THE RAW STUFF is an annual book series showcasing the most exciting music artworks from the rock/metal and punk culture. On more than 500 pages, more than 600 artworks for vinyls, gig posters, T-Shirts and exotical gimmicks like band beers or creepy ritual masks are presented and offers an overview of the visual appearance of our beloved music subcultures. We have teamed up with its author Tom Gasperlmair to get some more details about this amazing project and recommend this amazing publication for your viewing pleasure. See more details below and purchase HERE.
The new edition of the book is out now and features 26 artists from 6 European countries and more than 300 artworks for more than 150 bands, ranging from really big names to underground cult bands.
Inside the books, artists like Grindesign (Aborted, Kreator, Despised Icon, …), SBÄM (NOFX, The Offspring, Blink-182, …), Max Löffler (Pearl Jam, Pixies, Kadavar, Billy Talent, …), Phillip Janta (Metallica, Volbeat, The Ocean, …), are presenting themselves and their daily life as a visual artist within the rock-circuit in their very own, personal chapters.
The new edition of THE RAW STUFF is about expanding borders and showcases, next to artists from six countries, music subculture-related scenes with a common mindset: Street art, alternative illustrators and tattoo artists show their skills AND their best artworks for bands, venues and promoters, too: An enrichment for our very own artwork-microcosmos!
Next to the presentation of the artists in the book, exhibitions with the artists and live-concerts will take place in Linz & Vienna, Austria next year. Possible more promotional events will be announced shortly.
What inspired you to come up with this amazing release?
The whole idea of a book about the European music illustration scene came up to me a few years ago and finally took shape when i figured out that a few of my illustration companions really suffered from the covid-times with all its lockdowns and work restrictions for the cultural scene in my country, austria, in 2020. thats why i decided to present the most relevant austrian music artwork artists in the first edition of THE RAW STUFF to support them in these difficult times and to try to push them as soon as the cultural shutdown in our country was over.
I organised 5 exhibitions along the book release in cooperation with Arena Vienna, Kapu Linz, Explosiv Graz, Vienna Frost Cruise (a show on a ship – sick) and SBÄMFEST Linz (together with Steve Caballero, the skateboard legend – even sicker!) where we exhibited and presented the book together, too. we were lucky that the interest in the book project was really high and we had around 150 visitors per event and i dont know how many hundreds during SBÄMFEST – a really big success for such a kind of a niche of art we represent. plus, we had the chance to work on more than 15 gigposters for arena wien as a group, which is a chapter of the newly released book, too.
How tough was the process of putting it together?
The new edition was a really tough one to make in the beginning to be honest and I’m so happy it is released now.
Organising the whole ‘line-up’ and working with international artists is a real kind of an other effort than grouping together with local friends you’re in touch with for years. I was expecting more work on this volume, but not on that level to be honest haha.
Yeah, but it was really fun to do this and to get to know new people or people i’m following for years personally, like Rob aka Grindesign or philipp janta, whose work is such an inspiration for my personal creative work. I totally feel honoured working together with such brilliant minds on the book and it really satisfies me presenting artists with such a phenomal output of work in the book.
Do you plan on sharing more screenprints and single posters available to buy via therawstuff.at?
The artist-bundles will be available for a limited time left on the website, but we’ll do a run of exhibitions together in 2023 where visitors can dive deeper into the art of every artist of the book, get to know them on location and can support them by buying a limited print, t-shirt or vinyl on their stands.
