Q&A: How to Be A Multimedia Multihyphenate with An Emphasis in Biological Anthropology with Thomas Corbin

Thomas Corbin. Photo by Jackson Hendrix

Thomas Corbin, musician and visual artist, is like really creative. Read the Q&A from our interview available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

ZACK ORSBORN: So I'm joined by none other than Thomas Corbin. Thomas Corbin is a musician, visual artist, conceptual artist. Really into community collaboration. And we connected after I made this really dramatic post, kind of out of necessity about feeling isolated and needing community. And it was the most liked post I've ever gotten. It was the first time I was vulnerable on social media and you reached out, and I really appreciated that. We met one time and I wanted to pick your brain because you are very multidisciplinary and I'm attracted to artists that way. And so I had to have you on. So thanks for joining me.

THOMAS CORBIN: Of course, I've been looking forward to it.

ZACK ORSBORN: Awesome. I'm really impressed with how you manage all your disciplines. What's the drive behind that? How do you go about doing that?

THOMAS CORBIN: Honestly, I think it's probably—I mean, there are a few different answers I could give, but I think genuinely, what it is, is it's out of necessity. I work better when I'm multitasking. So friends have given me shit because they're like, do you need to make tea and cook dinner and be typing on your phone at the same time? And I'm like, oh, am I doing that? It's just how I function, for better or worse. But yeah, it seems like when—let's say I've got this band over here and I'm at practice and I'm hitting a wall—if I can, just as soon as band practice is over, go work on a collage or go mix on something else that's a different project. Or even take a walk and make notes in my phone. I'm surprised I have storage space on my phone. So when I shift gears and your brain can kind of just temporarily close that door over there, and I'm over here, it'll go bing and I'll solve problems over here. And so I just stay shuffling and juggling and it, for whatever reason over the years, it seems like spinning plates is working.

ZACK ORSBORN: I like the phrase "stay shuffling." I can relate to that 100%. I get bored easily and I'm always multitasking. And all the stuff you read about productivity is that you need to focus on one thing because multitasking is detrimental to focus. But it's exciting. It makes me feel alive. And what was your first medium that really came about as a young Thomas Corbin?

THOMAS CORBIN: I was thinking about this earlier, I would have to say clay, which is something that I have—and I'm talking six, seven, eight years old or whatever—eating Play-Doh.

ZACK ORSBORN: Yes, so salty.

THOMAS CORBIN: Teachers would be like, he's eating Play-Doh but he's really good at it. I fell in love with sculpting, took some classes. I think my parents, who are super encouraging and supportive, signed me up for some pottery class or whatever, and it just didn't stick. Now I'm 36. I'm really into ceramics, and I'm a mug collector. And I love stop motion as a medium. But I have not returned to clay in some decades. And I would really like to. I feel like my ultimate medium is stop motion.

ZACK ORSBORN: Really?

THOMAS CORBIN: Which is funny because I don't do stop motion. I don't talk about it much either. But that—yeah, I started making stuff out of clay at school. And then I think the first time I ever actually set down to complete a project was, I want to say, a seventh grade history class. My little team—three of my buddies—were assigned the Boston Massacre and you could sort of go about it any way you wanted. His only sort of prompt was "be as creative as you like." So I'm thinking, okay, I want to make something out of clay. So I made a dozen little red coats and twenty little—what do you call them?

ZACK ORSBORN: I have no clue.

THOMAS CORBIN: I'm not a history guy. I'm a science guy. Clearly. But I guess the Bostonians, in their little brown outfits or whatever. And yeah, I had a buddy whose dad was a video editor. He lived out in Rossville and had a studio, and so we could set up lights and we built little buildings out of cardboard and had all these little dudes marching. And I think the story at the time, which is probably bullshit, is that some mixed race boy threw a snowball at a Boston red coat and they opened fire on the crowd. And we took gun sounds from The Patriot or some terrible Mel Gibson movie about the Civil War or whatever. And I'm pretty sure we scored it to a Metallica song. And it was just so fun to make. We stayed up for a couple nights making it, and I didn't think much of it. I was just like, yeah, this makes sense. My teacher had it on his website for five years. He was so—he said it was the best thing anyone in his class has ever done. And I was just like, really? So that probably impacted me more than I realize.

ZACK ORSBORN: Yeah, I feel seen because I was kind of overachiever in school too, with projects. And we had to do a project on, I think it was Paris in the 1920s. So I made a travel brochure and made a silent film with cigarette ads and my friends doing the dances from the 20s. And it's combining all these different elements. Why do you like to combine so many elements?

THOMAS CORBIN: I think I've always had a problem with the—I guess, really the human need to classify things and put things in boxes and delineate between, well, this is this type. This is that type. I think about it when I think about classification, I can't help but go back to my college days. I studied anthropology. So there's this guy, Carl Linnaeus who came up with the—it's called Linnaean taxonomy. And basically he put all the animals in little boxes so that we could understand them. And that's just really kind of a metaphor for what we as human beings like to do. And that goes for music genres. I really love to stir the pot and be like, I know electronic music isn't supposed to be like this, but there's really no rules. Somebody posted something actually the other day, a sort of reputable music guy in the punk scene about how egg punk is dead.

ZACK ORSBORN: I saw people post about that. I was like, what the hell is that?

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah. I was like, I don't know what that is, I don't care. To say a genre is dead, it's silly. And I've had times where I was like, rock's dead, guitar sucks. And then a week later, I'm like, damn, I love that guitar tone or whatever. It's just—I think I just again, it's the shuffling. I have to mix things up. And back to your first question, it helps when I'm being creative and I'm in the writing mode or if I do a hybrid sort of analog digital collage—moving from one medium to the other helps me actually complete the process. I do, though—I'm sort of meandering here, but—

ZACK ORSBORN: We love a meander.

THOMAS CORBIN: But yeah, I like putting parameters on myself because there's this weird thing that's kind of contradictory, but it makes sense to my brain. There's option paralysis when you don't have parameters.

And sometimes that can go smooth, because, again, if I'm fluidly moving between things and the parameters don't really matter because the problems are being solved when I'm not thinking about the equation or whatever. But then there's times where I'm like, in order to finish this, I have to put limitations. And usually that's a time crunch thing where it's like, we have to finish this album right now. My band Cloudland Canyon, who is doing a film score for one of my favorite filmmakers, Stan Brakhage. Experimental filmmaker. It's going to be great, but we really had to—all hands on deck—finish the 60 minutes of original music, not to mention rehearsing and practicing that, and there's times where just saying we have to put these limitations on our writing really is important to getting it done, but I think I just enjoy shaking things up. I enjoy just following my imagination and ignoring whatever sort of boxes there might be in place.

ZACK ORSBORN: And you were talking about Cloudland Canyon. And I had the privilege of seeing y'all's show at the Planetarium. And I was like, yes, this is what Memphis needs. Some experimental, ambient, cool visuals, really creative beeps and boops. And I was so fascinated and curious about how that process started. Walk me through how that project came to fruition.

THOMAS CORBIN: So to be perfectly fair, it is a project of my buddy Kip Uhlhorn. He's had the band for some time, 15, 20 years, maybe, and has collaborated with various people over the years. I mean, when I say we'll be at practice and he'll just namedrop someone, I'll be like, oh, Angus from the band Liars, my favorite band in the world? Cool. Y'all had an apartment in Boston together? So it's just funny. I met Kip through—I drummed in this other project called Catholic School.

ZACK ORSBORN: That's a great band name.

THOMAS CORBIN: That one didn't pan out. But I met Kip, and I met some good friends through that project, and it was fun while it lasted. But I will say that probably the best thing that came out of it was meeting Kip, sort of just becoming friends and then he came to see my band, General Labor's film score. So I've kind of full circle of Prince Achmed at Crosstown Theater, which was one of the highlights of my life, to be honest. And I'm doing it again in March. It's just—it feels so good. But he came to that and then was just at one point—I forget exactly how it went down, but was just like, would you want to play synth or collaborate in some way? That ended up being the reformation of Cloudland Canyon. I guess the project had been on hold for almost ten years. He had a kid and just was focusing on personal stuff. And so it was such an honor for him to be like—because I was familiar with the band, I listened to the music and was like, oh my God. Because I was already a fan of Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized and that kind of stuff.

But I was a fan and now I'm in the project and it just feels good. To have the trust of someone I didn't know until a few years ago, who was just spearheading a project that I'm a fan of, first of all. And now I'm writing music for.

ZACK ORSBORN: How did you learn how to write music?

THOMAS CORBIN: Honestly, my kneejerk response to that is, I don't know how to write good music. That's how I feel. I mean, clearly I do, because I've put out albums and songs and I'm in multiple bands. But it's like when I really think about it, it's kind of a Lynchian thing, right? Where does the song come from? Where does the film come from? Where does the painting come from? As I'm looking at all your beautiful work on the walls. I brought him up and he just passed, rest in peace. So I got to quote him on here—there's a guy in the other room who has the completed idea and you are where you are, and you're—it's like he's feeding you note cards one at a time, and they have these little semblance of ideas and these little fractions of ideas. The film is complete somewhere else.

Outside of my mind. And that's how it feels is the song is already there. It's just sort of following my feet until it's done. And that's often how it feels, is I'll be listening to a mix and go, oh, this thing just wrote itself. Obviously I put in a lot of work, but oftentimes—and especially Cloudland Canyon and General Labor and even my collages—this is almost a through line I'm discovering right now. There's this surrealism where it's this channeling of the subconscious. And when you do that, it does feel like it wasn't necessarily with great intention that the thing came to be.

ZACK ORSBORN: You're expressing yourself through something that you can't even explain. And I'm a surrealist slut, I love surrealism. How did you find out about surrealism and why are you attracted to that type of art?

THOMAS CORBIN: Let's see. I'm not sure when I discovered it—was probably Dalí. Probably just seeing Dalí. They played An Andalusian Dog at my school when I was pretty young, really, which is pretty gnarly. Slicing a chick's eyeballs and an ox comes in and pulls, drags the piano away. And I just remember being like, is this normal? Can you make films like this? And this was before I saw Lynch or anybody else. Godard or Tarkovsky. I don't know that Tarkovsky is a surrealist so much as a naturalist or he's the poet of the film world.

But I think that probably I was introduced to Dalí or one of the Surrealists, and it opened my mind to—again, this doesn't fit any parameter that I'm familiar with. This is straight from dreamland. And you can do that and be successful or just create that and people may or may not like it. I think that opened my mind, but I think I was predisposed to liking that stuff. And before we started rolling, we were talking about dreams. I'm a dreamer, I lucid dream, I have very vivid dreams, and I daydream a lot. I'm a space cadet, and I got in trouble in for it. And I did well in school again. The multitasking, it's like I'm solving other problems here. We got the books. I'll figure it out later, but I think I'm just—I spend a lot of time in here and or out there, however you want to look at it, right? Because it's sort of like a mirror to me anyway.

ZACK ORSBORN: That makes me wonder. It's like people who think deeply all the time and are more introspective. I wonder if that's why we have vivid dreams.

THOMAS CORBIN: I would think that there's definitely a correlation. Because I think a few years ago there's a meme going around that was like, did y'all know that some people don't have internal monologues?

ZACK ORSBORN: Yeah, that blew my mind.

THOMAS CORBIN: Or people can't visualize an apple in their mind's eye. So then that tells you there are varying degrees of ability in doing that. And I'll never forget—actually back to one of my collaborators on that little Boston massacre claymation thing, Edward Hollis, who ended up going to film school. I remember we were in, I think it was fifth grade, and he was such an amazing artist. And we were the kids who would skip dodgeball at recess and draw comics.

ZACK ORSBORN: Yeah, I would skip recess and read books.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah, totally. And we were the inside kids. Edward would draw these pictures of anime characters or giant robots or whatever with such detail that as a little kid, it blew my mind. And I was like, I want to be able to do that. And I asked him and he was like, oh, you just kind of picture it all. And then you just draw it. Like it's that simple. And I think at the time, maybe I had never really tried or these kids might have been really my first friends who showed me like, dude, yeah, if you got that, you have to put it out there, you have to manifest it. And that's how I got into drawing comics with them.

He could see this great detail. I'm talking sockets and little cables on the robot, and its little shield, and its weapons. And just all this crazy detail without looking at any source material and being like, yeah, I want to hone that. I want to hone my ability to take what's in my mind's eye, first of all, sharpen the focus of my mind's eye and then be able to successfully sort of put that out in the world. In terms of visual art or music, music is interesting because it's more abstract. You can't touch it. But with visual art, it took practice. I kind of sucked at first, trying to draw little Dragon Ball Z guys or whatever.

ZACK ORSBORN: I drew fairies. With very intricate swords.

THOMAS CORBIN: And I think it took me a little practice. Drawing was maybe right after clay. My first love. Just pen and paper. I never worked with pencil. It was always pen. And got really into just dark ink drawings, line drawings and, to be honest, I was not that good at it. It took me a really long time and lots of drafts. Probably had something to do with not using an eraser. I probably could have started with a pencil, but yeah, just all these drafts but I did get good at it. And so while in a sense, some people just have that creative drive and that creative ability, it's just like anything else too—you can practice and you can get good, you can get better. So everyone's an artist. Anyone can be an artist. And not to ping pong around too much, but I'm thinking about a quote of someone I don't remember who. But there are basically—we are all born artists when we're kids, where we play and you're in imagination land and you draw and you use chalk and you write on the walls in crayons. Right? And then you make a deliberate choice of "I'm not doing that anymore." And so how lucky are we that we just get to do that because, well, for one thing, we can't help it. I don't know if you're like me.

ZACK ORSBORN: I can't help it. And that was the perfect segue to the next question—you went to college for biological anthropology. And what stopped you from going to college for art? Because I started going to college for art. Got to Drawing II. And the teacher held up this really beautiful, colorful drawing. And she was like, this is a C-minus. She was doing that to scare people. It scared the shit out of me. And I switched my major to journalism. So what made you want to study biological anthropology?

THOMAS CORBIN: That resonates a lot. Biological anthropology struck me. Well, first of all, I went to Appalachian State up in Boone, North Carolina. Beautiful place. I miss it every day. I went in as an art and philosophy major. And I took two years of art and philosophy classes before I just swerved right. And I think what turned me off, maybe even to both disciplines, I took a—was just a design fundamentals two or something like that. Where very similar to your story. Except I was the example.

It was a critique style class. We were doing Escher style tessellations, which is not easy, by the way. And I was up for nights because some people just drew animals and kind of had them sort of vaguely blend together. And I was like, no, I'm going to do a legit tessellation. I'm going to figure out the math and the geometry to make these lizards arms all connect and their tails spiral around. And I figured it out, and so it was up there and I'm thinking, ooh, am I going to—is he going to use me as an example? He used me as a negative example. But he started off by being like, what do we notice about this? And then the class being like, it's great, it's beautiful, it's creative, it's clever, it's blah blah blah. And he was like, yes, but if you'll pull out your assignment sheet and he was like, go down to number eight. Do you see any XYZ? Go down to number 12. And I remember just feeling so crushed. And I am a very socially anxious person. I don't like public speaking. I was nervous for this. Even though you're my friend.

ZACK ORSBORN: You're doing great.

THOMAS CORBIN: Thank you. Yeah, but all that to say, that was a nightmare for me. Because especially being up and then down and I felt so full and proud when my peers were reviewing and then when the teacher said, well, this is a D or this is a C minus or whatever.

ZACK ORSBORN: It's just like getting in trouble for daydreaming.

THOMAS CORBIN: Oh, God. Yeah. In art class. Of all places. That was pretty crushing. And I started wondering, if this is what this is like, especially doing commissions and working for a company, or advertiser or whatever. Some of these things that artists end up doing because you have to pay bills, if that's what it's like, no. Try again. I don't think that's for me. And so I stuck with philosophy. I finished that class. I ended up passing, I basically for my final project, which was a multiple page book and we learned how to bind them and make the paper and all that. And then the content of the book was up to each person. And I basically followed all the rules to the tee. I didn't feel inspired, and I made an A-plus and was just like, I passed the class. And then I sort of focused on philosophy. Didn't take any more art classes until my senior year. And I'll try to circle back if I can keep my brain.

ZACK ORSBORN: I'm with you.

THOMAS CORBIN: Okay. My senior year, I ended up taking printmaking, which became a new love. Something I want to get back to, but—

ZACK ORSBORN: That makes sense with your collage art. I could totally see the printmaking inspiration.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah. I love layering, and you have to get the registration just right. And there's something really satisfying about that kind of tedium. But yeah. Stuck with philosophy. Had a similar experience. Although I really miss philosophy. The thing with it was it kind of flipped. I loved my teacher and hated my peers because everyone was just like, well, technically. Let me smoke my clove cigarettes in your face. Going home drinking vermouth and—

ZACK ORSBORN: Reading really thick books and pretending they know what the words mean.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah, yeah. And I love my philosophy professors. But again, not just—I got to a point where I knew that wasn't my world. I was like, well, I should probably declare a major. Second semester or sophomore and took an intro to biological anthropology. My teacher was amazing. I guess I hadn't really much thought about human evolution in a deep way. I believe in evolution. I've always been a science minded person, empirical kind of logic-based person, which I'm trying to undo now.

ZACK ORSBORN: Interesting.

THOMAS CORBIN: Thanks, academia. Now I'm realizing how important it is to have a more holistic sort of perspective of the world.

ZACK ORSBORN: Think about the magic.

THOMAS CORBIN: Absolutely. I'm trying to make space for magic these days, but it just clicked. I was like, oh my God, it all makes sense. How do I understand myself as an individual? How do I understand us as a species? Well, you trace it back. And the more you can learn about what we were like thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds, millions of years ago, the more I think that informs us today. And I found that to be true, and I stuck with it and graduated and I think about it every day. That's my lens, really, in thinking about life is this evolutionary sense of now, why would that behavior have come to be? And yeah, I think something just clicked with the way my brain works. It's funny because I'm a daydreamer and I'm a space cadet, but I am also super empirical. And I find it really important that things are backed by evidence. And again, I'm trying to sort of unlearn and or at least be open minded.

ZACK ORSBORN: Did you have a thesis that you studied? What was the topic?

THOMAS CORBIN: Neanderthal extinction.

ZACK ORSBORN: I love studying about primitive art.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah. And the Neanderthals were extremely advanced. Most people don't realize, especially because Neanderthal was used as a derogatory term for a long time. But they had larger brains. Doesn't necessarily mean smarter, because it's about the wrinkles or whatever. But they definitely had advanced culture. They ritualistically buried their dead. They call it paleo botany. So they found flower particles, pollen, particles, among remains, which could hint at sort of funerals and a ceremony and flowers. Adornments. Neanderthals wore jewelry and they were often buried with their tools. And it's like an individual buried with an ax or a spear or whatever would often have little carvings in it, individualized—this is mine and it's special to me. And that's artistic. That's art. And human beings were doing that too. We just see a lot of evidence in Neanderthal burial sites of that sort of stuff. And we do know that, somewhere along the way, I want to say I think it was around a hundred thousand years ago. And of course, we're dealing with such deep time that the numbers start to kind of not really matter, but very long time ago when ancient humans and of course, it gets convoluted because Neanderthals were humans, they're considered a separate species. But they're called anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

ZACK ORSBORN: What did you just call me?

THOMAS CORBIN:  *laughs* We migrated out of Africa into southern Europe. There was an ice bridge. And this is so cool because it's the serendipity of it all. Fluctuations and climate change and volcanic eruptions and all these things and migrating herds, all these factors, just an infinite number of factors that led to humans evolving in Africa and then us migrating out of Africa, running into the Neanderthals, interbreeding with the Neanderthals. We were intermixing. And probably there was not just genetic admixture, but cultural and artistic and now here we are, and I think we actually owe a lot of who we are today to the Neanderthals.

ZACK ORSBORN: Shoutout to the Neanderthals.

THOMAS CORBIN: Shout out to the Neanderthals.

ZACK ORSBORN: So with all the stuff you learned with biological anthropology, how do you think that filters into your art? How do you think it influences it?

THOMAS CORBIN: That's a tricky one. Gosh, have I even thought about that? Well, I would say that is sort of the umbrella behind my philosophy studies, my art, and the anthropology is trying to understand myself in the world and trying to understand us as people in the world. I think those are all different avenues of answering all those questions. In a more sort of all encompassing sense, I think it—it's more that I was trying to understand what it is to be a human being, what sets us apart, what's special about us. And certainly artistic expression is one of those things. So, yeah.

ZACK ORSBORN: I love that answer. I've never heard it put that way. And figuring out people—I mentioned earlier, you're very community minded. You collaborate with a lot of people. You have three bands you're in.

THOMAS CORBIN: I don't even know.

ZACK ORSBORN: General Labor, Infinity Stairs, and Cloudland Canyon.

THOMAS CORBIN: And Melinda, I joined my friend Gabe's band called Melinda. It's indie pop. They're so good. Check them out. I'll send you a link. And we've got a tape coming out soon on one of my friend's labels. Machine Duplication Recordings. Shout out Zach Mitchell. But yeah. So Cloudland Canyon, General Labor Melinda and Infinity Stairs. So Infinity Stairs is kind of a band. It's more of a visual project, but we treat it like a band, we have practice where we experiment with new visual techniques and it's so fun. This is the sort of thing I would have never predicted some ten years ago, just because of the tech aspect. And that's all Graham. Graham is just a whiz when it comes to programming. It's funny. All my friends are programmers. Computer programmers. And I just don't know dick about it.

ZACK ORSBORN: So how do you start a band? I've always wanted to be part of something like that, of a collaborative group.

THOMAS CORBIN: Well, I think there are a few different answers to that. You know, I'm sure there are some people who experienced sort of the dream of a band coming together, which is you're sharing an apartment with three of your best friends and someone's banging on a shitty Fisher Price xylophone in the other room. And one of them is like, wait, keep doing that. And that wasn't it. That wasn't the case for me. I fantasize about this sort of situation like that. But no, for me, it was sort of a solitary thing where I was, again, just compelled, for whatever reason, to make music—it is part of this bigger compulsion just to create in general. And so I think people found me, I just started putting stuff out there and I think attending events is important. And we talked about this because when I reached out to you about that post—

ZACK ORSBORN: I'm bad about attending events. That's my goal for this year's. I gotta go to more events.

THOMAS CORBIN: Community is so important. I'm a hater, but I'm a lover really. It's all in fun. Any time I might criticize or talk a little bit of shit, I'm really—it's all just—I want to drive the—what is the thing I love to say and remind myself of is, a rising tide lifts all ships. So anything that any one project is doing that seems to be boosting the community is good for all of the artists. And it doesn't have to be you. And for a long time I had this problem of comparing. And of course, social media just makes that so awful and it's almost intrinsic to social media, seeing somebody's success as a failure of your own. It's just a fallacy. It's just not true. Anyone else's success is your own success.

And back to Infinity Stairs. When Infinity Stares started going out and doing shows within 4 or 5, six months, other people were doing projection art, other people. And at first I was like, that's our thing. But that's so bogus.

ZACK ORSBORN: Yeah, you're an inspiration.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah, dude. Right. And so I try to remember that, if ever I feel pangs of like, why is that not me out there? But it's like, well, it can be. And life has a way of circling around and pretty much anyone I've ever had feelings about in a negative sense, I've met out in the world from going to shows and being a supporter of the scene, and they've become friends. And it's just—so that was all in my head.

ZACK ORSBORN: I forgot where I read it, but something really clicked about envy, because I've struggled with envy a lot—when you're envious of something, that is the roadmap to what you want to do. And I can do that. And it's motivating. Instead of being detrimental and making me angry and—I would scroll on social media and be like, damn, someone just got a grant. Why? That's not fucking fair. And it's like, I could apply and I can also train my brain and say in my brain, I'm happy for you. With every scroll. And it eventually I retrain my brain and it's—I mean, it still comes up every now and then, but for the most part, I'm happy that people are being creative.

THOMAS CORBIN: Absolutely. Yeah. And those sort of skills are really important. I am in recovery from any number of things, and so this idea of putting in a little bit of work—you saying, I'm happy for you or in recovery, they say, pray for your enemies, right? Well, it gradually becomes a working part of the mind. And that's so beautiful. And that goes back to sort of this human—it's called behavioral plasticity. We can train our brains and things can stick, and it's like you can look back and be like, oh, I remember when I put my attention to that and now it's not a problem or whatever. And that's a beautiful thing to be able to say. I'm happy for you. I'm grateful that you're a part of my community and I'm going to support you. And then before you know it, you're friends and you're collaborators. And it's like, what was I ever—what was the issue in the first place? It all comes back to the self-loathing, the self-hate. And I remember seeing a picture when I was a kid where it was a Venn diagram, and on one side it said self-loathing and on the other side, it's total narcissism. And where they intersected it said artist.

ZACK ORSBORN: Oh, my God, that's so true. You kind of have to be a little narcissistic I think—but I'm so glad you brought up recovery. How has recovery enhanced your creativity?

THOMAS CORBIN: Oh, God. I could probably—I probably owe most of my creativity and my drive to my recovery. I mean, in a very real sense, for me, I wouldn't be here without it. So it's like, I literally owe my life to it. We were almost just talking about it, this sort of training your brain and locking in to good habits and being open minded, being beaten down by yourself or your life experiences or whatever, to the point where you were willing to open your mind to something new. I think that sort of paved the way for a lot of the opportunities I ended up having later of just this—I don't want to go on, woe is me. I'm the scum of the earth. Nobody loves me. I have nothing to say. And then it's like I lived like that for a long time. And I used and over thought like that. And just anxiety.

ZACK ORSBORN: Social anxiety. That was the main thing I was trying to suppress.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah. I mean, God, the alcohol, the legal drug, it's just so widely abused for, at least in my mind, that reason of just being socially lubricated and that's a very human thing, right? That tells you a lot. People don't like feeling that way. And so it is scary to raw dog life. And have no buffer between you and the people around you and your thoughts and your environment, and it's very raw and it's difficult to—that first year of recovery. I would even go as far as say, two years of my recovery was—I literally felt like I was walking around naked and every social situation was like that little kid who's stuttering in that interview.

ZACK ORSBORN: Don’t even get me started.

THOMAS CORBIN: I love that guy. I hope he's doing great.

ZACK ORSBORN: I hope so too. I hope he is still stuttering.

THOMAS CORBIN: We should start a band with that kid. Yeah, but no, life felt like that. And then you persist. You carry on. You get a little better, feeling a little more yourself, more comfortable in your body. And with your words over time, a little more courageous. Day by day. You backslide a little bit. You keep going. And I think that certainly art became the most effective form of therapy for me. I know that some of your guests have talked about that, too, and in various ways, but that's probably the answer there. Took me a minute to get there, but this idea that we have this passion burning inside of us and getting that out in a healthy and productive way that's beneficial not only to me, but the people around me and my community and my friends, especially in collaboration. And that there is no better form of therapy that I can think of.

ZACK ORSBORN: I agree 100%.

THOMAS CORBIN: Second, maybe to actual therapy, but also maybe not. I've found that in—I need to work on this, but when I go, I have a therapist and I go and I rattle off everything that's going on in my life. And she's like, well, what do you think you need to do about that? And then I rattle off what I think I need to do about it. And then I pay the copay or whatever, and I'm like, I could have done that on the couch, but it's nice to have someone—

ZACK ORSBORN: To ask you that question. And it's a structured time, and I always do feel better after therapy.

THOMAS CORBIN: Me too, me too.

ZACK ORSBORN: Two more questions. You were talking about habits. Do you have any habits that keep you productive creatively? What would you say that keeps you consistent? Because you're very consistent. You're very prolific.

THOMAS CORBIN: Thank you. I appreciate that. The honest answer is I don't have to sit down with intention and actively work on stuff. I'm just always wanting to. So when I'm at work, I am thinking about the next collage. I'm thinking about how I need to tweak this mix to make it better. I'm thinking about what I'm going to contribute to band practice later. And so as soon as I clock out, I clock in to my creative mind. And it's just always running in the background. I think Havi Green said something very similar of, I'm just tapped in and it's just my state of being and really can't help it. So, and it's a blessing and a curse, but I choose to see it as a blessing. To imagine going to work, coming home, sitting down and just watching TV. TV's fine. Shows are great, but and not having that, especially for someone who is just burning with passion. And this drive to create, to imagine stifling that is—is to imagine death. Very seriously.

ZACK ORSBORN: It's very aligned with recovery because when I was in active addiction, it was just stifling everything, and I was not myself. I'm a very energetic, ambitious, passionate person, more extroverted than I ever thought I was. And having not having to stifle that. It's just—it just makes you even more passionate as the day goes and you can connect with people better. And that's how you find community.

THOMAS CORBIN: When you put yourself out there because how else are you—it's hard to sit back and go, nobody is noticing me. Well, because you're not allowing yourself to be seen. And that's why it's—it's an act of courage to—I probably don't give myself enough credit for that. And that's probably another one of those things of—I'm happy for you, to turn it inward and be like, dude, you've accomplished so much. You should be proud, because it's scary.

And many artists are insecure and self-conscious, debilitatingly so. And so to overcome that and do it in spite of all that, and then to end up feeling good about it is a very special thing that humans get to experience.

And while we're on recovery, I did want to say—a huge factor for me in continuing to do the things I do in spite of fear and insecurity and self-loathing, is that I have had friends over the years who were extremely creative geniuses. Made beautiful art. That I still look at and listen to, who died. And they're not here. They no longer have the opportunity to do these things that they were so good at, and I respected and admired so much in them. I'm still here. So if I'm afraid and there's a moment of imposter syndrome, it's like, guess what, buddy? They all elected you to fucking be the one to carry that on and to do it anyway, even if everyone can tell you're nervous or afraid. You still have life. You still have the opportunity and the privilege of creating art and sharing it with the world.

ZACK ORSBORN: God damn that just gave me chills. That was so beautiful.

THOMAS CORBIN: Thank you.

ZACK ORSBORN: Very beautiful. So one of my favorite questions to ask artists is if you had all the time and the resources, what would be your dream project?

THOMAS CORBIN: Okay, so first thing comes to mind. Stop motion film.

ZACK ORSBORN: Yes. Let's get back to stop motion.

THOMAS CORBIN: Full length stop motion film. Any stop motion people out there hit me up. I'm serious.

ZACK ORSBORN: There's probably one in Memphis. There's got to be.

THOMAS CORBIN: I've been talking to somebody who runs—it's called Low Budget Film Productions, but she does a little bit of stop motion. I'm trying to very slowly, sort of. And of course, I'm very busy, but it doesn't stop me from being like—but I need some of this in my life. Shooting music videos, DIY, kind of. I've never shot a music video that wasn't a live performance.

And I've always been super fascinated by stop motion. I have a brain for tedium.

ZACK ORSBORN: Jealous. That's what I'm trying to get over. I'm trying to love the tedium. So if you have any tips.

THOMAS CORBIN: I just got that freaky little dog in me I guess. Because when I bring up the stop motion, more often than not people are like, do you really—do you realize what that entails? And I'm like, yes, yes, I want to sit there under a lamp being like micro adjustment, click, micro adjustment, click. Just for the satisfaction of hours later watching it and being like, yes, it came to life. For the three seconds that you get to watch it. But I think that's such a good metaphor to just for artistic expression of—you chip away, you chip away, you pour yourself into it, and then at some point, the thing is done and it's hanging on the wall, or it's on streaming platforms or whatever. There's nothing more rewarding than that.

Another one is getting the community involved in a common goal. It's tough because within one scene, whether visual art or music, there's so many different subdivisions and I have this dream of unifying everybody, and that's so hard to do as an individual.

And when you put yourself out there and make moves and start reaching out and making friends, it's like things just happen. And this is me being open to the magic, because I have even experienced as a very sort of empirical person that when you do things like that, the universe has a way of meeting you halfway and saying, hey, guess what? See what happens when you do that? My mom would go, that's a God thing sweetie.

ZACK ORSBORN: I say, "That's some God shit" all the time.

THOMAS CORBIN: That's some God shit. Yeah, exactly. And I love that. Because some things aren't explainable. Just with logic alone. And you need this wider worldview that leave space for magic and serendipity and God.

The more you put yourself out there, I was nervous for this, and I came, and maybe I'll get hit up by a stop motion person. That's where the magic is, is making connections and valuing those connections, not taking people for granted, taking people up when someone reaches out and says, oh, we should get together sometime And I will say that in my mid 30s, I've made more friends than I remember making ever.

ZACK ORSBORN: It's a lot easier than people think. To reach out to someone. It's like, hey, I really like your stuff. I think you're cool. Can I pick your brain? People love to have their brain picked.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yeah. And respond to this sort of—it's a very human thing to feel seen and appreciated and valued. The best way to get that is to give as much as you can of that, whether you are contributing to other people's projects in a very real way or just reaching out and saying, I really love your work.

ZACK ORSBORN: It's that simple. Sharing somebody's post, their art post, liking. It can be just as simple as that.

THOMAS CORBIN: It really is. That goes a long way. And again, the subject in social media is so polarizing because I use it a lot for promotion because I'm doing so much and I feel like I have to, but more often than not, it's a stressor in my life where I'm like, damn, I work so hard on this trailer. And I showed my band and they loved it. And I know that there's value in this and it got 12 likes and it's like, who gives a shit? Really at the end of the day, we don't know—are they hiding it? Is the algorithm hiding certain posts?

That's just this human desire to be appreciated and loved. And when you put yourself out there, people will respond regardless of like counts. That does inform to some degree certain things. I don't know that it informs your artistic value. I think your collages and your poetry are amazing. II've never really posted in those collage groups because I'm like, they're not going to like it. And it's just—you just gotta put yourself out there.

ZACK ORSBORN: I think they'll eat your shit up. And it's digital and analog. It's merging two art forms—I'm like, what did he use to get that texture? The colors, it's so aesthetically pleasing, cool, emotional. But it's abstract. I have a visceral feeling.

THOMAS CORBIN: Oh, that means so much. It's funny. A little tangent—I did not know how to use Photoshop until about two years ago. So digital collage just was not in the picture, so I cut—I did hand cut paper collage, and it got to a point where I was making Photoshop moves with an X-Acto knife, meaning there's this tree and I want to cut out all of the sky, and that's around every little leaf and every little branch. Tedium. I got that dog in me. Hours and hours and hours. Neck hurting, back hurting, cutting out leaves of a tree so that I can weave the branches into, say, another image and the sort of thing where you may look at it and not really get how that came together. But I love that shit. The surrealism, the blending of worlds. I love what you said because that's really the goal is this visceral reaction of, I've been transported when I'm looking at this, I'm somewhere else. And that's really the goal.

ZACK ORSBORN: You're creating a whole new world, something new that nobody's seen before. That's my goal in art, is to create something new. I mean, of course there's influences, but it's still me and nobody has ever seen it this way, right? That's the constant thing that I'm like, I'm doing something good.

THOMAS CORBIN: Yep. And I think you could boil all of art down to this idea of creating a different world, a beautiful world, of the imagination and of the subconscious, the collective mind. There's a reason that when I draw from my subconscious mind it resonates with other people because if you believe in that, it's all coming from this collective conscience of this universal human experience. So when you can capture that, it's more than likely going to speak to somebody.

Where to find Thomas

Instagram: @sensory___overlord