Inside My Interview with Gavin Watson

There are reasons, unbeknown to me, why I ended up becoming both a musician and an artist. But I do know the one thing that has carried me through difficult times has been an unquenchable thirst for design, creativity and the strange magic that, at its very best, blossoms into what we call culture.

I was born in 1973 and was fortunate enough to witness youth culture evolve from the tail end of skinhead culture into punk, and then watch it continue to branch and grow into everything that followed.

By the early 1990s, while many people my age were immersed in Manchester bands and Britpop, I found myself travelling in a different direction. I was opening doors to underground punk, ska and reggae, discovering bands from America and scenes that felt raw, authentic and alive.

One day, in a bookshop somewhere in Soho, I picked up a book called Skins by Gavin Watson. Inside those pages were photographs of Gavin's mates that spoke to me far more deeply than anything else happening around me at the time.

For me, Skins and Skins and Punks were more than books. Music, clothes, identity and belonging were all connected. I could almost taste it.

Like many people of my generation, I never saw Gavin's photographs as historical documents. They were simply real. They weren't styled, staged or romanticised. They came from inside the lives they depicted, and that's exactly what made them so powerful.

Looking back now, I can see those books became part of my own creative education. As a musician, artist and photographer, I've always been drawn to work that feels honest rather than manufactured. Gavin's photographs were one of the ingredients that fuelled, and still fuel, my own creative life.

In this month's Blitzed Magazine, I was truly honoured to interview Gavin Watson and simply ask him how he feels about those images now.

His work continues to evolve through recent collaborations with Massive Attack and Tom Waits, as well as his photographs appearing across the iconic Baracuta Harrington jacket.

I'd be honoured if you'd take a look at the full interview in this month's Blitzed Magazine and check out Gavin's work if you don't already know it.

I lost my first edition of these two book's because I leant them out one night and never got them back. But I can still share with you all here.

Thanks for reading.

Blitzed Magazine Issue 27 is officially on sale from today (3 July 2026).

https://blitzedmag.com