“To me the image was just of the tattoo I did for him, but since his passing it’s become very iconic. “After Brad’s passing, we changed the album cover to the picture I took of his ‘Sublime’ tattoo with the floral border pattern and we moved the clown to the inside of the CD jacket”, Opie Ortiz says. Sadly, the singer/guitarist didn’t live to see the album go double platinum with help from hits such as “What I Got”, “Santeria” and “The Wrong Way.” Ortiz reveals that the original idea of the Sublime album art was meant to depict a fat clown sitting on his lounge chair, but it was switched after Nowell tragically passed away just a month before Sublime was first released in 1996.
“I said we should do it on his back, so we did, with him lying on a table in Ras’ kitchen.” “He wanted the ‘Sublime’ tattoo across his stomach, but I told him no-one would ever see it behind his guitar”, Ortiz says. Obsessed with drawing and art in general as a small child, Ortiz is now a world-famous tattoo artist based in Long Beach, CA, and he gave Bradley Nowell the tattoo adorning the cover of the band’s landmark self-titled 1996 debut which is now available in an expanded edition. Brad (Nowell’s) girlfriend came up with the name, Sublime, from a dictionary when they couldn’t think of a name that fit.” Me and (bassist) Eric (Wilson) were both into punk rock from an early age and they played all the best local parties. “We were quirky kids, we hung out, drank beer and smoked pot.
“All the homies took me in from that whole Sublime family”, he recalls.
In this latest, specially animated ‘Behind The Cover, Opie Ortiz reveals how he first became friends with the future members of pioneering reggae-punks Sublime and their crew through attending California’s Rogers High School. Previous episodes of ‘Behind The Cover’ have featured in-depth discussions with Rush designer Hugh Syme, who explained the Permanent Waves album and Neville Garrick, the acclaimed artist famous for designing sleeves for key Bob Marley releases such as Survival and Rastaman Vibration.
0 kommentar(er)
