Sean Yseult made a name for herself as the bassist for White Zombie. Since their breakup in 1998, Yseult has played with other bands most notably Rock City Morgue and a short stint with the reformed The Cramps. But Yseult has put aside music as her main passion and started Yseult Designs. For Yseult Designs, she creates beautiful designs which other manufactures can license and put them on a variety of products. I got a chance to talk with the lovely Yseult during one of her short breaks from work.
Check out the official website for Yseult Designs
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Sean Yseult: Running around a little bit in New York. Ive been doing this design business and Im trying to get some orders ready. I just had lunch with an old friend from New Orleans who moved up here after the hurricane. He was a bartender at a bar that my boyfriend and I own down there.
DRE: Whats the bar?
Sean: Its called The Saint.
DRE: How long have you been living in New Orleans?
Sean: Ive been down there ever since White Zombie broke up.
DRE: Thats a while.
Sean: Yeah, I fell in love with it while we were on tour and decided I had to live there one day. I picked up and moved.
DRE: Do you run your design business out of LA?
Sean: No I run it out of New Orleans, New York and LA. Its a little tricky. Ive a friend in LA that helps. Its all over the place but we manage somehow.
DRE: So its wherever you are?
Sean: Yeah, pretty much.
DRE: I read that youre designing all sorts of stuff.
Sean: I just do these graphics and I wanted to get them printed on silk scarves because I had some childhood memory of my mom having Peter Max scarves and I thought they looked cool. So I did that and I got into a lot of boutiques. Then a lot of people at trade shows approached me to license them out. Im not involved in that, it is like a record deal where they pay me royalties. Now they use them on Verizon Cingular wallpapers. iPop, who represents Andy Warhol, approached me about doing magnets. They are like these cool half semi-circle glass magnets. They did a whole bunch of my designs and its nice because its no work for me and I get a paycheck every so often. Ive only been doing this for a year so its all happening pretty fast. Im actually in another gallery in New Orleans and they put on a show of my designs and Im having a bunch of them framed. Thats happening in May.
DRE: It sounds like things are really taking off. Is this the kind of stuff you wanted to do when you first started it?
Sean: Yeah, I actually went to school for design. I was thinking more along the lines of getting involved with a magazine or doing CD graphics and posters. Ive done a lot of that in the past and this stuff that Im doing now is something I just started doing after the hurricane. I just drew in my sketchbook, stream of consciousness type stuff. I dont really think about them so I draw them really quickly. I draw them with pen on paper, so everyone has their own flaws. Its something I started doing to occupy my mind after the hurricane. We were so confused for a while because we were displaced for a few months.
DRE: So you were down there during the hurricane?
Sean: We evacuated a day or two in time but we werent able to return home for a while. We got a sublet in New York and went to Europe for a little bit. Thats when I started the business. I said, Ok, Im going to something with these drawings.
DRE: Do you all these drawings by hand or is some of it done on the computer?
Sean: I do them all by hand with pen on paper so there are no corrections. So I cant make a mistake or if I do make a mistake, I leave it in there.
DRE: Before I saw your designs I thought, with all the stuff youre into, that they might look more like EC Comics or Universal horror movies.
Sean: [laughs] Some eyeballs and skulls and guts and things, right?
DRE: I love that stuff. But your designs are actually very cool and sort of normal.
Sean: I know what youre trying to say. Its nothing like you would expect from a member of White Zombie. But it is not really anything I even expected from myself. I dont really know where it comes from. To be honest, it is a lot like the drawings I used to do when I was little and now I am doing it again. It goes back to childhood influences like Peter Max, Aubrey Beardsley and stuff that was laying around the house when I was little. Its a little incongruous from what I did with White Zombie and even the other bands. Its just how I draw.
DRE: Is the artwork similar to stuff you were doing when you were in design school or even when you with the bands?
Sean: No, not at all. The stuff I did in design school and with the band was always with photography and typography. I wasnt drawing at all. I didnt even think about drawing for some reason. After the hurricane, I just started drawing for some reason. Its all abstract graphics and some of it is a little more free and M.C. Escher-ish but not really. Theres never anything based on reality.
DRE: Are you looking to eventually open a shop?
Sean: I would like to branch out and do more things. I accidentally fell into fashion by making silk scarves. Its funny because I dont really know much about the fashion world. Its a whole new world I have to learn about and I just want to design stuff. Id love to get my graphics on more things like posters and even home furnishings. I actually have some of the graphics that Ive done that Im getting ready to have printed on these metal business cardholders and cigarette cases where its like an enamel raised surface with the graphics. Im having those made right now and Id love to do more licensing deals and keep drawing.
DRE: Besides the shops, where else can people get them?
Sean: I sell them through the website and then they are also in a good number of boutiques. I have a couple of showrooms now, one in New York and one in London, so theyre doing a lot of selling for me which is nice. I dont have to worry about that at all.
DRE: I read a quote from you where you said that when you were in White Zombie, you were trying to obscure your sexuality.
Sean: I said that? [laughs]
A lot of people have mistaken me for a guy, in the early White Zombie days, even when I was wearing hot pants. Ive always enjoyed that ambiguous quality though. I dont know that I was trying to obscure anything but I guess its more who I am.
DRE: Are you finding that youre doing that less now that youre getting into fashion?
Sean: No, because I cant stand to put on a dress. Im so much more comfortable in a mens fitted suit. Ive definitely got my ideas of how I should dress and who I am. Im just not really comfortable with the girly girly clothes. Not that theres anything wrong with that but its just not me.
DRE: It doesnt sound like youre going to be doing any music any time soon.
Sean: I have been playing locally in New Orleans with Rock City Morgue. But I dont have a lot of time for it. Its on the backburner and everyone else in the band has other things too. We tour some in the US and in Europe. But we dont really have time for it.
DRE: Did things end badly between you and Rob Zombie?
Sean: I wouldnt say that but not good [laughs].
DRE: Does that mean that the band ended not good or between you and Rob things werent good?
Sean: It was all one and the same. Ill put it this way, he doesnt speak to me but he also doesnt speak to Jay [Noel Yuenger] or Johnny [Tempesta]. The three of us are all friends and then theres Rob. I cant really speak for him as to why hes like that or what brought that on. It didnt help that for the first seven years of the band we were a couple and after that we werent. That was a mutual split between the two of us and the band continued but it definitely changed things a lot. Rob obviously wanted to go in this remix dance direction or whatever you want to call it. Theres not a lot of room for creating riffs so it squeezes out the musicians. We werent interested in making that music and he was.
DRE: I read that your house in New Orleans has some pretty cool stuff in it.
Sean: Well everything is intact. I had a lot of damage but it missed nearly everything I own in the house for some weird reason. My neighborhood didnt flood but everybody had roof damage. I got like a museum going on downstairs with a human skeleton and a coffin and some other oddities.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website for Yseult Designs
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Sean Yseult: Running around a little bit in New York. Ive been doing this design business and Im trying to get some orders ready. I just had lunch with an old friend from New Orleans who moved up here after the hurricane. He was a bartender at a bar that my boyfriend and I own down there.
DRE: Whats the bar?
Sean: Its called The Saint.
DRE: How long have you been living in New Orleans?
Sean: Ive been down there ever since White Zombie broke up.
DRE: Thats a while.
Sean: Yeah, I fell in love with it while we were on tour and decided I had to live there one day. I picked up and moved.
DRE: Do you run your design business out of LA?
Sean: No I run it out of New Orleans, New York and LA. Its a little tricky. Ive a friend in LA that helps. Its all over the place but we manage somehow.
DRE: So its wherever you are?
Sean: Yeah, pretty much.
DRE: I read that youre designing all sorts of stuff.
Sean: I just do these graphics and I wanted to get them printed on silk scarves because I had some childhood memory of my mom having Peter Max scarves and I thought they looked cool. So I did that and I got into a lot of boutiques. Then a lot of people at trade shows approached me to license them out. Im not involved in that, it is like a record deal where they pay me royalties. Now they use them on Verizon Cingular wallpapers. iPop, who represents Andy Warhol, approached me about doing magnets. They are like these cool half semi-circle glass magnets. They did a whole bunch of my designs and its nice because its no work for me and I get a paycheck every so often. Ive only been doing this for a year so its all happening pretty fast. Im actually in another gallery in New Orleans and they put on a show of my designs and Im having a bunch of them framed. Thats happening in May.
DRE: It sounds like things are really taking off. Is this the kind of stuff you wanted to do when you first started it?
Sean: Yeah, I actually went to school for design. I was thinking more along the lines of getting involved with a magazine or doing CD graphics and posters. Ive done a lot of that in the past and this stuff that Im doing now is something I just started doing after the hurricane. I just drew in my sketchbook, stream of consciousness type stuff. I dont really think about them so I draw them really quickly. I draw them with pen on paper, so everyone has their own flaws. Its something I started doing to occupy my mind after the hurricane. We were so confused for a while because we were displaced for a few months.
DRE: So you were down there during the hurricane?
Sean: We evacuated a day or two in time but we werent able to return home for a while. We got a sublet in New York and went to Europe for a little bit. Thats when I started the business. I said, Ok, Im going to something with these drawings.
DRE: Do you all these drawings by hand or is some of it done on the computer?
Sean: I do them all by hand with pen on paper so there are no corrections. So I cant make a mistake or if I do make a mistake, I leave it in there.
DRE: Before I saw your designs I thought, with all the stuff youre into, that they might look more like EC Comics or Universal horror movies.
Sean: [laughs] Some eyeballs and skulls and guts and things, right?
DRE: I love that stuff. But your designs are actually very cool and sort of normal.
Sean: I know what youre trying to say. Its nothing like you would expect from a member of White Zombie. But it is not really anything I even expected from myself. I dont really know where it comes from. To be honest, it is a lot like the drawings I used to do when I was little and now I am doing it again. It goes back to childhood influences like Peter Max, Aubrey Beardsley and stuff that was laying around the house when I was little. Its a little incongruous from what I did with White Zombie and even the other bands. Its just how I draw.
DRE: Is the artwork similar to stuff you were doing when you were in design school or even when you with the bands?
Sean: No, not at all. The stuff I did in design school and with the band was always with photography and typography. I wasnt drawing at all. I didnt even think about drawing for some reason. After the hurricane, I just started drawing for some reason. Its all abstract graphics and some of it is a little more free and M.C. Escher-ish but not really. Theres never anything based on reality.
DRE: Are you looking to eventually open a shop?
Sean: I would like to branch out and do more things. I accidentally fell into fashion by making silk scarves. Its funny because I dont really know much about the fashion world. Its a whole new world I have to learn about and I just want to design stuff. Id love to get my graphics on more things like posters and even home furnishings. I actually have some of the graphics that Ive done that Im getting ready to have printed on these metal business cardholders and cigarette cases where its like an enamel raised surface with the graphics. Im having those made right now and Id love to do more licensing deals and keep drawing.
DRE: Besides the shops, where else can people get them?
Sean: I sell them through the website and then they are also in a good number of boutiques. I have a couple of showrooms now, one in New York and one in London, so theyre doing a lot of selling for me which is nice. I dont have to worry about that at all.
DRE: I read a quote from you where you said that when you were in White Zombie, you were trying to obscure your sexuality.
Sean: I said that? [laughs]
A lot of people have mistaken me for a guy, in the early White Zombie days, even when I was wearing hot pants. Ive always enjoyed that ambiguous quality though. I dont know that I was trying to obscure anything but I guess its more who I am.
DRE: Are you finding that youre doing that less now that youre getting into fashion?
Sean: No, because I cant stand to put on a dress. Im so much more comfortable in a mens fitted suit. Ive definitely got my ideas of how I should dress and who I am. Im just not really comfortable with the girly girly clothes. Not that theres anything wrong with that but its just not me.
DRE: It doesnt sound like youre going to be doing any music any time soon.
Sean: I have been playing locally in New Orleans with Rock City Morgue. But I dont have a lot of time for it. Its on the backburner and everyone else in the band has other things too. We tour some in the US and in Europe. But we dont really have time for it.
DRE: Did things end badly between you and Rob Zombie?
Sean: I wouldnt say that but not good [laughs].
DRE: Does that mean that the band ended not good or between you and Rob things werent good?
Sean: It was all one and the same. Ill put it this way, he doesnt speak to me but he also doesnt speak to Jay [Noel Yuenger] or Johnny [Tempesta]. The three of us are all friends and then theres Rob. I cant really speak for him as to why hes like that or what brought that on. It didnt help that for the first seven years of the band we were a couple and after that we werent. That was a mutual split between the two of us and the band continued but it definitely changed things a lot. Rob obviously wanted to go in this remix dance direction or whatever you want to call it. Theres not a lot of room for creating riffs so it squeezes out the musicians. We werent interested in making that music and he was.
DRE: I read that your house in New Orleans has some pretty cool stuff in it.
Sean: Well everything is intact. I had a lot of damage but it missed nearly everything I own in the house for some weird reason. My neighborhood didnt flood but everybody had roof damage. I got like a museum going on downstairs with a human skeleton and a coffin and some other oddities.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
i really liked the web page! www.yseultdesigns.com
White Zombie = fuckin legends!
Screw Rob for breakin it all up! You Rock Sean!