“I’ve got enough reasons to break down over music and painting”

Lupen Crook made his name in Medway as an acoustic singer-songwriter before leaving Medway for London and reinventing himself as part of band Sex Cells. Steven met him in his home studio on the Kent coast, where he lives with his partner, Willow Vincent, the other half of Sex Cells. They talked about the name Lupen Crook, why he left the UK for New York, his mental health, and lots more.

Are you known by any other names?
I’ve had a few aliases and names, yeah.

Anything you want to share?
Not particularly. They’re all just different bits of life, aren’t they?

Where did the name Lupen Crook come from?
I look back at this now and think that was a strange, stubborn thing to do, but when I was about seven, I basically changed my name on my own. I decided, and forced my parents, teachers, everyone. Some people still know me by that, but when I got to about 17, we started a band called Bonsai Reservoir. My songwriting changed. I started playing with the idea of characters. Very briefly, I didn’t go by this name, but it’s written on the back of a few demos, which is Jack Can. Jilted Jack Can, actually. After Bonzo Reservoir collapsed under the weight of the personalities in the band, I was writing a lot of strange stories about Medway. Invictus Belly was a story I wrote, and other ones about this character called Lumiere DeVille, light of the town. When I started demoing the first songs that ultimately became Petals Fresh from Roadkill, my very first EP, that came out of the Tap N Tin, it was off the back of Lumiere DeVille. The reason why I like Lupen Crook is because for me, although it’s veiled, it’s got a duality to it. Lupen from the wolf and Crook from the shepherd’s crook. It was just playful. I think it was a little bit therapeutic for me. Different name, you could write from a different perspective.

To be clear, have you legally changed it?
I thought about it before, but like everything, it’s just for the art.

What is your official occupation?
Well, I paint mainly. That’s what I’ve been doing for three years down here, just painting. I’ve been doing music obviously, less so out gigging. I’ve been working on a record for about a year and a half now, but painting, because the penny is now the main...
I’ve never made any money out of music. Not a fucking penny. To be honest, my journey’s been a strange one. But my attempt to pay rent is basically by selling art.

Where do you sell?
Well, this has been really tricky, to be honest. I’m unrepresented.

You put on exhibitions?
Most of the ones I put on myself. Myself and Willow. She helps curate things, and we do that. This year I haven’t done as much of that, just because the year goes quickly, doesn’t it? I’ve been recording a record and really head deep into painting, and I felt I don’t really want it to exhibit. That’s the struggle.

Was there a moment when you decided that you were going to focus on the art?
Making stuff has always been part of it. Even when I was 16, I didn’t paint. To be honest, I viewed oil painting and painting on canvas, I hear a lot of people say it, but I didn’t think you were allowed to. If I used to go around Rochester, it was only for Francis Iles. If I walked in there, you were viewed with suspicion. It was like you had to be an old man with grey hair, that was retired, for them to give you any assistance. I never bought anything in there. When I got to about 21, a close friend Matthew Stephen Scott, he said “paint.” He’d come back from university and painted properly and he encouraged me. We exhibited back in 2008, when the Nucleus Art Centre had just started up. I’ve always done it, but music’s always been the most dominant and disruptive draw for me creatively. I painted regularly when I lived in Medway, and when I moved up to London about 2010, I focused on that. Started to exhibit a bit in London. Then life had its way, and I had to fire sale a big collection of work and a lot changed for me personally, and I ended up in not a particularly good place but I didn’t realise the effect of selling off a collection of work you’d made so quickly. As well as my circumstances and surroundings changing, paintings, you build a relationship with them.
You probably don’t want me to go into too much depth, but ultimately, I lost my own confidence with it, lost my own place with it.

As a Medway painter at that time, were you ever part of the Stuckist movement?
No, not at all. We heard about that, but it didn’t seem particularly active in Medway. They were a generation at least two above us, it felt like. It was only really Nucleus Arts, but all the same characters were there that I now know. I think it’s become a lot more, at least outwardly, present as an arts community in Medway. It didn’t really seem like that when I was painting. I think I exhibited at a place called the Deaf Cat and Nucleus Arts Centre, probably my only two exhibitions across a ten year period. But ultimately, it’s always been there, always been there, but when we myself and Willow moved out of London four years ago, it was in part because I just felt this need to fully focus on it in a way that I’d only ever put aside for music. What we had been doing with Sex Cells had come to a natural conclusion.

When you say Sex Cells?
Sex Cells is a project. After I released British Folk Tales in about 2012, I went on a bit of an exploratory journey. I was sick to death of... I was on a bit of a searching mission. Ultimately, that led to starting a band called The Pride. That turned into Lost Film Foundation. It was only one album we did. Out of the ashes of that, I met Willow. She played synth in Lost Film Foundation. Then we got together, and I withdrew from singing and playing guitar completely. I started off playing the drums, but basically it was analogue synths. It wasn’t so much song-based. It was about sound design and noise and punk and really visceral attack sort of music. Covid basically closed that, but I’m not going to blame it on covid because everyone does. I think we were quite pleased for the break.
Although I released How Rotten the Teeth as a little album around 2020 and 21, I thought I’m not really out there gigging anymore. I hadn’t actually done Lupen Crook for almost 10 years. It felt like starting again. Because during the whole time with Sex Cells, I didn’t even mention Lupen Crook. We were completely fresh up in London. I didn’t, for want of a better word, trade off of anything I’d done previously. I got quite obsessed with this idea. I suppose it actually goes back to this idea of changing names of this totally fresh perspective, starting from zero again. Creatively, looking back, was that a good thing to do? Probably not in terms of career. You are literally starting again, but creatively it totally made sense. When we decided to get out of London, I think it was driven by the fact that we just wanted to go to a place to paint, for Willow to write, and us to make strange short films and just do that. Fully concentrating on art every day as a practice has been since we moved down here about three and a half years ago.

You used to incorporate jigsaw puzzle pieces into your art. Do you still do that?
That’s all part of this strange little thing that’s occurred because when I started out, before I started painting, I basically collaged. I’d get some cheap acrylic paint to splash it on. It predominantly came from the fact that in bands like Bonzai Reservoir and even bands before, people would get me to make the poster. I’d use a magazine, sellotape, glue and a biro, and I’ll knock it up. That basically gave way to little collages. Naturally, when Matthew Stephen Scott, when I was about 21, said “Paint,” I’d get some canvases, get some oil. It was very natural to me to incorporate collage, and I had no idea why I used puzzle pieces on my very first painting, and it became a thing that I loved doing. It appealed to me that you’re taking little bits of something else that exist. I used collage, oil paint and little bits of puzzle piece throughout all of that, across those ten years, I guess it was my thing. But when I had to fire sale all of that work to get myself out of a situation, I think probably owing to bit of depression, mental health wasn’t very good, but interestingly, I made the observation of my own work that I started to feel like I was using collage to mask not being a very good painter.
Was that true or not? I don’t know, but once I’d sown that seed in my head, I said, ‘Well stop collaging, start just painting in oils.’ And it was a disaster. I painted, I hated, I couldn’t even finish anything. But stubbornly, I did not go back to collaging at all. I had trouble for a few years painting, but I was still doing it. But like I said, doing other stuff, video and all this stuff. When I started properly painting again, when we moved down here, I was still stubbornly holding onto that. I started using oils. It’s a difficult one. This reset and disrupting your own practice is bad for progression commercially. People get used to a thing and “I fucking liked it when you collaged.” Selfishly, I knew it was a good thing for me to be doing, but then interestingly, I’ve gone through three years now of concentrated obsessive painting, and I’m a self-taught painter. Ultimately, I actually feel quite confident now with oils. Literally, it was January of this year, I found myself in Cancer Research shop, looking at the books and looking at the puzzle pieces, going ‘Dare I?’ Because it felt scary. Is that going back? Humans don’t like returning, do they? But I was like, ‘Nah, fuck it.’ The reason you stopped collaging was because you felt like you weren’t a good enough painter, and now you feel confident as a painter. Let’s get some collage back in there. Although I’m not explicitly using puzzle pieces as much as I did, they are starting to make little appearances, as is collage. These are intermingled. They’ve been with me forever.

The various Lupen Crooks are coming together?
It’s interesting. That is exactly how it feels. It’s like you almost plant seeds on your wandering journeys through life, and I feel a little bit, and actually similarly with music, the new record I’ve been making, it’s almost looking back and reflecting, and it’s not always about charging forward. Especially with painting, it feels like it actually reminds me of stuff I did when I was like 16, before I even considered it art. Just in the back room of the Command House, where we used to rehearse with Bonzai Reservoir, and I used to sit on the dusty floor and knock up posters and front covers for EPs. It’s got a relationship with what I’m doing here. It’s not so much a full circle, but I think you’ve said it better than I did in a shorter amount of time.