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Alex Heir is an artist, musician, and clothing designer whose work—often under the name Death Traitors—largely defined the aesthetics of punk, noise, and industrial music throughout New York over the last decade and a half. As I wrote in a 2018 interview, “There was a time in the city when the gig posters for any stacked line-up at DIY venues like 285 Kent or 538 Johnson came straight from his hands.” 

Heir’s work is immediately identifiable with its blend of pulp macabre linework and tattoo flash freak imagery—reapers, skulls, executioners, cops getting murked, and other tropes the whole family can enjoy.

In 2013, the label Sacred Bones Records compiled Heir’s cover art, flyers, illustrations, and more into Death Is Not the End, followed by another monograph titled WARRR2K∞/Work 2014-17. The books also featured his apparel and ephemera designs, as well as his posters for fabled bands like Martin Rev of Suicide, Destruction Unit, John Carpenter, Hank Wood and the Hammerheads, and his own project L.O.T.I.O.N.

Heir is a cult hero and noted toker, and he generously made some time to chat about what type of weed he likes, the novelty of cigar-shaped vaporizers, and the many bands he likes to zone out to when deep in the haze. Let’s get into it.

Two illustrations by Alex Heir

What’s your current favorite weed strain?

Alex Heir: As a New Yorker, I’m inclined to say Sour Diesel, but really I enjoy

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