So many people have asked us about the cover pictures to the new album so here is the story!
First I needed a skeleton... I knew I would be burying it in the dirt so renting one (if I could find one) was out of the question. I tried to buy a “medical grade” skeleton on E-bay but I was out bid in the last 30 seconds. The price was up to $175 bucks but I figured that with Halloween just a couple months away that I could re- sell it.
I thought I would call around to see if anyone had one for rent and I found a shop that would rent one out for $50. When I arrived I knew there would be questions, after all what would a guy be doing with a skeleton in August? Sure enough the guy said ”What are you gonna do with it?” I told him that a friend of mine was getting married on Halloween and that I was doing the invitations (which was partially true-Tim Polecat got married in Vegas on Halloween). I told him I would be posing the skeleton sitting in a chair.
The guy was real paranoid and insisted on showing me how he wanted me to carry it! He said “Just be real careful with him .“ Little did he know what I was going to do.
So... It was a saturday afternoon in Phoenix.....IN AUGUST! It was about 112 degrees that day. My then wife and I drove way out into the desert where there would be no people around. Can you imagine if someone saw me carrying a skeleton and a shovel?! After driving way out on a dirt road, we found a cool spot in a wash where the gravel was loose.
People ask if I really buried the instruments. The answer is, sort of. I had taped off the parts that would be in the ground with plastic. I started with the bass. I had to dig a massive hole in the stifling heat! I put the bass in the hole and positioned the skeleton and then buried the whole thing. I then brushed away the dirt to make it look like an archeological site.
The skeleton had a lot of metal fasteners which I had to cover. The big rock on the skull is there because the skull was cut in half and had a connecter in the middle. Some people thought the rock was supposed to look like a quiff, but that was not the intention.
We took the pictures and I was ready to do the drum. Instead of being careful, I yanked the skeleton up out of the dirt and the leg came off! Then I noticed that the knee cap bone was missing. I was freaking out because I thought if I can’t find it, the guy at the costume shop is going to shit! I looked all over in the spot where I dug the hole and back on the trail to the car- no luck. I wasn’t even sure if the knee cap was already missing when I got it.
After about 45 minutes of searching, I decided to do the rest of the pictures first and then continue looking. I could not find it, so we went home. That night I couldn’t sleep thinking about the guy at the costume shop and the fact that they would probably make me pay for a new one, etc.
The next morning I got up early, went to Home Depot, bought a a big sifter rake and went back out to the spot in the desert. I sifted through the dirt for about 2 hours and I couldn’t find that knee cap.
The skeleton now had a broken leg joint, two broken ribs, and was very dirty, not to mention the missing knee cap.I put the skeleton in the shower and cleaned it up, then I took it into work and re-glued the ribs and made a new pin for the leg.
When I took the skeleton back to the shop, I was going to pretend I didn’t notice the knee cap, but much to my surprise , the guy didn’t say anything. He gave me a receipt and I was outta there! I thought someday I would mail the pictures to the shop!
I cleaned up the instruments including the snare drum, which I also had rented and was brand new. Somehow I got some gravel in the F-hole of my bass and some of it is still in there. Some people have asked if the photos were computer generated and I say “Next time they will be!”

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