Long before Mac Blackout started playing in Chicago rock bands he spent his days as a graffiti writer in Indiana. “There wasn’t any graffiti in Indianapolis, where I was at, so we kind of kicked that off and were doing it back there,” Mac says. The Mac Blackout Band and Mickey front man started with graffiti in 1993, but his wall writing tapered off after he moved to Chicago and turned his focus to music. Since he kicked things off with the Functional Blackouts back in 2001, that has consumed a lot of his creative endeavors, but in the past few years he’s gravitated back toward visual art. In the spring Mac found inspiration for a new artistic venture in a tree stump.
Mac has been branching out with bigger canvases as well. “I had a mural in Bedford, Indiana—for the city,” he says. Mac’s painting covers the east wall of the office building that holds the city’s paper, the Times-Mail. Side views of regal stone eagles frame Mac’s bold, animated mural, which squeezes in images of a space shuttle, a pastoral view of a barn from afar, and the American flag; Mac toned down his psychedelic style for the piece, but he did place a big rainbow right in the center. “That [mural] paid well for the summer, so I didn’t have to struggle as much,” he says.
A video posted by Mac Blackout (@macblackout) on Aug 14, 2015 at 7:30am PDT
