Chiodos' Brandon Bolmer: On "The Cover"

Chiodos frontman BRANDON BOLMER has a special place in his heart for album art, especially given his background in graphic design [see sidebar in AP 263]. Like so many other aging holdovers from the CD generation, Bolmer dreads the idea of a digital-only world, where albums no longer offer pictures and lyrics that fans can actually hold in their hands. “It's kind of a lost treasure, in my eyes,” he says. “I remember getting my first Thursday album, and opening it up and wanting to look at the booklet so bad and read the lyrics. It's just a cool thing to have. I think having great album artwork is important, because it gives the listener potentially something that they want to buy. It's crucial to have good artwork, so that person wants to go out and get that record, so they can cherish it.” — Brendan Manley



Some of Bolmer's favorite album artwork includes:





Norma Jean O God, The Aftermath

“There's a booklet and inside there is a photograph of this guy, and he had tree roots and parts where he has four arms, and it just looks real. I love that effect where you can take a photo and do crazy shit to it, but still make it look real. [Artist Ryan Clark] was nominated for a Grammy for that artwork.”







Between The Buried And Me Colors

“It's abstract and modern looking, but just the color choice was cool.”







Every Time I Die New Junk Aesthetic

“I'm a big fan of Jordan [Buckley, guitar/artist]; his artwork is amazing. I like that artwork just because it's got really good illustrations, and that's always something I wished I could do, but more of a computer guy. I definitely love that guy's artwork.”







The Mars Volta anything (Pictured: 2009's Octahedron)

“Always for any album, they have the best artwork for sure. Recently, they've been going with this one artist [Jeff Jordan] who does their covers, and it's like these surreal abstract paintings, kind of like Salvador Dali, who I'm a huge fan of. They always have the coolest psychedelic artwork.”









Circa Survive On Letting Go and Blue Sky Noise

“This painter [Esao Andrews] has done all their album covers [refer to the sidebar in Circa's story in AP 263], and I think those are great. I love the artwork for On Letting Go, and the new one [Blue Sky Noise]; I saw this music video that was like a time lapse video of the guy actually painting the cover that they're gonna have, and I thought it was really cool. I love it when a band actually gets a painting for their album cover.” alt