Aaron Tanner

Aaron Tanner is a graphic designer, author, archivist, and musician who creates coffee table books on underground bands and artists.

Career
In 2002, he started designing for Ween with whom he worked for around 15 years. While creating a book for Pixies in 2014, he realized that there are artists and bands whose works remained unpublished. He founded Melodic Virtue, an independent publisher "dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacies of underground bands through limited-run coffee table books," and began archiving materials and publishing visual histories featuring rare and unseen photos, artwork and other items. Since then, he has produced books on the following bands: The Residents, Butthole Surfers, Ministry, Face to Face, and Lil Bub.

Tanner formed Stationary Odyssey with Brett Siler and released 11 albums before disbanding. Their last release was a split 7" single with Joey Santiago and David Lovering of the Pixies. Since then, Tanner has founded the noise rock group Off-Ox and has recorded music with Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Rob Crow (Pinback), Roy Mayorga (Ministry), and Zach Hill and Spencer Seim (Hella).

Achievements
His work has been added to the libraries and permanent collections of the Smithsonian, The Museum of Modern Art, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and The Punk Rock Museum. Butthole Surfers: What Does Regret Mean? was named LA Weekly’s Book of the Month in 2019.