Show Notes
This week’s guest is Birmingham’s own artist and political commentator
Cold War Steve. In this week’s episode, Steve talks to writer Kit de Waal about the ways his work tells the story of Birmingham and the Midlands, the power of art call
out fascism and art as therapy.
The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.
Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website:
https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
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Credits
Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands
TRANSCRIPT
BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 10: Cold War Steve
Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. I am very excited to introduce this week’s guest, artist and political commentator Cold War Steve; interviewing him for the Birmingham Lit Fest podcast was a career highlight for me as a long-time fan of his work. Cold War Steve is a Birmingham born and based artist who specialises in surreal, satirical and hilarious collages originally made on his phone and iPad. Since 2016 Cold War Steve’s Twitter account, with almost daily posts commenting on current social and political issues, has been a lifeline to many in these dark times. In this episode we talk about the ways his work tells the story of Birmingham and the Midlands, the power of art to call out fascism and art as therapy.
Kit de Waal
The first question I want to ask you is, do I call you Cold War Steve or do I call you Chris?
Cold War Steve
Well, you can call me either, really, but I think at the moment, I get called Steve, probably 50% of the time and then Chris, the other 50%. Even my wife and kids start calling me Steve as well, so it really doesn’t matter.
Kit de Waal
Well, I'm gonna call you Cold War Steve because that, for me, encapsulates who you are. What a privilege for me to get to interview you, I have admired your work. In fact, when did you start these pictures? How long ago?
Cold War Steve
It was March 2016.
Kit de Waal
Right. And what made you start doing them?
Cold War Steve
So Cold War Steve, my alter ego, began in March 2016. I'd done quite a few different parody type things on Twitter, just for something to do really, then that time, February, March 2016, was a quite a low point for me. I had, you know, suffered with pretty poor mental health most of my adult life, but that period was, you know, I was hospitalized. And then coming out of hospital, part of my new focus and therapy really was to channel more of my anxiety and stuff into just creating these images, quite crude at first just putting Phil Mitchell in a famous Cold War scene and just uploading it on Twitter and seeing what happened, but it got really popular really quickly. And it really, you know, that gave me something that I could focus on that was positive. And it certainly helped me enormously with my mental health and it kind of grew from there really and it didn't start becoming the kind of satirical thing that it is now, until the Brexit referendum happened. So, none of my pieces were particularly political or satirical. But then the night that the result came in, it was, you know, just felt so crushing for me. And I've diverted my anxieties into more and more satirical pieces and it's just grown from there, the more inept the government have been, the more material I've got, and it's kind of grown hand in hand with their ineptitude.
Kit de Waal
Absolutely, I can remember that I saw an interview that you gave, I think it was just after Brexit, but before the pandemic, and before the abomination that is the present government, the reincarnation as it is now and you said, yeah, you know, we'll have to see what happens, I don't think I’m going to run out of material. You could not have predicted how bad things would get because, you know, obviously, I know, so many of your pictures that were very Brexit focused, but you could actually lift some of those, you know, motifs that you've done there and it would apply to the current chaos.
Cold War Steve
Oh completely, yeah, it's just, it's almost seamless because Brexit happened, and I was always gonna keep shining a light on the government, regardless, but a lot of people were saying, look, it's done now what are you gonna do and then bang, pandemic arrived. So I was, how do I deal with this?
Kit de Waal
You couldn't have predicted that it would be this catastrophic.
Cold War Steve
And you're right in saying that it's, you know, the parallels between the two, it's almost like you've got the same people that were, you know, lying to people about getting the Brexit vote and pro Brexit and everything. They've all now moved on to being disastrous in managing you know, the country's responses to this pandemic. So, a lot the pieces are, you know, I sometimes just retweet one from Brexit days and people go, ‘oh, yeah, so on the money’ but that was like a year ago.
Kit de Waal
Yes. And it's amazing that they’re at least as much, at least as applicable now as they were then. And I saw the other day one of the tweets that you’d done, which said, ‘I've just spent an hour blocking fascists’ and a couple of choice words, which I completely applaud, which I won't say. But tell me about being attacked online by the fascists who clearly can feel the power and strength of your work.
Cold War Steve
Well, thank you for saying that because, initially when I first got people sending not particularly nice things. It was always Brexiters or Tories and stuff. And the first ones are quite jarring because I get lots, you know, I might get hundred that say ‘oh that's brilliant’, but then just one that says, you know, lefty this that and the other and it seems to have more power and it really, you know, I’ve found it quite difficult. But then I thought no, it's not going to stop me. The person I detest probably more than any in the world is Nigel Farage and what he’s done and what he continues to do and these things where he’s going out in his boat in the channel, you know, infuriates me. So, I was doing pictures that obviously send up that, and compare him to fascists of history. And then obviously, each one I do of that I know that I'm going to go through the comments and there's going to be some problems. But the weekend, I think I did one, I can't remember what, I think there was a picture of Farage sort of reclining on the grass by the coast looking out to sea in his kind of shirt tucked into his shorts. And I did him admiring sort of Nazis marching past. And from that, it was just, you know, loads of positive stuff, but then some really quite worrying accounts. So, I just went on a blocking spree. I think someone said, ‘how'd you know they're fascists’, because they've got a swastika in there, as their avatar. They've got, you know, Oswald Mosley as their avatar, and they’re, you know, they're not hiding it. And then it's like, @nationalist, and there are actual, in this day and age, people living in Britain, people that that refer to themselves as being a fascist. It's just utterly staggering.
Kit de Waal
I was gonna say it's amazing that they're offended, why they offended by that picture. They should be applauding the fact that you recognize something that they believe in, but I mean, I do suppose, it shows the limitations of their understanding.
Cold War Steve
Oh God. Yeah, yeah.
Kit de Waal
How long does a piece typically take you?
Cold War Steve
It depends. Some of them, you know, the big epic, sort of Hieronymus Bosch, Bruegel type ones, they can take a few days. And it can be quite draining because I'm having to look at all these horrible people that I'm cutting and pasting. But they can take ages. But then some of them, you know, the one that did last night, for instance, it was just a quick half an hour of putting it together and finding, a lot of it comes from just trying to find the right backdrop and the right pictures, really, and then putting it together and seeing if it looks right and then going back to it. But some of them, like Benny's Babbies, for instance, which you'll be aware of, that took days and days, but it was enjoyable, because it was nice people.
Kit de Waal
Yes. Yes. And it was your hometown of Birmingham, applause, applause, applause. And some of them, I mean, clearly, you have, you definitely have a knowledge of classical art just by some of the compositions that you put together, and some of the very classical works that you've referenced, where does that knowledge come from?
Cold War Steve
That's just a love of art, really. I did go to art college after school where I wanted to pursue a career in art somehow, but that never happened. But it's always been something that I've read and watched, loved going to galleries. So, it's been a passion that I've had and that you know, it seeps into what I do now, sometimes I just out and out reference famous or not so famous artworks and use them as backdrops, or bits of them, and sometimes I’ll use the, you know, the layout and the character formation or the dialogue between the characters, you know, or I’ll have been influenced by, you know, Bosch or someone like that. So, it is very important, and it's not something I've consciously done, I think it's just because each picture I do, you know, I don't want to do just a quick throwaway picture. Each one I do I want to look like it would be, you know, a picture in its own right really, you know, on someone's wall. I mean that would help for print sales, but that's not the only reason, you know, I want it to look, it's not just a quick Photoshop chucked on Twitter, you know I want it to be a composition in its own right.
Kit de Waal
And have you considered, or have you had an exhibition, or are you going to have an exhibition of your work?
Cold War Steve
Yeah, the first ever one was at The Social which is a bar and music venue in London. And that's where I met my now manager/agent type person Karl Gosling. And that was, we didn't know what to do. And basically, we just threw up about 100 of my pictures off Twitter on the wall with blue tack in the bar. It was quite ramshackle. But it was fun. And it got quite a bit of attention. And that point really spring-boarded me up in people's consciousness, especially in the art world. And I've done, I did a talk with Jeremy Deller at the National and I’ve had a small exhibition at the Whitworth in Manchester. And the Birmingham gallery is one that I always wanted to, because other people getting in touch, I thought ‘come on Birmingham, please!’ And then they got in touch and said they'd love to do something. And I was really, really thrilled and they were brilliant. They basically gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted really, as long as I was using some of their archive, but it is something, the art world is… it's a difficult thing to crack and get into. And I don't properly feel that I am in it at the moment, because I'm coming from such a new unique way really, I don't know whether actual serious artists would consider what I do to be art or not. But that doesn't bother me, really.
Kit de Waal
Well, as you know, when I knew I was going to do this interview, I put a call out on Twitter and I said I'm going to be interviewing Cold War Steve as a pinnacle of my literary career. And have you got any questions for him or comments. And the overwhelming comment I had was from people saying thank him for us, for articulating how we feel and for putting into words, things that you felt that didn't even know how to express, that’s certainly how I feel. I'm so horrified by the present government. And then I see, like, for example, the one I love, and it's one of your most simple, where it's Dominic Raab in a mastermind chair. And I was like yes! Or the one of Boris Johnson and Cummings in prison…we can only hope. And Boris Johnson in a Wetherspoons. And so, some of these pictures really sort of give, for people like me and I know for your thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter, they give us hope that other people think the way we do and in fact, I mean, that is the function of art. The function of art is to give voice to thoughts and feelings and to have this connection with people. So, from me, I can tell you, you're a proper artist and you're in the art world, Steve. So in your collages, there's two groups of people. You've got the recurring people like Steve McFadden and Cilla and Bungle, I think you put him in one, who I absolutely adore. And then you've got, obviously, the others, the large, large group of people that are you know, running our country at the moment into the ground let's just say. Tell me about those two different groups of people. So first of all, tell me about Steve McFadden and Cilla and why you've chosen those people to appear again and again in some of the work that you do.
Cold War Steve
Yes, so Steve McFadden. I mean, that's where it comes from, Cold War Steve, it was Steve McFadden, playing Phil Mitchell, that I was placing into these historical pictures of the Cold War. So it was just a one joke incongruity of having a drunk Phil Mitchell sat with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev or something. And then, as I evolved and got more satirical, I've kind of kept him there. So, he's gone from just being an incongruous comedy type inclusion into actually representing me in the pieces now. Or, if not me, then people, you know, of a similar mind set to me, which is why he's more often than not either looking incredibly anguished at what's going on around him or angry. Or just bemused by the whole thing. So, I've kind of kept him in there just as a constant really, because people say, ‘oh, you should watermark it’, you know, or put @ColdWarSteve across the bottom of the picture because people might share it and, you know, make it out as their own and stuff like that. And I said I don't need to do that because, you know, I've got Steve McFadden in the middle and that's kind of authenticity of where it's come from.
Kit de Waal
Yes, it’s like your signature.
Cold War Steve
Yeah, so he's there. Cilla is a different thing. I mean I initially included her, it's a photo that was taken by someone I met on Twitter called Ben Cogan, and he booked this restaurant table with his friends and sat in his seat was Cilla Black. And he asked her if, you know, he said, ‘look, I have reserved this, is it alright if you move’, and she didn't, she refused to move and just looked at him like that. So, he took a picture of her. And it's a great picture of her. And I started including it in because she's looking at camera, she's almost looking at the viewer, as if to say, you know, what's happening. So, it worked really well. And then someone grassed me up to him, because I didn't know who he was the guy who had taken the picture, and said ‘look, he's using your thing’, and I was like ‘oh no!’, but you know, he turned out to be really, really nice, exactly in the same wavelength as me about everything. And we've actually become quite good friends on there. So, I can use it, you know, as I want. But her inclusion, I started to make her smaller and smaller, and then it was hiding her. And that came out just as another little thing for people to do really, trying to find out where she is, but also because I can't stand her. I can't stand putting her in pictures. And I've long, long, long thought shall I just leave her out, which I virtually do sometimes because she's barely visible, you know, you might just see a shadow of an eye or something. And I thought about getting rid of her in case it detracts you. I'll do a piece that takes hours and hours and hours. And then the only comments I get are ‘where is she?’, ‘oh, there she is’, and things like that. And I’m like, ‘no, look at the art, not Cilla!’. But actually, people clearly get some joy from that fact, people can do both, you can spot Cilla and sort of look at the overriding message of the piece I'm trying to make, that's not a problem. But I got a lovely message from someone who said his wife, who had a brain injury, she loves looking at my pictures and trying to find Cilla and they spend kind of hours doing that and looking at it, it’s so sweet and nice I thought I'm never gonna be able to get rid of her.
Kit de Waal
The other group of people, shall we call them the government broadly speaking, or supporters of the government. I'm just going to talk about two pictures that I particularly love/hate. Dominic Cummings taking a shit on the Code of Conduct and wiping his arse on the Bill of Rights, which was absolute genius. And the other one is Blind Date where you have Cilla sitting with Boris Johnson, and choosing from the three candidates who are Trump, Harold Shipman, and Putin. And they are absolutely great. And I think Phil’s the cameraman in that one. Have you had, they’re hard-hitting pictures and they are absolutely on point, have you had any sort of legal action threatened against you. Do you know what the response has been by the government to any of these, they must be aware of them.
Cold War Steve
I hope they're aware of them. I've not had, touch wood, any legal things brought against me. When I did my first book with Thames and Hudson last year, it was only then really, that I and Carl and other people started to get a bit twitchy about potential legal action that someone may or may not bring against me. So, I took out, I have got some insurance for that, for purposes of that, but then I've often thought, well, you know, if someone like Nigel Farage wanted to sue me, then brilliant, you know, bring it on. It's fantastic if he did, but no, and it's not something that I'm gonna worry about. To be honest with you because the positions that they're in and the job and stuff that they're doing to the country and to human beings, you know, I think me putting them in a picture, no matter how scathing or whatever, is nothing compared to what they're doing to people so, you know, that’s what I think.
Kit de Waal
Has your work translated beyond the UK? Is there any sort of market, do people get it for example? You know, everybody that sees your pictures that's from the UK, and certainly those of us of a particular political persuasion understand completely what you say. But does it work anywhere but the UK and Ireland, presumably.
Cold War Steve
Yeah, Ireland, it works really well. But I think it does, to certain extent. You know, a lot of feedback from Brits abroad and things like that. But, it is, especially the Brexit stuff resonates, seems to resonate well in Europe, the Netherlands and Germany and places like that, which is really great. And which I've loved because I wanted them to see it. You know, look in Britain, we're not all like Nigel Farage. You know, it's important. America is obviously somewhere that I'd love to break, because it's there for the taking, you know. I mean, we've got it bad with our prime minister and everything like that, but Donald Trump is just something else, you know, beyond any kind of wild nightmare fantasy. So, I do keep poking the stick with sort of US themed ones, there’s humour in it, and observations is still very much what I do. But I think they do. I'm hoping they do anyway. We've launched the Trump scape, jigsaw, which was done specifically for a US audience. And that's a big hellscape type one with Donald Trump and American celebrities and things like that, in an effort to try and tap into the, especially, you know, later this year, there'll be the presidential elections and things like that. So, it's an area that I am chipping away at, and hopefully can break through.
Kit de Waal
And do you find yourself very much keeping up to date with the social and political ideas of the day in America? Presumably, that must take you a lot of time anyway, to try and get into that, to understand enough to be able to comment satirically on it.
Cold War Steve
Yeah, I have always followed the news anyway, but especially now I'll be looking out for different stories and things like that, listening to the radio, and just picking up on bits and pieces that come through. But it's a never-ending supply of material, isn't it, at the moment?
Kit de Waal
As you say, at the moment it's going from bad to worse and nobody could have predicted the absolute mess that this country would have been in and America and indeed the world in lots of ways and the lurch to the right. Is there anyone that you are absolutely dying to put in a picture and you're just waiting for the moment?
Cold War Steve
No, I don't think so. I think I've covered them all, pretty much. I don't think there's anyone. I mean, there's some that I've always said I wouldn't, you know, people like Katie Hopkins and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon a.k.a. Tommy Robinson, because I don't want to give them any publicity or any oxygen or anything, even if it is to rip the ‘p’ out of them. I just don't want them anywhere near what I’m doing really. But other than that, there'll be new ones that come along. Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, is making more appearances now. So, as the news unfolds, there'll be more characters coming in, and then some falling by the wayside.
Kit de Waal
Do you have really quick responses to some situations like, for example, the A Level results, which is really very current at the moment. Did you think, the minute it struck, I know the picture I'm gonna do because I absolutely love that picture in the classroom, it was fabulous. Does it come to you straight away? Or do you have to spend some time working out what you're going to do?
Cold War Steve
A bit of time, there’s a bit of thought going, you know, A Level results are happening in two days’ time, and then picking up on bits of information that it's going to be a mess or disaster. So, I'll have sourced a background and have an idea and done a few sketches of what I want to do. So then, on the day itself, it's sort of ready to go and then I've checked the news, yep they haven't disappointed me, it's a disaster, send it off.
Kit de Waal
So, some of it is you anticipating… I love this idea. It's you anticipating what mess they're going to make, and actually getting your work ready. That is fascinating, because I'm not there, I'm still, you know, reactive and horrified when it breaks, but I like that you're horrified a week before. So, have you anticipated the next disaster already?
Cold War Steve
No, I don't think so. You know, I've got hundreds of pictures where I'm just literally getting an idea and just quickly, cobbling something together. And I'll go back to it and think, no, that's not really worked or maybe that's a bit far.
Kit de Waal
Hang on, let me just go back to that. You’ve actually got pictures that you think I've gone a bit far? They are the connoisseur collection, I really have to see these.
Cold War Steve
They’re for the anthology in, you know, 10 years’ time. I mean, going a bit far, there’s some I’ll look at and think, you know, if I send this…and I um and ah and more often than not, I'll just send it anyway. The one I did last night, which is Priti Patel on the beach looking down at a drowned woman and baby, I did it earlier in the day obviously reacting to the news that unfortunately a refugee migrant had drowned in the sea, and then Priti Patel and the government, you know, their culpability really in it and their attitudes towards these human beings that they keep referring to as illegal, you know, completely dehumanizing them. So that's something I'm angry and upset about. And I did the picture, which is really stark, and bleak and I thought, wow, this is getting the message across that I want to get across. It's not funny in any way, shape or form, you know, it’s very matter of fact, is it going to be a bit much. So, I sat on it for a bit. And then just before bed, I looked at it again, and then looked at it again and thought, I don’t know, bam, press send. I just pressed send.
Kit de Waal
I mean, it's fantastic and terrible.
Cold War Steve
Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, really hard hitting I think and that's one that I won't look at the comments because I know there's going to be, you know, but a quick scan through this morning and actually, it was, again, a lot of people echoing what you said earlier in that it’s what people have been thinking and to see articulated in quite a simple way, really, in the form of picture, and how powerful that can be. So that's really, you know, what I get most from it is when people send things like that, that it's something that they were thinking, but couldn't articulate as such, but they can see it in a picture. And I feel really thankful and appreciative that I'm in that position that I can now channel the anger and anxiety into something like a picture. Whereas before, I'd have struggled, ranting or I don’t know what I’d do, something unhealthy probably in dealing with it. But now I can channel it into something like this, which I think is quite a powerful thing to be able to do.
Kit de Waal
I think so. And I also know that it enables a sort of… healing might be a bit too strong, but just a way of people, you know, seeing something and just knowing that other people think the same, and that this is an absolute travesty. I know that when I saw that picture, and I know so many people have said about that picture, that it was your best yet. Because it was, you know, really commenting on the callousness of the government towards the most vulnerable people. Which is what makes it so powerful. Where do you see your work going in the future? Do you think you are going to remain an online satirical commentator? Or do you see yourself moving into different areas of art?
Cold War Steve
I think I’ll remain where I am. Sometimes if I've had a commission or something, I'll have to stay off Twitter for a while, while I focus on, you know, doing the work that I need to do. But then I'll come back to it, because that's the area that I enjoy most. I just love to get the feedback and the reactions and the comments and I would miss that if I didn't have it. So, you know, there'll be different projects that I'll be doing. And I won't be able to spend as much time. I mean, the lockdown, for instance, I was churning them out, you know, I’ve gone from doing one or two a week to doing two a day, almost. One it was lockdown, so what else could I do? And also, because obviously, the news was just unfolding and disaster was playing out before us. And it was just the material was there, I had the time and I could do it. So, it may be that, you know, I won't be doing as many online, but it's certainly something that I'll continue to do.
Kit de Waal
I know that one of the comments that you made during the lockdown, I think or just after the lockdown, is that your wife works in a dementia care home and you were very horrified at the way Boris Johnson had claimed to be so protective of them, which we know is absolute bollocks, pardon for swearing, but that's the mildest I can put it. And you yourself worked for the probation service. Are you still working for the probation service or are you doing this full time now?
Cold War Steve
This is full time now. So yeah, I did work for them. I took a year's break when everything started getting quite busy just to see if I could make a go of it. So, that's been over a year now, so this is my full-time job. They were lovely, but I don't think I'd be able to go back anyway because it's classed as a civil servant job, so I've definitely breached the Code of Civil Servants in not displaying impartiality. But yeah, so I worked probation and saw and experienced first-hand what the Conservative government did to that, you know, Chris Grayling privatized half of the probation service, you know, decimated the whole profession. And I could see first-hand working with the people that have been affected by austerity, you know, I could go in and literally see the harm and damage that was being done by these, you know, friends of billionaires.
Kit de Waal
Yes, absolutely, which as we know, is still going on. By the time this podcast comes out, we’ll no doubt have several more disasters that you will have commented on. And please never, never, never stop. You're definitely one of the reasons I turn on Twitter every day. And from the many, many people that have contacted me asking me to say thank you and don't stop and what's next, we send you our love and thanks. And thank you for being part of the Birmingham Literature Festival.
Cold War Steve
No, it's an absolute honour. Thank you so much.
Outro message
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The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is curated by Shantel Edwards and produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.