INTERVIEW ABOUT THE MAKING OF THE COVER ARTWORK FOR EXHUMED's NEW ALBUM "RED ASPHALT"

American extreme metallers, Exhumed, will be releasing their new album "Red Asphalt" on February 20th through Relapse Records. The cover's image was composed and captured on camera by the band's longtime bassist, Ross Sewage. In the following interview, he reveals behind-the-scenes images about the making of this gory graphic and provides information about the creative process.

This artwork perfectly conveys the album's suggestive title and announces an intense aural experience. What inspired the cover concept?

Ross Sewage: Exhumed was on tour discussing what kind of theme might be fun to work around for a new record. I was looking around and thought, hey, we tour a lot. We're on the road a lot. The road is a dangerous place and it's full of stories we could tell. Why not make a road album? [Vocalist/guitarist] Matt Harvey chimed in, talking about all the campy old road safety films meant to scare kids with gruesome footage of accidents that we'd watched as kids with morbid fascination. So, that became our album concept and it was a natural idea to depict a gore-filled auto wreck for the album cover. 

We'd been speaking for years about going back to doing some horrific photo-based artwork like our first and second records. I was delighted to dust off my old camera and throw some guts around. Matt drew me up an image of a long road reaching to the horizon, littered with car parts and bodies. My own pragmatism whittled down that idea a little. Once I'd found a place that made accurate historical license plates and I'd scouted locations, I knew exactly how the cover would look to depict a gruesome wreck with the driver tossed out and disemboweled. 

How did you become in charge of creating the cover artwork? 

Ross Sewage: We've worked with a lot of amazing cover artists through the years, but when it comes to depicting photo realistic gore, the band agreed that I'd be the best bet to deliver the goods to ourselves. I'd been doing special effects make-up and taking pictures of guts for Exhumed covers since the middle 1990s and up to the first album. After that, I did all the photography for the horror-ridden covers of the other band I play in, Impaled. Stretching beyond the realm of bloodied scenes of violence, I'd also done cover photos for a black metal band I used to play in called Ludicra. The photos for Ludicra were of a more surreal nature and heavily influenced by the work of the art design group known as Hipgnosis, but it still employed the same old use of lighting and visual design to draw in a viewer through a record cover. Most importantly, I'm the only member of the band with a real camera! 

This artwork is photography-based. Apart from the logo and the album's title, all the elements/props shown on this image were capture on camera. Can you comment about it? What inspired you to use photography? 

Ross Sewage: The cover for Exhumed's "Red Asphalt" is just a one-take photo. To create the scene, I scouted a section of road that was partially closed near the old naval base in Alameda, CA. I liked it because it would have a clear view of the sky. I waited till dusk to capture the image so that it could be lit how I wanted, using some portable battery powered lights, and to get the fiery sky as the sun set. 

The severed hand was a gift from Canadian special effects artist Kyle Huculak. The license plate was ordered online. All the car parts were pieces were from actual auto wrecks that had been left behind in on the side of the road in Oakland, CA. The body is nothing more than a wig and a flannel I stuffed to give shape to. The real technique is in the entrails. Those were procured from an Asian grocery store. I cut away the Omentum and fill the intestine with water, tying off the ends so they don't leak. This is an old trick that George Romero used a lot in his zombie films that give the organs more life and presence. Spill on some fake (and some real) blood, and there you have your gore-soaked photo to piss off the censors. 

Any comments about the post-production process and the finished look of the official cover artwork?

Ross Sewage: After I had the RAW image, processing and a little touching up was done in Photoshop. From there I handed it over to Jacob Speis at Relapse Records, who was designing the album packaging. He did more touching up in Photoshop to add some vintage grit and adjusted the colors so it would complement the overall layout of the entire album. We didn't want to process it so far, however, that it looked fake. The realism is part of the horror. In this day and age, when you can barely trust your eyes thanks to A.I. garbage slop being forced down our throats, we wanted to deliver the real deal because that's what Exhumed fans deserve. 

"Red Asphalt" can be pre-ordered at https://www.relapse.com/pages/exhumed-red-asphalt 

See more of Ross Sewage's work at https://www.doktorsewage.com/