Arik “Moonhawk” Roper has been important in serving to outline a visible model for numerous bands and tasks that use the phrase “stoner” of their description. His immediately recognizable illustrations appear to be a cross between one thing from an outdated pulp fiction novel and Heavy Metallic journal. The wild, sci-fi fantasy emotions that Roper’s work evokes have made him a family title in each the music and design world.
A graduate of the College of Visible Arts in New York Metropolis, Roper’s lettering and artwork have helped forge a creative schema for the genres of stoner steel and stoner rock. If music devoted to weed had a Sistine Chapel, its hallways can be painted by him.
In April, Unusual Attractor Press in London launched Roper’s ebook, Imaginative and prescient of the Hawk, which is a retrospective of the final 20 years of the artist’s huge profession. It’s a group of sketches, illustrations, and extra, that inform the story of a proficient particular person who carved out his personal place in popular culture, offering imagery for Ozzy Osborne, the Grateful Lifeless, Mishka’s Sesame Road collab, a Thundercats cartoon, and his personal ebook on unique mushrooms.
Alongside the drawings and tales in Imaginative and prescient of the Hawk is a part of the historical past of how Roper got here up with all three editions of the artwork for the band Sleep’s extremely revered second album. Numerous examples of Roper’s work have develop into well known, however maybe none have gone on to create such an impression as the ultimate album paintings for Sleep’s Dopesmoker.
Because the recording’s preliminary launch as a bootleg within the ’90s, the album is taken into account to be a masterpiece by critics, musicians, and report collectors alike. The New York Instances referred to it as “some of the formidable recordings of the final 20 years.” Along with the music, the artwork Roper developed for the 2012 model has endured 10 completely different vinyl pressings on at the least 14 various kinds of wax, some with foil covers, etched vinyl, even pressed with precise hashish leaves, (throughout that course of, Doghouse Farms mentioned the presses bought so gummed up with resin that they needed to cease each few copies to wash the plates).
The Weedians
“Observe the smoke to the riff-filed land… caravan migrates by means of the deep sandscape… procession of the weed monks to cross the sands.”
These are a few of the opening lyrics to the title monitor “Dopesmoker.” The quilt depicts a single-file line of robed figures crossing red-sanded dunes. Their faces obscured by hoods, these figures maintain unusual respiration tubes related to tanks on their again. Main a herd of alien pack animals throughout the sand, an alien ship hangs within the clear blue sky behind them. The track itself speaks of a journey to ship bales of weed to a sacred location, and a grow-room temple the place the air is thick with sacramental smoke and the chanting of “drop out of life with bong in hand.” These mystic figures stroll an infinite sandy sea searching for the divine.
They’ve been referred to as Weedians, Lungsmen, Weed Clergymen, Herbsmen, and Creedsmen. They’ve adorned bumper stickers, toys, patches, T-shirts, posters, skateboards, keychains, costumes, tattoo designs, numerous memes, and an ocean of bootleg merchandise. Their likeness has gone on to develop into a logo. When requested for the official moniker, Roper mentioned that regardless of having a number of names between him and the band, “simply to maintain it easy, I name them Weedians.”
Whereas at first bowled over at how far the influence crater of those pot pilgrims stretches, now he feels grateful that the picture has taken on a lifetime of its personal.
“It’s just like the Carry on Truckin’ factor [by Robert] Crumb,” Roper mentioned. “The way it simply bought bootlegged endlessly till it grew to become an icon for a sure scene. Now, when folks make variations of the artwork, I really feel like that’s simply serving to it to maintain defining a chunk of popular culture.”
Now over 10 years outdated, Roper’s Dopesmoker album cowl has develop into beloved by followers who began listening to the band within the ’90s and whose youngsters at the moment are doing the identical factor.
A long time of Sleep
All of it started in 1994. As an avid music fan, Roper was drawing designs for T-shirts and fliers for native bands. He went to see the English rock band Hawkwind carry out with Sleep, a “stoner steel” band which had launched its first album Sleep’s Holy Mountain simply two years earlier. Roper was launched to the band members and instantly supplied them his providers as an illustrator.
“I principally instructed them what Keith Moon mentioned when he met The Who,” he mentioned laughing, “Kind of, ‘You want me as your drummer.’ I mentioned ‘You guys want me to do paintings for you as a result of I get it and there’s no higher candidate.’”
They exchanged telephone numbers however didn’t begin working collectively till 4 years later. Lastly, Roper was contacted to make the duvet for Sleep’s anticipated marijuana opus. Dopesmoker, which on the time consisted of only one track that was over an hour lengthy. Via a number of classes, the band labored to report and launch the album below their new label, London Information. Nevertheless, the corporate had no thought what to do with the unorthodox album and shelved it and not using a launch date. In a solution of defiance, the band turned a blind eye to the discharge of a bootleg model and Roper was tasked with illustrating with none immediate from the band.
“I had the cassette tape that I had obtained a number of years earlier than once they first made the album,” Roper mentioned. “It was a mixing board copy a pal of mine had given me so I used to be actually accustomed to the music already.”
With none enter he began on the design, drawing what he thought the music seemed like. He described it as “an unlimited desert panorama form of factor, associated to marijuana cults and with this non secular theme. Which is admittedly just like what we ended up coming again to for the model most individuals are accustomed to.”
The bootleg album credit Roper merely as “Moonhawk” and sonically, had points that also bothered the band after its launch. Later in 2009, after a 12-year hiatus, the band reformed and Roper was requested to attract the official launch of Dopesmoker by Tee Pee Information founder Tony Presedo. Beforehand, he had been doing work for Tee Pee Information since 2006. Although on the time he was involved with the band, it was really the visuals man who handed him the imaginative and prescient board for the album.
“That they had this man named Doug who would challenge huge reside footage behind them, I assume you’d name him the visible engineer. He despatched me a pair photos of a coconut bong,” Roper mentioned “Once more I elaborated on what I felt the music was telling me, which was this narrative a couple of hash cult roaming by means of the desert.”
What got here out was a smoke-filled scene gatefold cowl that depicted the long-lasting group of holy males characters round a smoking chalice. Rising above the smoke, a wierd deity rides a multi-faced horse, wielding a sword in a single hand and snakes within the different.
“I feel I nailed one thing concerning the vibe of the album with that paintings,” he defined. “I used to be into faith and medicines on the time—studying lots concerning the Arc of the Covenant, the Ethiopian Coptic Church, medication, and even the Previous Testomony. It was this mixture of issues I used to be actually fascinated with studying about however I additionally felt match very properly with the music. It was one other step in reaching the place we’d end up.”
The Science Fiction Provide Chain
That place would lastly become visible when, in 2012, Southern Lord Information approached Sleep to launch a definitive model of Dopesmoker—one the place the band has whole management over the look and sound of the album. Arik has been in common contact with Sleep members Matt Pike and Al Cisneros, and had been engaged on artwork for Pike’s different band, Excessive On Hearth. Since that 2002 cowl, Arik had completed a number of Sleep posters however largely he and Cisneros had talked about inventive influences and bootleg information.
That is the place we get the origin story of this unusual and mesmerizing world from the album artwork. Cisneros and Roper bought collectively to debate the idea.
“There was an inventory of images we needed to incorporate however Al was fairly open,” Roper mentioned. “He didn’t have something particular, it was left to me to give you some concepts and see if he preferred them.”
Roper remembers that they landed upon the ultimate thought relatively shortly.
“The very first thing I got here up with was this concept of druid-like characters wandering the desert, respiration THC as an alternative of oxygen and making their means on a pilgrimage in the direction of a form of mecca,” Roper mentioned.
Pushed by the lyrics, which he’d been learning since 1998, he says the selection was fairly straightforward from the beginning.
“If I keep in mind appropriately, I didn’t do another ideas earlier than this,” Roper mentioned. “As soon as I got here up with that sketch and we refined it just a little bit, the band was like, yeah that is it.”
Along with Cisneros, Roper started fleshing out a part of this world. The ship on the horizon that seems on the again cowl, for instance, is meant to characterize a means station, the place the place the weed comes down from a cultivation satellite tv for pc orbiting the planet, ferried to the floor, and lowered on ropes to the Weedian’s pack animals.
“It’s a form of science fiction, fantasy model of a provide chain,” Roper defined.
Over time, the band has continued to develop this distinctive story of their posters and merchandise, displaying followers what’s occurring throughout this unusual nook of the galaxy, and even revealing different key characters just like the Aquarian, Antarctican, and Cultivator. Although Roper says whether or not or not all of them share the identical planetary system is a query for the band.
Having already created two different variations of its cowl, I requested Roper what he borrowed for inspiration for the third time round. He talked about how Frank Herbert’s ebook Dune offered a few of the concepts for the look of the Weedians and their world.
“Each Al and I actually love the aesthetics of that novel,” he mentioned. “One thing concerning the smoke made me image this scuba tank they’d must survive—form of just like the spice in Dune that lets them see and exist past this actuality. Lots of people guess Star Wars however it was Dune.”
When requested if he or the band had any sense of how legendary the 2012 model would develop into, Roper admitted that they knew it will promote shortly because of the giant following for the band and the album however added, “the band’s profession skyrocketed and the paintings actually went together with them for the journey.”
“I really feel like a complete new era of individuals found Sleep at that time and this picture grew to become the visible identification for them,” he mentioned. “It’s form of outlined an period in time or this mindset of devoted stoner way of life and music.”
Roper observed that, as the most recent model of the LP grows older, and stoner way of life turns into extra of a broad definition.
“Individuals who aren’t usually into stoner steel now appear to understand it—one thing about this earnest dedication to their imaginative and prescient and their sound and this world and even when it’s only a novelty for somebody, they reply to it and see one thing right here that’s actually cool,” he mentioned. “I’ve individuals who inform me they keep in mind the paintings from once they had been a child. It’s cool how there’s a brand new era that sees this as virtually like traditional rock.”
The well known model of Dopesmoker has developed from a chunk of music into one thing that’s a part of the cultural consciousness. It’s exhausting to appreciate that our stoner tradition has developed so removed from the place it began that even the “modern-day” marijuana actions of the ’90s are flagstones of the previous. As we wrapped up our dialog, I requested Roper if he’s spent any time since 2012 imagining what else the world of the Weedian holds. He revealed that he’s been drafting out a form of graphic novel in his head, fleshing out what grows and dies out on this seemingly desolate world.
“Imagine me I’d prefer to develop on it,” he revealed. “I’d like to do a full graphic novel however we’ll simply should see if there’s a narrative that we will all agree on.”
Like numerous different stoners on the market, this reporter shall be watching the horizon for the subsequent chapter of the Weedian pilgrimage. Able to drop out, bong in hand.
This story was initially Up to date within the October 2023 problem of Excessive Instances Journal.