Designer's Liners: Dumb Numbers II Cover Art
[Designer's Liners aims to shed some light on the nuts, bolts, and items of interest
behind the art & design of JNR records.
For this first entry, I asked Dumb Numbers frontman Adam Harding
to discuss the cover art for his new record. David Yow (The Jesus Lizard) did the layout.]
The new Dumb Numbers album features my buddy David Yow singing on 2 of
the 8 songs. David is my bestest friend and we hang out a lot,
drinking Budweiser, petting kitties, and making videos. So making some
music together seemed like something fun to do. We may or may not ever
do this again, but I wanted the album artwork to somehow honour and
celebrate this collaboration.
The Jesus Lizard have such a strong and distinct visual aesthetic with
their artwork, and 3 of my favourite album covers are "Liar", "Down", and
the split single with Nirvana. All three of these feature the iconic
artwork of Malcolm R. Bucknall. When I found a painting by Mr.
Bucknall called "My Bohemian Rhapsody", I knew this had to be the
artwork for the new album. It was just too perfect. It was like
looking into a mirror! I knew it was a long shot but I had no plan b,
so I asked David if he would mind putting in a request for us to use
the painting. The request was graciously granted while I was at the
JNR HQ in Indianapolis earlier this year hanging out with Dana and
Christine watching Big Business. A cause for celebration! Not that we
needed an excuse to have another drink. Malcolm said he would normally
not be so willing to do this but he had such a great experience with
the Jesus Lizard/Nirvana connection. So many, many thanks and much
respect and gratitude to Mr. Bucknall, and also to Wally Workman at
the Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas for allowing us to use this
most beautiful artwork!
- Adam Harding
