The Photo Shoot
Liz and Rob picked Jason and me up fairly early in the morning. We were going to be there earlier than the rest of the band. We would be working on the cover shot with Karen Miller (the model) and we decided the guys could show up later for the band shots. The hotel wasn't much from the outside. As soon as the elevator door opened to the basement, I knew it was going to be a perfect place for the shoot. You could tell it had been elegant and expensive at one point. Now it was weathered and un-kept. The basement of the hotel looked like it had been used as a bar at some point. We were using it as a staging area. The stylist had brought all the racks of clothes and had set them up in the corner. There was a hair stylist setup in the back as well. There were people everywhere setting things up. The staging area was adjacent to an enormous, open room that Phil wanted to use for one of the shots. It had large windows along the side that shot bars of light across the room. Phil had set up some couches in the center of the room. He had his game face on. He was anxious to get started. Karen was there and Jason wanted to touch base with her. They chatted for a bit in the staging area and Jason explained what we were looking for. She apparently hadn't been informed that some of the shots may require a wee bit of nudity and it was obvious she was going to be uncomfortable. The majority of the photos was going to be shot on one of the upper floors of the hotel. There were about 5 rooms on the floor that were set aside for photo shoots. One was referred to as the Valentino room. I guess Valentino had stayed in the hotel for a period of time. It had velvety red wallpaper and old regal furniture in various stages of decay. We ended up using some of the promo shots of the band that were taken in this room. I liked the room a lot, but it was almost too regal. We didn't want the whole thing to seem too contrived, and although the room was authentic, putting Karen in the room seemed to me a bit forced.

We gravitated towards another room that was just as classic, but more subtle. We started there. Phil had brought a few extra guys with him from New York to capture video of the day. He was trying to break into the video market and was taking a chance that he might be able to create a video with the footage. They were using old black and white 8mm cameras that made a mellow whirring sound when they were running. It was neat. Phil started by taking a few moody shots of Karen in the room. We weren't really going for moody, but he was just trying to get a sense of Karen, Jason and the whole vibe we were going for. You have to start somewhere. After the first round of photos, we took a look through the images Phil had taken. He was shooting most of the images digitally, so it was easy to evaluate what we had.

We decided we should take a series of images in the bathroom and around the room where Karen would be nude and photographed from the back. We found out that once again, we probably weren't going to be able to show a face on the CD. I think the reasoning was that it would throw us into the stratosphere of budgets. Karen was also a bit apprehensive about being the nude girl on the cover of an album. At this point, she made it known that if she was going to be nude, there would be no witnesses besides Phil and a stylist. This was going to make things easier on me with my wife. I was going to have a lot of explaining to do anyway. Jason, Rob, Liz and I sat in the hall while Phil shot the pictures. Rob mentioned that Atlantic was trying to bring back a sense of the good old days and was reviving the classic Atlantic logo. That got me to thinking that it would be very cool to make the CD look like a little record. I'd seen it done before and always loved the technique. Now, being on Atlantic, we could actually replicate what Louis vinyl would have looked like. That was exciting. While waiting for Phil to finish up, we came across some guests of the hotel in the hallway. It was a bit strange. A large, shirtless man started wandering the floor. He had been in the elevator with us on the way up and apparently had noticed what floor we were working on. He was harmless, but his presence added a nervous edge to the shoot.

The door opened with Phil sweating like he had just run a marathon. The first round of nude photos were great. He had a series that he had taken with her looking in the mirror at herself. I could tell those would be tough to crop her face out, but the tones and colors were great. He took some photos against a green painted wall that had a curiously strange feel that was exactly what we were looking for. This was progress. Jason was energized. He started talking about his plan to write on Karen's back with lipstick. "She's not going to let you write on her," I said. Before I knew it, he had convinced her and we were trying to find lipstick. We decided that lip liner was going to work best. Phil got excited about the plan and decided this would be a good thing to put on film and we sent Jason down to get dressed for the shot. The rest of the band was waiting downstairs and looked anxious for news. I could tell they wanted to be up there in the worst way. "It's going great. Jason's going to write the song titles on her back and Phil's filming the process." I have to be honest. I didn't see it working. I generally don't have problems visualizing Jason's ideas. I had a problem with this one. But, as he started writing, it came together so clearly. It was brilliant. Exactly what we needed. Phil had 2 video cameras going as well as his digital camera when Jason started writing on her back. I was nervous he was going to run out of room. He was writing very large. We had to make a last minute call to Atlantic to let them know we had decided on the track order. It was official now. Once Jason got to a point down her back that she was going to need to partially disrobe, we were kicked out again. Jason came out with a big smile. This was it. Phil was inside taking similar photos as he had earlier, but this time with the writing on her back. He shot photos against the green wall, in the bathroom mirror and in the shower stall. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like we had a winner. Not sure if it would be on the cover, inside, or back, but at this point, I felt like we had enough to work with. Phil had all the props set up for the Newton shot and they decided to get that out of the way in the same room. They then went to the Valentino room and shot some more of Karen against the velvet wallpaper. We certainly had enough to work with at this point. They took a series with Jason and Karen together in a hallway, but there was something contrived about these shots. Our time had run out with Karen and she left for the day.

We went down for lunch and regrouped for the band shots. The guys like to cut their own hair. Go figure. Mark's the only one who used the on-site barber. The guys grabbed a few suits each and we headed up for the shoot. They ended up using only outfits they had brought with them from San Diego. I'm not going to go into much detail about the band shots. At a certain point it was monotonous. They took a shot with the whole band looking out from the inside of the shower stall, which turned out to be the same location as the cover shot. As the photo shoot progressed, the amount of make-up the guys had around their eyes began to build up. After every session they'd run to the bathroom and add a bit more. "How does it look?" "I don't know dude, I've never worn make-up. That's a tough one." Liz and Rob were a bit worried that all we'd have was images with poorly applied eye make-up. They wanted me to have a chat with the guys and see if there was a chance to get a few without the make-up. This was quickly placed at the top of my list of would-be uncomfortable conversations. "Too much make-up guys." More make-up was applied. We went downstairs and did shots in the elevator and in a large ballroom. Jason had heard that Simple Plan had recently shot a video in the ballroom and that annoyed him a bit. About a month later, I saw that video. Part of the video was shot in the staging area we used as well as the ballroom. We were getting tired. It had been a long day. Phil had shot many gigabytes worth of photos throughout the day and had hard-drives full of images. We certainly weren't going to have a shortage of imagery.

Jason and I grabbed a ride back to our hotel with Glen. Glen is the publicist with Atlantic out in LA. He had a to push a car seat out of the way to make room in back seat for me. That brought me back to reality. He talked with Jason about the never-ending quest to finalize a bio. Since the early days we've had the hardest time deciding on words to describe who we are. I felt bad for Glen. We'd been through this before and it was a losing battle. Coming up with a good bio is so tough. If you tell the truth, you lose a sense of mystery and if you lie, it sounds contrived. Everyone tries to be so clever with bios. It just comes across as annoying. While on the way back, Finding Out True Love Is Blind came on the radio. When the song finished, the DJ commented that it was a naughty song. Yes indeed.

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Back at the hotel, we changed our clothes and planned on meeting everyone back at Phil's for a victory celebration. As the band waited for a cab in front of the hotel, we saw the members of the band that sings "Stacy's Mom" walking on the other side of the street. I had this vision of West Side Story and of us crossing the street to kick their ass. I think we could have taken 'em. I'm sick of that song. Everyone was in good spirits back at Phil's. Phil, David, John, Brian, Jimmy, Mark, Jason, and I sat around the computer and took stock of the imagery we had. It was overwhelming. There was so much to choose from. At one point, Phil was scanning through the photos so quick it looked like Karen was dancing. It got me thinking about the website. I ended up using the idea for the filmstrip animation on the present website. We ate and drank and were merry. Brian was on that night. He can be one of the funniest guys to be around. He has a crude sense of humor that only he could own. When you try to repeat his stories, they only come across as crass, but from him, they're funny as hell. We went down to the hotel bar again and I knew I wasn't going to be long for that world. I called my wife and she said that back home they were forecasting a blizzard for the next day. I was going to be flying right into it. I was going to have a rude awaking once I got home. Jimmy and I decided to head back to our hotel. It was about a three-blocks walk. It was a happening Saturday night on Sunset Blvd. It's the first chance I had to really have a conversation with Jimmy. He's a cool guy. I got the feeling he feltas if he was on the fringes of Louis. The rest of the guys had been together for a long time and they've all lived together and been through so much. It's hard to just instantly become one with that. Since that night, they've toured non-stop for about 8 months. I think he's certainly found his way in. Jason woke me up a few hours later. "Are you hearing this?" he said. The couple in the room next to ours was going at it. The guy was either strangling the girl or she was having an extended orgasm. We sat in the dark for about an hour chatting about the day. We were in a good place. The day had gone well. Karen had worked out great. The couple next door would stop for a minute or two and then be back at it. "That guy is a stallion." The design process wasn't going to be easy, but we were off to a good start with the photoshoot. As I drifted off to sleep, the bed board was still crashing against the wall next door. As it turns out, Jimmy wasn't strangling the girl.

The limo picked me up early Sunday morning. The Strip was quiet. Part of me wished I was staying a bit longer, but the sensible part of me was glad to be heading home to my family and the real world. It was going to be strange to have been part of such a grand operation in Los Angeles and then design the final artwork in down-to-earth New Hampshire. I called Phil from my layover in Nashville. He never made it out. His flight had been cancelled. He was staying a few extra days. He was going to film some footage of Karen to use in a video. I got into Boston and the snow had just started. I took an empty bus to Concord and drove home through the snow from there. What a weekend.

Louis XIV vs. Wal-mart
Later the next week Phil emailed me some images to work with. They weren't necessarily the images we were looking for. I had a hard time knowing which direction to go in without knowing everything we had. I knew we had a lot, but I just didn't know for sure. I came up with a few ideas with the images that Phil sent. It didn't really work. I can't be sure, but I think Phil wanted to be a more a part of the design process than we were going to be comfortable with. We really just wanted to see all the images and go from there. We just wanted to know what we were working with. It was impractical, because he had so many images. He ended up sending me a hard drive with everything. There was an overwhelming amount. I didn't know where to start. It was tough to go through them all. I created a webpage with thumbnails of everything. I quickly mocked up about 8 rough cover ideas. I wanted to get everyone on the same page before I dove too hard into an empty swimming pool. We were gravitating toward the Helmet Newton style photo that Phil had taken.

I was a bit nervous that it was so close to original. I was more into an image of Karen that had her nude flipping a light switch. She was standing against a green painted wall. There was something about the way she was flipping the switch that seemed appropriate. As if she was turning the switch of a new sound. One major problem was that she was very nude. There was a version of the same photo that was from the back that could work, but it didn't look like a natural pose. The one we liked was a side view that wouldn't pass the Wal-Mart test. At this point I really wasn't sure what would pass the Wal-Mart test. When an album design has the possibility of being controversial, sexy, or otherwise questionable, Atlantic (I'm sure all the major labels are the same) presents the artwork to representatives of stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, etc. I think there are 8 retailers like that. The stores approve or deny the artwork. It doesn't mean you can't do the artwork, they just won't sell it. Atlantic likes to get all the representatives to sign off. You can expect a lag in sales if they don't. As it turns out, the majority of the CDs in the US are sold through these outlets. The middle of America is dotted with Wal-Marts like they're schools. I never thought to go buy a CD at a Wal-Mart or Target, but for some people that may be the only option. The question was how far we could push the art and still pass the censors test. I knew we would attempt to push the envelope as far as we could, and I knew Atlantic was going to push back.

The band still hadn't decided on a title. It was going to be tough to work without it. Somehow we got them to decide on The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, taken from "Pledge of Allegiance." We went through a series of ideas using an image of Karen's naked back in the shower on the cover. We also tried similar ideas with a version where the song titles were written on her skin for the back cover. Jason wanted big, bold titling on the cover. He wanted it to look like a sister to the Illegal Tender cover. I did a few versions like that, but it seemed too heavy. I moved the image with the writing on her back to the cover and it really worked. What had seemed like a strange idea at the photo shoot ended up being perfect. The song titles would still be on the cover like before, but hand written in the photo. Brilliant. I wanted the album title to be quiet. I wanted it to look like a vinyl cover that's been shrunk down. I used the stencil style "Louis" I had created in the early days. The font for the words "The Best Little Secrets Are Kept" is the same font without the stencil motif. The image was perfect. Phil had captured what we were looking for. It certainly wasn't his style, but it's what we wanted. Jason wasn't sold on the cover. He still liked the Helmet Newton image. I felt pretty strong that the image of her back was what we wanted for the cover. I put the Helmet Newton image on the back with the bold titling and he liked that. He wanted the big title to move to the cover. He wanted it to look bold on the shelf. It just wouldn't work. It needed to be quiet. Having a naked girl's back on the cover was already enough to make it jump off the shelf. I let Phil know what images we were interested in using and he was a bit surprised. I think he was actually a bit disappointed. He had put far more energy into the other photos he had taken. They were all beautiful, but they didn't work as well as the ones we had chosen. They didn't have the raw, simple power that this one had. He retouched the Helmet Newton photo and the image of Karen with the song titles. It was amazing to see the transformation. I'm not sure exactly what he did, but it was impressive. The image looked surreal. He gave it the quality of the images from the '70s album covers. All the hues are intensified and softened at the same time. Jason was a little wary that maybe it lost the raw energy of the un-retouched image, but I thought it worked well.

Atlantic needed us to finalize a cover shortly. We'd have more time to work on the back and the inside, but they needed to get the cover approved and out to different vendors for pre-sales and such. We sent them our final version of the cover as well as our initial idea for the back using the Helmet Newton styled image. I'm not sure they went head over heels for the art. It got a cold reception. I think they just didn't want to go to bat for it. They knew it was going to be a questionable cover to the vendor reps. The problem wasn't going to be with Karen's ass, but with the amount of crack. We were told that we may need to do two covers. There would be one for the independent vendors and another for the stuffy ones. We didn't really want two different covers. We thought maybe the Wal-Mart versions could be enclosed in a brown wrap. It could have the feel of something dirty or dangerous like liquor or porn. That idea didn't last very long. It think it died for budget reasons. They didn't want complicated. We were being complicated. It's the moment in a project were you find out how serious you are about an idea. Do you fold or hold firm? I was ready to fold, but Jason was backing down.

I got a call from Rob one night. He had just gotten off the phone with all the vendor reps and he had gotten them to agree to a cover version where he had cropped out most of the "crack." There would be a shadow of the crack. He also let me know that Atlantic wasn't going to be doing two covers. It wouldn't be cost affective. This was going to be it. I wasn't around my computer during the call, so it was tough to know what the consequences would be of the new crop on the overall design of the cover. These are difficult conversations to have. You have two grown adults discussing the pros and cons of ass crack. I always like to think I have an admirable level of integrity and sensitivity. I've got two kids and I live less than a mile from my parents (not that this means I'm mature). I'm on the volunteer fire department in town (thought I'd throw that out as an additional argument in favor of my level of maturity). I like to think I have class and I'm mature about stuff like this. It goes back to what I'll call the "Spinal Tap" effect. At what point does stuff like this cross that line? Would this fit into the movie with ease? Probably. I try not to think about it too hard. I found the movie funny, but I also thought Big Bottoms was a killer song. I think there's a bit of theatre and mystique we were building with the art and I think we were on the right track. The problem I had was that without the ass crack it looks sterile. It's just a girls back. It could be the cover of a John Mellencamp album. The girl could be wearing jeans or something. The assumption of nudity was important to the crop. It also just doesn't' crop very well without it. It's just not an interesting image any more. I didn't argue with Rob. The way it was presented to me was that it was a done deal. The die had been cast. There was no turning back. I'm not the kind to question that. I think that's something I need to work on. Maybe it's OK. I can play good cop and Jason can play bad cop. When I told Jason about the call he went crazy. We had worked too hard to give up now. I think he was disappointed I didn't put up more of a fight. He obviously has more clout than I do and after a few phone calls we were back on track. It was agreed that there would be two covers. Ass crack and no ass crack. Fair enough. If you're buying CDs at Wal-mart, you probably have other things on your mind besides ass crack. In the end, unfortunately, it comes down to money.

We debated how many panels the cover booklet should have. This, once again, came down to money. We ended up with 6 panels. We could have gone to 8, but it was quite a jump in cost and to be honest, it really wasn't necessary. We really liked the image of Karen behind the shower door for the inside 3 panels. It worked really well, like a centerfold. I didn't want to mess that up with more panels. About this time, the band headed over to the UK to film the video for Finding Out True Love is Blind . There were still decisions to be made and I knew that Jason was going to be tough to contact. We can solve problems easy when we can chat every day, but having him out of the country was going to make decision-making very tough. The band left with the cover set and the back fairly well set. Nothing on the inside had been decided on. There obviously wouldn't be as much scrutiny about it, but there wouldn't be a lack of opinion either.

As soon as they left, I got the next tough call. The lawyers at Atlantic had been debating our version of the Helmut Newton image and decided that it was too close to the original. We weren't going to be able to use it on the back or anywhere for that matter. Panic. We had discussed an idea where Karen was actually cut out of the image leaving a silhouette in her place. It was a cool idea, but the silhouette wasn't distinguishable enough (see next set of images). It was hard to tell what was going on in the image and it just added complication to complication. I felt like we were trying too hard to make it work. I used another image of Karen's back that was straight on. I created about 5 new back options. There were all cool in their own way. I had a phone conversation with Jason from England after he'd seen the options. He was hesitant to have anything but Karen there on the back. Anything else, and it lost it's sexy vibe. That's where we ended up. Another image of Karen's back. We had to fit in all the logos and little text and everything. We also had to add the new anti-piracy seal. I was told it had to be a certain size and such. It's an eyesore. It was tough to design around it. I always look at the back of CDs and some people have managed to make it smaller. We weren't so lucky. The back ended up as a bit of a hodgepodge. If I had a chance to go back in time, I'd maybe do something a little different. I had a version of the back with cords all over the floor from the studio. I liked that one the best. It wasn't very sexy though.

A photographer had taken a series of photos in the studio during a final recording session in LA. I ended up using crops of these for under the CD. There were also a series of black and white photos that Jason had mailed to me. They had been taken back in San Diego. I used these to create a collage of 4 images on one of the panels. The remaining panel would be used for all the text. I had pulled all the inside and back options together in the band's absence. It was coming together nicely. It was only a matter of having the band take a look and say "Cool, let's do it." That's great, but it never happens that way. Once the guys were back in the States we were able to finalize the inside design. He liked the images under the CD. He wanted to change a few that had guitars that he didn't really use much. He didn't really like the 4 images of the band. He specifically didn't like his photo. He rarely likes photos of himself, so it's like an eternal quest that will never be fulfilled. It's the holy grail of photos. There's always something. So, in a selfless move, he decided that Mark should be the band photo. Add to the mystery. Add to the suspense. Who is this band? The photo of Mark is one of the cooler images of a drummer you'll ever see. It worked great. All was good in the world. Each version of the album would come with a slightly different insert. One had the image of Mark and the other had an un-retouched image of Karen's back. The CD face was going to look like a record. I bought a series of old records on the Atlantic label. I tried to make it as authentic looking as possible. Done.

The cover ended up taking on a life of its own once in public. It set the tone for interviews and reviews. The Best Little Secrets are Kept is apparently the first album to ever have a e content sticker solely for its artwork. The content of the CD is the same for both versions of the CD. The only difference is a little ass crack on the cover and back. That's an uptight country. A friend of mine informed me that the cover had ended up in the design magazine PRINT. He said it didn't have a very kind write-up. "Sexism isn't the worst thing about John Hofstetter's design," it read. They said I had blatantly and inappropriately mimicked the stencil titling on the West Side Story soundtrack. We also copied the cover of an Eric Clapton album. EC Was Here has the title written on a girl's back in lipstick with a similar crop to ours. The Eric Clapton album has a horrible image and is an unmemorable cover. I like Eric Clapton and I had never seen the cover. It did seem similar to the Clapton cover, but West Side Story? Come on. We didn't copy either. But this wasn't the first time it was called sexist. I'm not going to speak for the music, only for the design. I don't really understand the sexist claim. There's a girl's back with writing on it. I think it's a tasteful image. I don't consider myself sexist. I guess sexism is the act of objectifying woman. I suppose you could make that case. Maybe we are sexist. I don't know. Does sexy always have to be sexist?

Most important, it fits the music. It's going to the same party as the songs. It makes you think, How did they come up with that? As a designer, that's what you look for. Not just a cool design, but the right design. I can't wait to start on the next one.

On a side note: I'd like to thank my sexy wife for putting up with me through the process. It's not easy to have your husband holed up in his office with a nude model on the computer monitor constantly.