When looking at this year’s HIFF Love&Anarchy poster there is no doubt that the heat is on. The jamming heavy metal man on the poster has been featured in cartoon artist Aapo Rapi’s work before.
– I thought that this kind of baroque ostentation would look good visually, says the artist.
Rapi says that he got the inspiration for the character on the poster from the recent animated discussion about having a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki.
– The poster represents the uneasiness of a Finnish dork faced with the copious, pompous and more elegant lifestyle of this nobleman coming from abroad. The Finnish dork is fascinated by the stylishness of other Europeans.
But what kind of music is the character on the poster listening to?
– He listens to Mozart and Dio. His taste in music is not as wide as mine, the artist states.
Aapo Rapi thinks that Mozart, the maestro of classical music and the heavy metal band Dio formed in 1982 by former Black Sabbath member Ronnie James Dio are ”essentially the same, just different wrapping”.
A diverse taste in music
It’s nearly impossible to define Aapo Rapi’s taste in music in a narrow sense.
– Reggae, surf music, punk, early medieval music, art rock, garage, Argentine tango and ethnic music from all over the place…
Just like the character on the Love&Anarchy poster, Mr. Rapi too likes heavy metal, but with one exception:
– I don’t listen to new heavy metal. I draw the line the year 1990, when Metallica and Guns N’ Roses released their first albums and all Finns started listening to heavy metal.
Rapi listens to music when he is drawing as well, but the requirements are different than normally.
– The beat has to be steady, and the music can’t be too challenging when drawing. Free jazz and art rock don’t work as background music for drawing. And I can’t listen to Finnish lyrics while drawing, because that might set my thoughts on the wrong path.
“No real movies in theaters anymore”
So we have learned that that Aapo Rapi is a man who listens to a lot of music, but what is his relationship to movies? Rapi says that he enjoys movies, but that he doesn’t go to movie theaters very often.
– They don’t show real films in theaters anymore, it’s just videos.
When renting home videos, Rapi looks for DVD:s with the Love&Anarchy tag:
– That’s a sign of quality, he says.
The inspirational companion
Aapo Rapi, who was born in 1977, has been internationally recognized for his cartoon work. In 2011, his cartoon album Meti was invited to the main competition series of Europe’s biggest cartoon festival, the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France.
Meti depicts Rapi’s childhood landscape Savitaipale in southeastern Finland, but mainly it’s a portrait of Rapis grandmother Meeri Rapi, who in the comic tells Rapi stories from the past. Meeri Rapi is also marked as a co-creator of the album.
Family seems to be important for Rapi. When asked about where he finds his inspiration, the answer comes quickly:
– My own chick inspires me. She does the same work as I do, she gives me ideas and feedback. I guess that’s what you call teamwork.
