the things that grow naturally just in general will probably be like healthier and stronger and like, that's the soil for them.

And it that like, just constantly, there's these things that grow in Providence, and they're just always trying to tear 'em out and like put some weird, you know, way less creative stamp.

- To your point, we talked back in 2004 when you were one of about 60 artists and musicians who were getting evicted from a building near Olneyville Square, like in a very cold stretch in the middle of winter.

- That was a brutal eviction.

- And like, how many different buildings have you been chased out of by- - [Brian] I mean- - Gentrification, code enforcement, et cetera.

- Basically three, for the most part.

It was Fort Thunder, '95 to 2001 in Fort Thunder.

And then I moved over to kind of Troy Street, like Troy and Dike like back behind Wes' Rib House.

And then by the end of that, like the whole building next door had just become full.

And there were like, you know, seven or eight sort of like amazing spaces with like cool code names and... And yeah, we got evicted in, you know, 10 degree weather in January, and we had three days to get out of there, and it was like a total nightmare.

There was just no logical reason for it.

You know, we're getting chased out to save our lives 'cause of like fire issues.

And my building was seriously like a concrete bunker with two doors out.

Like there was no way like I could've... It was just not a death trap by any means.

- It was after the Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, and people were freaked out about- - People were freaked out.

- [Ian] Yeah.

- So they kicked out 60 people into like 10 degree weather to like fix the problem.

- [Ian] Yeah.

- And then I was in this area off Manton Ave, behind like Art Craft Braid, and there was a huge, it recently got bought up and gentrified.

But we were there for, you know, a decade or more until that finally kind of, literally was collapsing around us.

It was good that I got out of there.

It was a wreck, and it was just crazy.

- How does the arts and music underground in Providence compare now to what it was like in this, you know, heyday of the late nineties and after?

- I mean, and so even in that building, so around 2010 or '11 or '12, it was happening again.

It's like I've kind of lived on top of or within these three crazy waves.

And then since then... I mean since then, so in 2016 my wife and I had a kid.

So now we have a 8-year-old, soon to be 9-year-old.

And so I've shifted into this like dad dimension.

So I do not have my finger on the pulse of, you know, the rock and roll underbelly of Providence as I did.

I now have, you know... I can tell you like where the baseball league and the soccer league and the Lego store is.

There are some cool spaces in town, and people are doing stuff, and there's some interesting bands.

But really since... I think since like 2012 or whenever that last mega eviction was from that space, there just hasn't been like that size space.

It's all like smaller spaces.

And what's exciting, when you get like big spaces, and like when you get spaces working in unison, you get this crossover when you have a lot of different kind of curatorial things happening.

And so I think since then it's been more focused.

Like there's just a couple cool spots, and people are doing smaller stuff.

But it continues.

But yeah, you know, it's not a heyday, and I'm not sure... It always seems like it's harder to find, to see, to visualize another heyday.

Because it's like the musical chairs are getting pulled away, and there's just less real estate, and everything's more expensive and it gets tougher.

- And when did you realize that Providence was your home?

- I don't even know if I ever realized it.

I mean, I know I've been here for 30 whatever... '91 to now, 34 years.

You know, when we were in Fort Thunder, we were very nationalistic about our town.

We were like, you know, "This is the coolest city, this is the coolest place.

Like, we're from Providence."

I think it was then, you know.

When I was a RISD student, I was a RISD student, and we would wander around, but you were always a student.

I think when we moved away from the school and we moved into that space, I became like a Providence person.

And I've been a Providence person ever since.

- Why did you become an artist and musician?

- I've no other options.

(Brian laughs) I don't know.

I mean, the funny thing is, for the drumming, I drum and I sing.

Mostly drum, but I do sing in my band as well.

It's just a two piece, and it's just drums and bass.

Very loud bass.

But it's funny, when I was a kid, me and my best friend, his dad got remarried, so there was like another kid our age, like his son, the new mom's son and then his best friend.

So basically like two little pairs were thrown together, and those two guys played bass and guitar.

And me and my friend didn't play anything, But they were like, "Let's start a band."

We drew straws 'cause we both wanted to sing, and I lost the the straw drawing, and so I got stuck on the drums.

And then playing drums has like, kind of defined who I am.

Like I'm very much a drummer.

Like I drum a lot.

Drumming has taken me to all sorts of places.

Like it's taken me to Japan, and you know, Mexico and all over Europe.

And it's taken me to the United Arab Emirates.

Like I've gotten to go all these places, mainly through my drumming.

And I've met all these people, mainly through my drumming, and then also my art.

And I do graphic novel stuff as well.

So, you know, I went to school for art, I'm trained as an artist or whatever, even though I didn't quite finish.

But I weirdly stumbled into drumming.

That path opened up, and it was like, "Oh my God, this makes sense."

And as for art, just, as a little kid, I just drew, I drew all the time.

A lot of kids draw, certain people carry it forward into their adult life.

And it's not even always the best people.

Like, the funny thing about being an artist, it's not even always the best artists that become artists, it's just the ones that just believe that they can do it or something.

I mean, A, I'm not good at a lot of other things.

Which is like, usually I say like, I'm an artist 'cause like I don't have any other talents or something.

I mean, I'm sure I could learn stuff, but I don't know.

I love it.

I'm driven to create things.

I think about it all the time.

It's like almost maddening.

Like it doesn't stop.

You don't turn it off at night.

Like, you know, I'm like laying in bed thinking about narratives or ways to position paper, or a mark I wanna make, or a song that I'm working on, or a story.

It's wild.

It's just this thing, it got in there, and it won't go away.

- You play in two groups.

You play in Lightning Bolt with Brian Gibson, and you have your own solo act, Black Pus.

You earlier described your music as being noisy, but in one interview, you weren't crazy about the label of Lightning Bolt as being described as a noise band.

How would you describe your music?

- Well, we shied away from noise band as a label because I've just seen so many noise bands.

Like full on just screeching, or like shredding actual metal sounds, or you know, chainsaws or whatever it is.

And we're a rock band for the most part.

It's like bass, it's drums, it's bass, it's riffs.

But we get kind of abstract at times.

We get very loose and free.

It can be abrasive, it's loud, it can become arrhythmic at times because, you know, it's kind of like this rock filtered through... Both being students, like Brian Gibson went to Rhode Island School of Design.

And we process music sort of like artists, I think more than musicians.

Like we kind of come at music through this ability to get more abstract than maybe other musicians might.

But yeah, you know, it's a rock band.

Like, we rock.

It's like rocking.

It's a focus.

- No doubt.

- Yeah.

(chuckles) We rock!

And then for my solo, it's kind of similar.

My solo stuff is drums, I do vocals, and then I trigger these synthesizer kind of, and I create loops through pedals and stuff.

And it's like Lightning Bolt's broken cousin or something.

Like it goes off on more tangents, and it's both more liberating because it's just me and I can follow every whim at any moment.

It's aggressive, it's very all encompassing.

And you know, with all of our music, it's just like we want to get lost in it, and we want the audience to get lost in it.

Oh, we got a guest?

- [Ian] Yes.

- Hey, Ro, come say hi.

(Brian laughs) - Hello.

- Rohan, Jung.

This is Rohan.

This is Ian.

- Hello, how are you?

Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Hello.

- Jung.

Jung's over there.

- [Jung] Are you guys being filmed right now?

- Yeah.

- We are being filmed.

(Brian laughs) - [Mike] I'm Mike.

- Hi.

- And this Mike too.

- [Mike] Yeah, we're both Mike.

- [Mike] Hello.

- Hi.

(Mike laughs) - Yeah, I'm gonna let you go.

Do you want to crawl up in your loft?

Take your sandwich.

And keep the volume low, please.

- Bye.

- [Mike] Bye.

- Imagine you telling someone to keep the volume low.

- "Keep the volume low, kid!"

- When you play with Lightning Bolt, you play with a mask.

You've said that it's because it holds your microphone.

What are some of the other reasons for wearing the mask?

- It does hold a microphone.

So it's a functional object.

I mean, the funniest thing about, and this is me and Brian Gibson kind of in a nutshell, when we started out, we both wore masks.

So we were like a masked band.

And mine had a microphone, and his just was a mask.

And at some point he's just like, "I don't know why I'm wearing a mask.

Like, there's no function to it, like there's no microphone."

So he just took his off.

And so we became this weird half masked band.

But we're very separate personalities.

I'm just like exercising, screaming, going as wild as I can.

Like, it's very physical, and then he's very cerebral, and they meet in this weird place.

But yeah, so the mask... So I have a history in comic books.

Like I looked at comic books when I was a kid, I draw comics, so I've always been into like superheroes.

So there's this basic idea of like, you put on the mask, and you become the superhero.

You put that thing on, and then like you can truly be yourself.

It's like a very safe space.

So the mask is almost like a room I go into, and it's like a safe space where I can be as like wild as I wanna be.

Just much like the studio is like this safe space where I can be as wild as I wanna be.

Like the same way Fort Thunder was.

- You're very enthusiastic about comics, and you engage in other forms of visual art.

Is there an overlay between what you do and that kind of art and your music?

Or is it separate?

- I mean, there's overlays and there's separations.

And you can like... I've definitely drawn lines between the two.

Like, you know, this is actually a painting that we made a table out to rest our water on.

Some people say this is busy art, and the music is busy music.

And so I definitely am drawn to things.

I'm not really drawn to them because they're busy.

I think what draws me to making something like this, or playing the music that I play, is that I'm just trying to... I'm trying to build kind of a world.

Like I want something that you can get lost in.

Like there's details, like you can find layers, you can get in deep with it and like seek out your own little corner of it, to become involved in or something.

And so my visual art, it's very saturated.

There's a lot going on a lot of times.

But I find it all soothing at the same time.

I work in a few different modes.

I mean, honestly, I have like lots of hustles.

Like I'm just hustling.

As an artist, it's just like... I have to always sort of have different burners going to keep income coming in.

So I'm always making t-shirts and different sort of clothing stuff for this like t-shirt aspect.

And then I do silk screen prints.

So I print silk screens here in the space.

And then I do drawings.

Drawing is sort of how I like process and think and create new ideas.

But then I turn some of the drawings into narratives, and I have some graphic novels out that I've had published.

And then I also take like my silk screens and my drawings and I create bigger works, which is something like this table, it's actually a collage of like painting and drawing and silk screen and a bunch of different stuff.

Just like building these worlds and vocabularies, and just having fun with it.

- Brian Chippendale, it's been a real pleasure.

Thanks for sitting down.

- Yeah, great to see you, Ian.

Always great to see you.

- Likewise.

- Sweet.

- [Mike] Amazing, guys.

- Shoosh.

Good luck getting all that.

(Ian laughs) - Thanks for watching.

You can find all of our past interviews on the Ocean State Media's YouTube channel.

We'll see you next week on "One on One."

(soft mysterious synth music) (soft mysterious synth music continues) (soft mysterious synth music fades)