West Virginia may not be known for its music scene, but it was the perfect place for Billy Atwell to discover his passion for punk rock.
Tucked perfectly between Pittsburgh and Washington D.C., many bands — from the Dead Kennedys to the Red Hot Chili Peppers — would stop in Morgantown during their national tours and play a show at the Underground Railroad nightclub.
“I’m a 19-year-old in this nightclub watching all of this great music, and that definitely had an influence,” Atwell said.
Atwell, who now lives in Lawrence, has always been drawn to the nonconformist nature of the punk rock scene, which is reflected in his own music, paintings and photography.
“It was about creating,” he said, adding that people were always more concerned with the making art rather than the art of promoting it.
During the mid-1980s, Atwell was the drummer for th’ Inbred, a politically charged band from West Virginia. They toured the nation, opening for Dave Grohl’s Scream and Dead Kennedys, however, it may be the atmosphere and community of those punk rock shows that Atwell remembers the most.
“For the most part there were no boundaries,” he said. “If you wanted to talk to somebody, you wanted to meet somebody, if you were polite you could walk up and do that.”
While Atwell’s rock days are behind him, the no-boundaries nature of the punk scene remains in his paintings and photography.
His paintings are abstract, featuring a wide array of colors and shapes. Atwell said he dislikes painting portraits and has no desire to paint still life images. Some of his favorite musicians are artists who weren’t afraid to take big risks — John Zorn, Bill Laswell, John Frusciante — and his own artwork follows suit.
Atwell only discovered his passion for painting after he was given an art set, complete with high quality brushes and paint, during a secret Santa exchange in 2011.
At the time, Atwell was going to massage school — he now operates a practice in Hopewell — and playing more than 160 shows a year in a cover band. He’d play a show, drive a few hours back home, work a six-hour shift and drive back out for the next show.
Eventually, Atwell said he decided to “work smarter, not harder” and quit the cover band. Without the band, painting became his main creative outlet.
“I told myself I needed to make a set up so I could operate first thought, best thought,” he said.
Once every few weeks, Atwell gathers all of his art supplies together and begins painting around 8 or 9 p.m. and doesn’t stop until about 5 in the morning.
“I have to get myself in that space and know that I can go there, check out, do what I do, and then come back,” he said.
Atwell said the experience of painting all night is freeing, allowing him to take the first thought that comes to his mind and roll with it.
“It’s pretty timeless. I’m not thinking about everything I’m thinking about the rest of the day,” he said.
In addition to painting, he’s also interested in photography. Unlike painting, Atwell has always enjoyed photography. He tries to photograph things out of context with no explanation, which unintentionally pairs well with his abstract paintings.
“I just like to document things as I see them, or some detail I’m obsessing over,” he said.
While painting has become a large part of Atwell’s artistic expression, he still has a strong passion for music. His relationship with music, however, changed once Atwell began painting.
“I always saw music as colors anyway,” he said. “There was always a visual element to it.”
Once he started painting, Atwell couldn’t sit down and play conventional chord structures. Rather than construct songs through a conventional method, he began writing music the same way he painted — using the first thought, best thought method.
Atwell shifted his focus to strictly electronic instruments, including a synthesizers, drum machines and a keyboard with self generating arpeggios. He began creating songs, and wrote 35 pieces of instrumental music. He picked 30 tracks and randomly complied them together. The tracks are currently streaming on his website, billyatwell.com.
In addition to punk rock, some of Atwell’s favorite music comes from other countries and cultures, sung in different languages. Rather than songs in English where he is being told a story, Atwell said he prefers to not understand what’s being said and only listen to the emotion in the singer’s voice.
Some of his favorite music comes out of Morocco. Atwell recently visited the North African country for a week, and has come back inspired by its beauty.
“The music of Morocco to me is some of the most translucent of anything,” he said “It really, at least to me, has a special magic that no other music form does.”
While he was in Morocco, he took about 1,600 photos that he is currently sorting through and editing. Atwell has had a few exhibits of his work in the township, including a recent exhibit at the Lawrence Public Library in February. He currently doesn’t have any set plans to display his paintings or photographs, but he won’t rule out having another exhibit.
Atwell said he hopes people could understand his work, but it’s not his objective to create something people will enjoy.
“I think people have a very base disposition to hearing music, they like happy melodies they don’t like discourt, they like a beat, it’s very simple,” he said, adding that people simply like paintings or they don’t.
“There’s not a lot of ‘look at it again, listen to it again.’ The first impression is pretty accurate,” he said.
Even if Atwell doesn’t have another exhibit or display his work in a gallery again, as long as he’s creating artwork he enjoys, on his terms, he’ll consider himself a success.
For more information about Atwell, visit his website at billyatwell.com.
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