BRERETON, DAN
Dan Brereton is the artist who designed the cover-art for => "Tambu". His story
on "Tambu":
A design firm entrusted with the job of creating the look of the new
album
and it's cd designs, etc, hired me, after seeing my work in a DC comics
project called LEGENDS OF THE WORLD'S FINEST. They liked the style of my
art and wanted me to do a "pulp" style lurid romance cover, like a 50's
style paperback, for the cover. They had examples of the kind of thing they
were looking for and one cover in particular stuck out. It had a couple
dancing in front of a small fire. We recreated the figures shootingphotos
of two models in front of a bonfire and I did two different paintings (
the first was slightly more passionate and racy than the second, but not
all that different). After that part of the project was approved, I went tot
work on the portraits of the band members.
I did 9 different portaits. Steve's portrait I painted three times and the rest I painted twice each. What had happened was originally the deadline for the job was like two weeks, so they had little photo reference to send me of the band. They sent me some pictures that werent recent at first, and after I did those, two or three of the band werent satisfied with what I did. Simon said I made him look 'too good". Dave said the photo I'd done my first portrait from reminded him of a "bad time in his life, he'd rather forget". They liked the art just fine, but I think were a little self-conscious of the possibly over-favortable light in which I portrayed them ( the designers had asked me to purposelfully make them look "good" , as they " weren't getting any younger", etc, etc..so I tried to oblige them. The record company wanted to package them as sexy older rock stars, and I think the band wanted to be seen as serious musicians. I thought they looked fine, like a solid bunch of mature rock guys, but , hey, I was just a hired hand! I did what they asked me to.
At this point it looked like they had a few more weeks to spend on the project, so they photographed the band in an LA "juke joint" and sent me several head shots from that session. I finally had the good photo ref I needed and I went to town. The designers and Steve werent happy with his second portait ( said he looked too Asian or something, search me) so I did one last version , which you can see inside the CD jacket.
The job took much longer than expected, but in the end everyone was happy.
They gave me the actual paperback that they used in the CD cover's
photograph, I have it on my wall.
If anyone is interested, all of the original art including the nine
portaits and two different album covers, are available and for sale.
They're available through my art dealer, Mitch Itkowitz. Mitch can be
reached at (914) 256-0952 or you can e-mail him at graphcoll@codexx.com.
The original sizes of the album cover art are something like 13x20 or
thereabouts, are very colorful and are not done justice by the cd cover's
Photo art. The unused cover art is much more exciting than the one they
went with and the girl is sexier. Theover all look of he unpublished
painting is more contemporary when compared to the softer version they went
with, but I like them both just fine. The portraits are all roughly 10x13
and also very vivid in color.