It’s not all moon, spells, and misanthropy. Go to the beach!
Welcome to Tropikvlt Apparel. We are the result of the artistic musings between two metalheads who have a thing for aloha shirts. Photographer, Sveinn Kjartansson and musician, Eric Ramirez, came together to create a theme they would be into, clothing they would wear, and to embark on something so totally selfish and completely out of left field, that it just had to work!
Here at Tropikvlt Apparel, we’ve taken the disparate worlds of tropical/tiki culture and extreme metal and merged them to create something different, fun, dark, and even a little tongue-in-cheek… just a little. We’re giving the metalhead the justification they need to go to the beach, sip a margarita with their toes in the sand, and to feel completely at home in the warm embrace of a dimly lit tiki lounge under the ominous gaze of a wall-mounted audience of false idols. We’re giving the beach bum a gateway to explore the world of the macabre, indulge their buried, passing fancies of grim misanthropy, and to howl at the full, tropical moon without rebuke. Tropikvlt is your way to shed expectations and cultural norms and just have a little fun!
We understand that both of these groups have their cult followings, as well as their share of gatekeepers. We’re not here to smash gates or revolutionize beloved traditions. We’re just here to show you that they’re already very connected! From the dark, shamanistic rituals of our many ancestral cultures to the tremolo guitars of surf rock and black metal, alike, Tropikvlt Apparel finds the obvious, but often overlooked, kinships between two (or more) subcultures that have existed mostly independently for decades and so rarely cross paths.
Throughout modern history, we’ve seen pairs of opposites and the unrelated coming together to form the unthinkable, the beloved, and the revolutionary (I really hate using that word)! After all, didn’t a certain director donning a fright wig successfully birth a cinematic masterpiece where two of the most unlikely of holidays accidentally clash to take us on a wild ride? Haven’t several lounge and classically trained musicians found that if they covered punk rock and heavy metals standards, they could shake up the world of contemporary music? Let’s not forget, to come full circle, the first Asian cultures to populate Hawaii, who matched kimono fabrics with traditional button-down shirts to make the first “Aloha Shirt,” forever securing the legacy of Polynesian Pop!
Does this whole thing seem a bit too weird? Good! Anything worthwhile should feel a bit uncomfortable at first. All we’re saying is, give it a chance, give it a go, and dive right in! Let the darker waves of aloha wash you away to new and distant shores, full of heavy riffs, wild surf, and exotic drinks potent enough to make you shake your inhibitions. Throw on a comfortable shirt and your battle vest and go to the beach!