“Growing up in Miami in the 90s was like being in The Bird Cage or a Nickelodeon cartoon, like Rocko’s Modern Life, because everything was pastel and like a Miami Vice hangover,” PureHoney artist of the month Ben Katzman tells us in his incurably referential way.

Katzman — musician, bandleader, record label founder and raconteur as well as illustrator — grew up in Miami but lives and works in L.A. now. He returns to his hometown often, though, and you might have seen his “doodles” — his word — on a flyer or poster if you visit Gramps (where his band is playing MOLD!’s record release party on August 30).

It’s also possible you’ve watched him raving about Van Halen on Survivor. Katzman starred on season 46 of TV’s epic reality castaway face-off, which aired last year. As the Fijian island’s resident rock metal guitarist, Katzman shredded his way to second runner-up — so close! — in the May 2024 finale.

Katzman “manifested the shred,” as he puts it, by taking what appeared to be a real shit sandwich of a situation and turning arduous lessons learned on Survivor (and elsewhere) into a life-affirming ethos about art and well being. “Art isn’t about success, it’s about self-expression,” Katzman says. “We need to do that for our own mental health.”

The charisma that landed him on TV also comes blazing through in his band, Ben Katzman’s DeGreaser, and in his free-form rock ’n’ roll promotional art. “I’ve always done tour posters for friends,” he says. “When it came to music, I was booking my own shows. I wanted to make my own fliers and my biggest influences for that were bands that had self-contained images, like KISS and The Ramones. You have to have the whole package.”

“Every piece of merch, every poster, every album cover plays on this unifying thing,” he adds. “You can’t picture one without the other. I don’t think there are KISS fans that listen to KISS and don’t think about how cool they look because of the makeup.”

This whole-package deal is intrinsic to Katzman’s identity. “Don’t Be A Poser (To Yourself)” is a track on his 2023 Transcendental Shreditation album. “Those songs are all about grappling with your sense of self in the world and taking out the inner critic,” he says.

When asked if he uses transcendental meditation to help spark ideas — a practice the iconic filmmaker David Lynch embraced — Katzman replies, “Well, full disclosure, the psychedelic mushrooms help too.”

The cartoons-on-acid look of his drawings plays nicely with the content he makes: gig posters and other promos for fun-loving but intense rock shows. “I like when it looks like a third-grader made it, but it feels like, was it a third-grader or a 30-year-old?” he says.

The point of a flyer or poster is to catch the eye, explain a concept at a glance and from a distance, and to make an impression. Katzman deftly captures all these elements with his doodles.

“I love to doodle,” he says. “In a world where we’re constantly on social media and vying for ‘likes’ and all this bullshit … you can’t be on your phone when you’re doodling. It takes me away from technology. It’s very much a meditational practice.”

Life online v. IRL is a perennial point of contention. “At the end of the day,” Katzman says, “when you’re on your deathbed, what are you going to think about? How many posts and cool things you saw on the phone or how many things you experienced?”

Katzman has related insights into his hometown’s artistic and musical life. The Miami he remembers, before the city became an influencer magnet, “had a unique identity where all the buildings were pink and orange and blue, and there really was a push for local art. I remember there were a lot more local art events then. Maybe it’s the crosshairs of social media.”

“Small scenes are important and community is important,” Katzman says. “It’s important not to replace actual human connection with the Internet. Would you be happier posting millions of TikTok [musical] covers getting hundreds of thousands of ‘likes’ but drawing no people to an actual show?”

Ben Katzman, Palomino Blond, and Dime open for MOLD! 7pm August 30 at Gramps in Miami. Find Ben Katzman’s art and music at benkatzmanshreds.com Watch the first episode of his new podcast Masters of Reality HERE ~ Kelli Bodle