Pushead the artist is a skilled renderer of his physical surroundings and of what goes on in his imagination. In other words, he draws really well. His expertise in drawing the human form (not to mention skulls, blood and guts, and cool stuff like that) is unparalleled. His meticulously detailed drawings have adorned a whole line of classic 80's Zorlac skateboards, album covers, and they've been made into logos for Metallica and The Misfits, and into products like T-shirts, posters and sculptures.

The first piece he did for Metallica was the "Damage Inc" 1986 tour-program. This painting later transfer into the Metallica skateboard and a good relationship with the band. The drawings in the "Justice" album is done by him, and his unique style has been used on several single covers like "One", "Harvester of Sorrow" and "Eye of the Beholder" as well as on too many Metallica t-shirts to mention.

Pushead is an anonymous person, he doesn't hava a website and I have only seen a few photos of him. There are 3 things on his mind. 1: Hardcore music, he has been a singer in the band Septic Death, 2: Skating, he even has invented some tricks and 3: painting, painting, painting.

Here are a few statements he has done in interviews:

How did your work with Metallica come about? (Thasher 1991)
PUSHEAD: Originally, after I had met the guys, James wanted to do an illo for the inside of 'Master of Puppets' that showed the four of them as elongated zombies. Well, Metallica went to Denmark to record, and James left me with this number for their management company and told me to contact them. I called it and some elderly woman answered. It was a wrong number. With no way to contact James, I was out of luck. By the time Metallica got back from Europe, it was too late, so James had me do a design for their upcoming 'Damage, Inc.' tour. The second design I did for them never saw print, as I wasn't happy with it and it was a bit unusual, different than what they wanted. So, the second piece to appear was the 'Crash Course in Brain Surgery' which was for their European tour. Now I'm working on stuff for their new material.

Tell us about the Metallica skateboard deck you designed in 1986? (Transworld Skateboarding magazine 2002)
PUSHEAD: One day, Jame Hetfield was telling me that when they're on tour, he was bored and nothing to do before the shows. I suggested skating to him, and he dug the idea. So I called up Newton and asked if he could send some product for him and Kirk Hammett. There was this show in 1986 in San Francisco at the Cow Palace, Metallica opening up for Ozzy Osbourne.

I rode to the event with the band in theor tour bus, and when the band pulled into the loading bay, James and Kirk just hopped out of the bus and started skating around like it was a natural thing to do. The workers really ahd no idea these guys were the band. James was having a blast-total aggro! Since Newton had already put out a deck for the Big Boys, I suggested the idea of doing a Metallica deck to both Jeff and James. So for a while, two members of Metallica were really skaters with a model out.

I got a call on day from Kirk that they wanted to go to the Blood Bowl in Oakland to skate and for me to come along. So, James, Kirk, Fred [Smith] and I went to this great empty pool to skate. Now James had previously broken his wrist while skating downhill on tour, so he was padded up with heavy-duty wrist braces. It was their first time skating an empty pool-James was really excited and asked me a lot of questions. I showed him some lines, and soon he was ripping it up-he was hitting tiles and going for coping.

Then it happened. James somehow lost his balance coming down off the transition into the flat around the drain and fell backward. His wrist snapped and the bone was protruding out from his heavy-duty wrist brace. That basically ended James' skating career, since it affected his main career. The first Metallica skateboard design was done in 1986-the "pirate". It was probably the third illustration I ever did for Metallica, and wqas sort of an offshoot of the "Damage Inc." T-shirt design.

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