MICK MENTION IN GQ UK

The artist formerly known as Elliot Gleave has history with GQ. Back in September 2006, when he was still signed to Mike Skinner’s label The Beats, he was photographed by legendary lensman Mick Rock in the 100 Club. “The way he shot me was almost like chatting me up,” laughs the Hammersmith-born rapper, slouching in an Obey T-shirt and Levi’s jeans. “He kept saying, ‘Yeah! Show me them lips!’ I can just imagine him in the Seventies being completely off his nut taking pictures”.

For my sins in a former life, I’ve been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time with musicians in this life. Of course, I love them.

A camera is a wonderful ally. It requires minimal maintenance and provides entry to a world of endless imagery.

My ambition was not to be a great photographer (though that certainly would have been a worthy stance). It was a lust to embrace anything that startled or energized me.

I am not in the business of documenting or revealing personalities. I am in the business of freezing shadows and bottling auras.

Without the rock ‘n rollers, I would not have developed as an image man.

You want to shock people with a bit of mystery and beauty. That’s my favorite kind of shocking.

I’ve never felt like a voyeur, although I’ve certainly done plenty of looking!

There’s an art to looking back - how to celebrate the past without being entrapped by it. Photographs provide the great physical link.

My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn’t owned by a magazine or a record label.

I smell pictures more than I see them and I hear pictures more than I can smell them. It’s very habit forming.