You may remember our interview with metal art legend Travis Smith from earlier this year about the art for Death’s The Sound of Perseverance. For those of you who live in a closet, Travis has done an insane amount of art for some of your favorite metal acts, including Death, Devin Townsend, CKY, Avenged Sevenfold, and Opeth, just to name a few. The Amorphis album that was released on June 7th won that weeks voting and we couldn’t agree more. Intrigued by the big egg we decided to ask Travis to fill us in on what it all means. Check out more of his art at http://www.seempieces.com/
What medium did you use?
Primarily digital and photography.
How many concepts did you work with till you settled on the one for the cover?
There weren’t that many alternate concepts for the cover itself beyond what it became. In the beginning we talked about the possibility of something involving the egg (with the anchor symbol etched into its shell) or something with an old man in a rowboat (representing Väinämöinen). We decided on the concept of the egg for the main image and I tried a few tests with the egg in various formations; floating up into the sky, in the water, one on the shore of a lake, etc. We agreed that the floating egg felt the best and continued with it for the cover image. The rowboat idea was developed for the back cover and an alternate front cover for the LP. One of the alternate egg ideas – the one with the egg on the shore of the lake – evolved a bit and eventually became the egg cracking while resting on the knee of Ilmatar.
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What themes are driving the artistic direction?
It’s based in Kalevala and the Finnish mythology of the world being created from a Goldeneye’s egg, in which, going from memory, when there is no land or sun or moon, the bird is flying and looking for a place to rest. The air spirit/goddess Ilmatar (or Luonnotar) lifts her knee above the waters so it may land and it lays seven eggs there. As they incubate they grow warmer and burn the goddess’ knee, and she jerks her knee which causes them to be thrown and they break and the world is formed from their fragments.
How closely did you work with the band/label or were you given creative freedom?
I worked very closely with Esa from the beginning as we usually do. He had some specific ideas on some things but I also had freedom to try out any other ideas that came to mind. In those cases, I would present them to him and we would continue developing anything that he felt was a good fit.
Youve done so much already is there a dream job, if you could do a cover for any band ever who would it be?
I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to do several projects with some of my favorite bands already so I’ve already done what I would consider my dream job, I would say. As far as working with bands that I haven’t worked with at all, there are several (of many styles) whose music I love and find inspiring and there could be a number of names on that list at any time. At the time of this writing, some names that come immediately to mind are Tesseract, Dax Riggs, and The Agonist.
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Who are your influences as an artist?
There are several artists that I admire and some are less influential than others but I think a short (and incomplete) list would include Dave McKean, Mike Clift, Derek Riggs, Rene Miville, Stephen Gammel, Hugh Syme, and “Away”.
If there was no Black Sabbath what would there be?
Hard to say…I wouldn’t know how to answer that, really. If we are speaking in the context of influence, if they didn’t exist as we know them or at all, would things have been totally different musically, especially as far as Heavy Metal is concerned, or would another band have formed that brought similar things to the table with ideas and sound and shaped things in similar ways?
