Exclusive interview with RaD Man (Founder of ACiD)
By Whodini on January 13, 1997
For Acrylic Weekly Artscene E-Mag

[Interviewer's Note: If you dunnoh who this guy is, what the fuck are you doing reading E-Mags? He only does one interview a year, and doesn't do IRC interviews. So dont ask in 1997. =) ]

IRC log started Mon Jan 13 00:01

*** Value of LOG set to ON
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-> hEY doOdER! jOIN #iNTERVIEW!%*)@

*** Mode change "+i" on channel #interview by Whodini

*RaD_Man* itS inviTE yOU fUXOR!!

*** Inviting RaD_Man to #interview
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> So... tell us all a little about yourself!
> So... Hello?

*RaD_Man* WHY CANT I TALK???

*** CTCP PING reply from RaD_Man: 255 seconds
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*** Mode change "+v RaD_Man" on channel #interview by Whodini

<RaD_Man> Damn, I hate this lag

> Shall we change servers?

<RaD_Man> fuCK jEW you hAXOR!!

*** Signoff: RaD_Man (Ping timeout)
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<RaD_Man> h0h0h0h0h0

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<RaD_Man> h0h0h0h0h0

<acidbot6> wE oWn J00
<acidbot8> wE oWn J00
<acidbot4> wE oWn J00
<acidbot1> wE oWn J00

<RaD_Man> lATER jERK!

<acidbot2> wE oWn J00
<acidbot5> wE oWn J00

*** Mode change "-o+b Whodini *!*wh?d?n?@*" on channel #interview by RaD_Man
*** You have been kicked off channel #interview by RaD_Man (RaD_Man)
*** RaD_Man invites you to channel #interview
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> you fucker

*** #interview Cannot send to channel (from remorse.acid.org)

-> +v me

*** Mode change "+o Whodini" on channel #interview by RaD_Man

> Hey, lets take a 20 minute break here from this interview shit.
> Maytricks needs our help in #ansi, apparently someone is trying to
> start an intelligent conversation!!!@$)*!%

<RaD_Man> Good idea.

*** Mode change "-typical_emag_interview" on channel #interview by RaD_Man

IRC log ended Mon Jan 13 22:43

Whodini: Tell us a little about yourself, age, what type of music you listen to, whatever you want.

RaD Man: I'm 20 years old, not 47. I'm 6'4", 235lbs. Alot of people mistake me for this old man with a beard wearing a propeller beanie. That was an old picture that Soultaker and Asylum took of a BUM. They found this bum off the streets of San Diego at the ComicCon wearing an ACiD T-Shirt. When I saw the photograph, I thought it was hillarious and I put it on my old homepage (http://www.acid.org/~radman). Ever since, I'd occassionally get someone asking me "Hey, dont you have a beard?", thinking I'm that person on my site. Rest assured, I'm not a 47 year old man wearing a propeller cap with a snarled up beard pushing a shopping cart.

As for music, I am open minded to all forms. Personal preferences of mine are alternative, hard rock and hard core rap. I also like a little r&b and techno shit.

Whodini: I saw that picture, Cypher Hex showed it to me one day when we were fooling around at a public computer lab. I thought it was you also. Of course, Necromancer set me straight before I talked to you.

Next question: Give us the who, what, when, where, and how on starting ACiD.

RaD Man: This is probably the most frequently asked question of all my interviews. I hate to sound like a broken record, but here goes...

The Who -- The original founding members of ACiD were The Beholder, Grimm, Phantom, Shadow Demon, and myself. All were ex AAA artists, the only exception being Phantom, who was a very dedicated SysOp of ACiD's largest distribution site and assisted with ALOT of our PR. The influential members art-wise were Grimm and Shadow Demon -- on the warez side it was Shadow Demon, Phantom, and I.

The What -- What were we? We were an ANSI group, plain and simple. Devoted to making BBSes something other than an eye sore. We made a name for ourselves by assisting the best pirate groups with the best ANSI art.

The Where -- Everywhere. "ACiD" (before we were officially "ACiD Productions") was the first ANSI group that started off as an international one. Our members were spread out all over North America; from California, to Texas, to New Year, up to Quebec... And we branched out from there. Oddly enough, those four regions are still some of the biggest playing territories in the art scene today.

The When -- ACiD was started towards the latter part of 1990, due to lack of support from AAA upper management and the support sites. Anyone that had heard of AAA thought that I was the president of the group, because I would spend a great deal of time recruiting members and uploading all our artwork to every BBS I hit. There was no miscommunication, the SysOp of the AAA WHQ made it clear that no locals were wanted on his system, even if they were members of the group he was headquarters for. It was at this point that the few of us which were still active in Aces decided to do something which would seperate us from the rest. (Clue #1: We didn't start aaa!ansi.)

Whodini: How did you get all the people together and such?

RaD Man: 950-XXXX baby. Code Thief and Fuckin' Hacker were my companions. I would let them scan for weeks straight at a time. People thought I ran AAA for one obvious reason: I did. I just wasn't getting recognized for it internally. Everyone was enthusiastic about starting ACiD. Must've been the acronym.

[Interviewer's Note: Since doodleboys can't phreak, 950's are for calling cards. Phear my Sprintcard phreaking skillz.]

Whodini: Sweet. Ok, next question. Are there any group presidents that from over the years you really respect or were role models on how you run ACiD?

RaD Man: Yes. My personal role models who I borrowed from alot during the early days of ACiD were people like Line Noise of MCM, and a local friend The Zenabyte (both founding members of INC - International Network of Crackers.) ACiD really grew up with the people at INC. For the most part, it was pirate groups' actions on the whole which ACiD was influenced by -- but I can't really pin down who exactly we borrowed some of our ideas from. eg. File couriers (traders) existed before The Humble Guys, but it was The Slavelord who deserves the credit for making it a household name. They were the ones who made it an actual buzzword, by forcing their members to change their current existing handles in excahnge for a number (such as The Humble Slave #4.) Alot of people in the PC scene were outraged by this, but I think that was their intention. In short, I owe the idea of file couriers in ACiD to THG. We just didn't force any name changes.

I also think there are still alot of role models which exist in the scene today which should be recognized. That would be every single person who has been running an artgroup for twelve months or more. If you're in this category, then you deserve some respect. Noteworthy individuals which come to mind are: Napalm of Cia; Mindcrime of Blade; Force Ten of iCE; and Carnifex of Dark. These people have seen their groups the entire way through, throughout the ups and downs.

Whodini: ACiD has really made its presence known on the net with acid.org and the artpacks.acid.org archive. Did you have a gameplan in mind in taking ACiD from a bbs-based group to a net-based group?

RaD Man: Most definitely. Everyone is maiking the migration from the conventional dial-up BBS to the internet, on a global scale. Anyone who hasn't finally realized this, WAKE UP! ACiD has observed this fact, and has been putting an obvious emphasis on art and advertisements that can be used in the most widely visible and distributed mediums over ones with a lesser visibility. If you take a pack from 1997 and compare it to one from say 1993 or 1994, you'll see that the ratio of ansi to hi-res art has completely flip-flopped. This is not because ACiD wants to dis- associate itself from ANSI art, but because the actual usefulness and practicality of this medium is starting to diminish. ACiD is and always will be an art group first, meaning as long as good ANSI artwork is being produced, we will publish it. My stand on this is that we will continue to support all forms of visual arts in the monthly ACiD Acquisitions. This should be pretty obvious, since we release RIPscrips which have absolutely no functionality in any environment.

Whodini: What process does an ACiD application go through?

RaD Man: Typically, ACiD applications are received through an email. More often than not, they're sent to the wrong person, and are then forwarded to the appropriate advisor. The advisor of that group will then review the application and then lets the applicant know their status: accepted, rejected, or if they need to submit a trial piece of work. It's a fairly simple process.

Whodini: Ah-hah. I should apply to ACiD. Maybe an ASCII position or something. Next question. What are your personal opinions on dual-grouping?

RaD Man: I'm strongly against it and I discourage it. If you're going to join a group, even if it's just "for fun", you should dedicate yourself to ONE group. People who say they're not spreading themselves too thin amongst more than one group are only fooling themselves and hurting all parties involved.

Whodini: In your opinion, who was ACiD's most valuable member in '96, and also since ACiD started who have been your more valuable members?

RaD Man: Most valuable in the beginning was Shadow Demon, in our early years it was most definitely JED. 1994-1995 would be Beastie. Of 1996? That's a hard decision to make...

[RaD Man pauses a while]

RaD Man: During 1996, I would have to say Necromancer.

Whodini: Necromancer is the man.

RaD Man: Throughout 1996 I've got to know him alot, and he's really been my right hand man. You may not know by looking at ACiD on the surface level, but this guy has helped out ALOT on the things you don't see, the things "behind the scenes."

I also have to thank Catbones, Cthulu, Megga Hertz, Piano Man, Pinion, Shivan Bastard, Skull Leader, Tasmaniac, and Tosh10 for helping make 1996 such a great year for us.

Whodini: Year. Beastie was the man too. Channel Zero was elite as hell. Alright, next question (and the one I've been fearing.) What's with this acid!ansi bullshit?

RaD Man: acid!ansi is a hoax. Next question.

Whodini: I'm all out of questions.