words Idris Intifada photo Robin Laananen
Step 1: Place a white pentagram in the center of a black background. Step 2: Splash a little red blood on the geometric figure. Step 3: Position a gray satanic goat next to the gory image. Voilà, the typical metal band album cover! Commonly seen on the T-shirt of any anti-social high school teen draped in black, with long greasy hair and a visible chip on the shoulder of their patched denim jacket. But for graphic artist Aaron Turner, these instructions à la “The Joy of Painting” with a demonic Bob Ross, are far too simple. As the founder and principle cover art designer for the independent label, Hydra Head Records, Turner is working with more colors than a blipster preparing an outfit for a dance party, making futuristic album art for the three dozen bands on the label. Also a singer/guitarist with the experimental metal band Isis, Turner is both aurally and visually expanding the boundaries of the genre way beyond the devilish goat’s farm range.
Picking up more than just a mean two-step from the hardcore scene in his hometown of Santa Fe, Turner got his start in music related visual arts through designing flyers for the scene’s local shows. Around the same time, he began his career in cover art when the metalcore band, Bloodlet, used his high school painting of gnarly goblin angels for their Entheogen LP. After moving to Boston for art school, Turner carefully balanced his time between sketching naked ladies and participating in the area’s growing hardcore/metal scene, and consequently Isis and Hydra Head took flight like mythological creatures should. With artistic influences spanning from comic book illustration to the Slayer Seasons in the Abyss album sleeve, the 30-year-old borrows from a number of disparate artistic traditions. “Half way through high-school, I started to discover more fine art type stuff. I really got into Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock,” Turner recounts. “I was really drawn to stuff that had a visceral energy to it.” This fusion of high and low brow, spawned the carefully painted monster on the disturbing cover for Petition the Empty Sky, the classic album from the Massachusetts-based band, Converge.
Now residing in Los Angeles, Turner continues to experiment with metal by inserting uncommon influences into his music, as he does in his art. “The artwork for me is much more personal because it’s coming mostly from me,” explains Turner, “where as Isis is very much a collective effort. But I’d say the mindset behind both of them applies a similar intent: taking these things that we grew up on and cut our teeth on but injecting a lot of other elements in to them from a very wide spectrum.” Although he’s making noise in the art world without his instrument, Turner is not ready to give up his life in metal. “I feel like now is the time when I’m young enough and healthy enough to tour and have the stamina for it. And there will be a time later on where I can take it a little bit easier and spend more time in a studio space working on painting.” It’s good to know that, at least for the time being, his devil horns are locked and loaded in the right position.
