“I definitely think it’s changed my career for the better. Two decades after its release, Nevermind is still regarded as one of the best rock albums of all time and Weddle’s thumbprint is on it. Yet, the troubled musician left behind a legacy. Three years later, Cobain would unfortunately take his own life and no one was more surprised than Weddle. We put a bathrobe on him and took some pictures.” When he finally shows up, he just lies down and sleeps for a couple hours.
It was a tough day, cloudy, and Kurt was nowhere to be found. "You don’t really want to shoot a band in the morning. “After shooting the album cover, we stupidly shot the band at 10:00 in the morning while they were on tour," he says.
For one thing, Kurt Cobian, the lead singer for Nirvana, was absent at call time. However, when it came time to shooting the band, things did not go so smoothly. Fifteen minutes into the shoot and half a roll of film later, Weddle had captured the iconic cover. The subject was Spencer Elden, the infant of Weddle’s friends. The band initially wanted the cover to be a photo of an underwater birth, but with strong resistance from their label, they eventually settled on a baby swimming in a pool. DGC/Geffen Records spotted his portfolio and hired him to shoot the album cover of their newly signed band, Nirvana. From that point on, I tried to promote myself as an underwater studio.” Weddle’s efforts paid off. “I’d been a diver forever and I was actually fired off of a job once and they said, 'don’t ever bring this guy back unless it’s an underwater shot.' That’s how my specialty came about. On a whim, he applied to the Art Center of Design in Pasadena, CA and was accepted.Īfter graduating, Weddle decided to take a unique approach to commercial photography.
Funny nirvana nevermind cover art full#
However, due to suffering an injury while serving in the military, Weddle was rewarded with a full scholarship to the college of his choice. Weddle’s sense of humor and demeanor make it hard to believe that in the past, he donned camouflage rather than his favored bunny suit. More importantly, it was child exploitation in the way that they created it, and the way that they continue to distribute the image today.Initially wanted the cover to be a photo of an underwater birth, but with strong resistance from their label, they eventually settled on a baby swimming in a pool. And here in that image along with all of the other factors as we pled in our complaint, it is a very over-sexualized image, and does constitute child pornography. And, fortunately, I don’t have to do the paperwork.”ĭuring a recent conversation with Chris Cuomo, Maggie Mabie, a lawyer representing Elden, attested, “The focal point of the image is the minor’s genitalia. In terms of litigation, Grohl also said, “I think that there’s much more to look forward to and much more to life than getting bogged down in those kinds of things. I’m sure we’ll come up with something good.” In a conversation with The Sunday Times ( as NME notes), Grohl indicated the band is open to changing the album art and even said he has some ideas for how Nevermind could look going forward, saying, “I have many ideas of how we should alter that cover but we’ll see what happens. The band has stayed mostly quiet on the issue, but now Dave Grohl has finally spoken about it. Spencer Elden, the then-baby who appeared on the cover, is now suing the band and has expressed a desire for the band to use a different image for subsequent reissues of the album. A dominant narrative around Nirvana in recent days has been the cover art for Nevermind, which famously features a naked baby boy underwater.
0 kommentar(er)
