GRAPHIC VIOLENCE: METAL ARTIST ARIK ROPER ON ‘MUSHROOM MAGICK’

In our August issue we featured a brief interview with painter and illustrator Arik Roper—he of the High on Fire album covers, Pig Destroyer posters, and Lamb of God T-shirts—about his book, Mushroom Magick (Abrams). Here for your psychedelic pleasure is the rest of our chat.

REVOLVER How did you first become fascinated with mushrooms?
ARIK ROPER My mother used to collect and draw them. I was interested in how colorful and strange they were. They’re so interlaced with classic art and fantasy art that I'd end up drawing them before I was even aware of what they were.

How did the idea of doing a whole book about them come about?
I first met with a friend of a friend who's an editor at Abrams Books with the idea of working on some kind of a book. We started talking and she brought up the idea of doing a book about psychoactive mushrooms, not so much another field guide but an art book based on these mushrooms with some cultural and historic information in there. We weren't sure if the idea would get approved, but Abrams had recently published a book about pot culture so we thought there was chance they'd go for it. We developed the idea together, she proposed it, and they approved it. I was surprised how many people were into it; mushrooms seem to hold some fascination for a lot of people.

How many of the mushrooms in the book have you personally sampled or encountered?
There are close to 200 psilocybin containing mushrooms; in the book are about 90, plus some Amanitas. A lot of them are mega-obscure and you probably couldn't acquire them from your local dealer. A few are toxic. Some extremely rare ones that aren't even known to have any accounts of being consumed. Only a fraction are the ones that most of us actually ever see. The Liberty Caps, cubensis, Mexican, and Hawaiian ones are common to us for example . So I don't know, maybe 5 to 6 types of these I've tried; that's just a guess. Obviously this book isn't a field guide. You have to careful when you're harvesting mushrooms, otherwise you could end up sick or dead.

What’s been your worst ‘shroom trip/experience?
I've been pretty fortunate to not have had any experiences that were too bad. I've had some overwhelming times, but it usually passed and turned into something else. The times when it's been more difficult were usually because I didn't take enough.

Your best?
I was on an friend's private island off of Cape Cod with some friends; we had some mushrooms and walked around the island through all these incredible forests and micro environments, then went swimming in a lake while the sun was setting. Everything was a glowing golden color; I was floating in the water with birds circling over me. It was beyond idyllic. It was one of those legendary fantastic trips where everything comes alive and the world reveals itself to you. The setting is important and this was the best combination for such a thing, completely free of the psychic warfare you have to deal with in a city environment. That was perfect for a functional dose, but I've had some other times that were more visionary, where you just sit back and observe the visuals because that's all you can do.

Do you ever paint/create under the influence of ‘shrooms?
Yeah, mostly just free-form shapes and sketches. It's hard to get into detailed work during that state because my vision is too wavy, but what I have done tends to have a certain style to it. There's a hyper dimensionality to it, and the colors are intense. There's a common look to art created by different substances. I've learned some techniques from that particular state of mind; it's an organic textured thing that I draw which I attribute to the mushroom influence. I tried to capture some of the mushroom aesthetic in the art of the book, like the viewer is seeing these mushrooms while under the influence of them.

What do you hope that people get out of the book?
First of all, I hope people will appreciate it as an interesting art book, at the very least. It's for everyone—old people, kids, whoever likes timeless picture books. I don't want it to be exclusive to mushroom and drug enthusiasts. It's about a certain type of mushrooms, but it doesn't have to be limited to that.
I also wanted to present the mushrooms in a benevolent way and get away from the stigma of it being a “drug.” They're fungi and they’re just part of the world like the rest of us. Biologically, humans and fungi have a lot in common. There's no need to demonize them and think of them in the same way as addictive harsh drugs—the way the law depicts them. Second, in the text I stated that it's pretty damn strange that these things interact with our minds in such a way. Mainstream science has no idea how it actually happens that plants and fungi can open an animal's mind—they can barely even describe it because it's beyond their measurement. That says a lot, in my opinion, about the limits of our understanding of ourselves.