Zoltron is an American rock music poster designer, street artist, and creative director. His posters are included in the collections of Victoria Albert Museum, London, de Young fine arts museum, San Francisco, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, the US Library of Congress, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.
Although he is secretive and carefully conceals his identity behind his pseudonym, Zoltron is known for his iconic rock art for bands like Primus,
Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of ...
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.
Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined loca ...
Devo
Devo (, originally ) is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a ...
.
He has been awarded a 2006 Recording Industry Association of America (
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
) certified gold disc for his work as producer of the grammy-award nominated alternative rock band Primus album
Hallucino-Genetics
''Hallucino-Genetics: Live 2004'' is the first concert DVD from Primus, released in October 2004. The show was filmed on June 26, 2004 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, the band's last show of their 2004 tour. The performance features ...
, and a 2004 RIAA certified platinum disc for the Primus album
Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People
''Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People'' is a career-spanning retrospective DVD plus bonus EP by American band Primus, released on October 7, 2003. The title was inspired by a crayon-made story book written by guitarist Larry LaLonde's son ...
.
Early career
Zoltron was inspired by his older brothers and sisters' album covers, which he pinned to his bedroom wall. He bought albums simply for their cover art, and would "use the record as a frisbee". Among his major early influences he cites punk rock fliers, and the art of Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgeson. His first professional poster was made for a Residents concert at the Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco in 1996.
Street art and poster design
He is a street artist whose large murals have covered walls in the San Francisco Bay Area. The works are characterized by a strongly anti-establishment theme, and frequently use Day of the Dead and
memento mori
''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'Wes Anderson's movie of Fantastic Mr. Fox was featured in a Halloween exhibit at Spoke Art gallery in San Francisco. The poster was followed by a design for Martin Scorsese's 1980 classic movie, Raging Bull. He also designed a Red Vic poster for Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Zoltron's posters are in the collections of major museums as examples of early 21st century popular culture iconography, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, The de Young Museum in San Francisco and the U.S. Library of Congress.
There are Zoltron fans among the great names of contemporary rock. When
Dave Grohl
David Eric Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is an American musician. He is the founder of the rock band Foo Fighters, in which he is the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter. Prior to forming Foo Fighters, he was the drummer of gru ...
's
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the eponymous debut album, Grohl (lead vocals, guitar) re ...
played a private pop-up gig at the Blue Note, a 150-person capacity club in Napa, California, Grohl asked Zoltron to design a collectible limited-edition poster for the audience.
Primus
Zoltron began his career in the rock and roll world in 1996 at Prawn Song Design, a freelance graphic design company founded by Les Claypool of Primus, Larry LaLonde and Adam Gates, focusing on the exploding opportunities of Web-based design in the mid-1990s, creating the entire online catalog for music industry titans Interscope Records, Geffen, Aftermath, Death Row Records, and A & M.
By 1998 he had become Creative Director for Prawn Song, responsible for the design and creative direction of all Primus and Les Claypool related projects, including:
Antipop
''Antipop'' is the sixth studio album by American rock band Primus. It was released on October 19, 1999, through Prawn Records and Interscope Records. Produced by the band, Tom Morello, Stewart Copeland, Tom Waits, Matt Stone, and Fred Durst, ...
,
Videoplasty
''Videoplasty'' is the third home video by Primus, following 1993's '' Cheesy Home Video'' and the fan club exclusive ''Horrible Swill''. ''Videoplasty'' was released at the end of 1998 to complement the band's recent covers EP ''Rhinoplasty'', ...
Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People
''Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People'' is a career-spanning retrospective DVD plus bonus EP by American band Primus, released on October 7, 2003. The title was inspired by a crayon-made story book written by guitarist Larry LaLonde's son ...
,
They Can't All Be Zingers
''They Can't All Be Zingers'' is a greatest hits compilation album by Primus. It was released through Interscope Records on October 17, 2006, the same day that their DVD, ''Blame It on the Fish'', was released.
''They Can't All Be Zingers'' incl ...
The Grand Pecking Order
''The Grand Pecking Order'' is the only album by American rock band Oysterhead, released on October 2, 2001. The album was recorded in guitarist Trey Anastasio's Barn recording studio. Oysterhead was intended to be a single performance, but the p ...
The Big Eyeball in the Sky
''The Big Eyeball in the Sky'' is the 2004 album by Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, known by fans as "C2B3," released on Les Claypool, Les Claypool's own Prawn Song Records, Prawn Song label.
Reception
AllMusic gave the album an a ...
Of Fungi and Foe
''Of Fungi and Foe'' is the second solo album by Les Claypool. The album was released on the March 17, 2009. The album featured Eugene Hütz, Paulo Baldi, Mike Dillon, Lapland Miclovik, Sam Bass, Cage Claypool, and Bryonn Bain.
Claypool st ...
, and Electric Apricot: Quest For Festeroo.
In 2003 Zoltron produced the platinum-selling, retrospective Primus DVD, 'Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People,' an interactive DVD experience spanning the band's rich history dating back to early bootlegs and live radio performances. Primus' singer/bassist Les Claypool remarked that, "It seems of late that bands are adding supplemental DVD material to their album releases to promote record sales. We've done the opposite. We've added a supplemental audio recording of brand-new music to an extremely comprehensive DVD of classic visuals." In his review for AllMusic, Greg Prato predicted that "while hardcore fans will want to hear what Claypool and the boys have been up to lately in the recording studio, the main attraction of ''Animals'' is its exceptional DVD."
In 2011, Zoltron initiated a limited-edition poster project for Primus, commissioning artists to produce hand-printed, individually signed, and numbered silkscreen posters, and using a new image for each of the shows on their tours, skidding across the United States. There are now 400 unique designs, chronicling every gig the band has played with as much hallucinatory variety as their music.
Zoltron's work for Primus included a collaboration with designer Zombie Yeti to produce a "frizzle-fry acid trip" design for Primus-themed pinball tables, built as a limited edition by Stern Pinball.
Sticker Robot and political activism
In early 2002, Zoltron founded the sticker printing company, Sticker Robot. During Barack Obama's campaign for the US Presidency, Sticker Robot produced stickers of Shepard Fairey's famous Barack Obama "Hope" poster. The first printing was for 5,000; by the time of the election the run had increased to 500,000 and the stickers had become a collectible.
Zoltron produced his own Obama poster, which was photographed and commented on in a ''Time'' magazine article. The poster was shown in "a giant art exhibit" in Washington D.C. held to celebrate the inauguration.