Constructing the cover

Front cover stainless steel masked for painting. Click on photo for a bigger image.

Front cover stainless steel after painting. Notice the nicely organised work area.

An integral partof the Sacred Blade philosophy of album production is the idea of including as complete a package around the recordings as possible. As a consumer himself, Jeff always felt that the fans deserved more than just a cover photo and song list on an album. Bands who included extensive packaging, gatefold sleeves, and lyrics (like Pink Floyd, Boston and Yes) were giving their fans more for their money than just great music. This concept inspired one of the Sacred laws - maximise the packaging on Sacred Blade albums.

This ideal is great from a conceptual point of view, but reality enters when you are the one who has to pay for the development of this packaging, which not only adds to the cost of the production of the album (more film, more colour separations, higher typesetting costs), but also affects the end product in extra printing and shipping costs (twice the amount of printing and material to print on, only half the number of disks fit in the same box). For this reason, the release of gatefold albums has usually been limited to major label artists, and then usually on a follow up release. It is extremely rare for a band to release gatefold packaging on a debut album, and record companies are quick to discourage this type of packaging, as we were to find out.

As production of the debut album got underway, the cover design was being conceptualized. The band had entered the studio in 1984 under a contract with Roadrunner Records. When label president Cees Wessels flew in from Copenhagen to discuss the progress of the recording in early 1985, Jeff presented the initial draft for the Of the Sun + Moon cover artwork, explaining that the band wished to package the album in a gatefold sleeve. There was disagreement in the presentation of the album; Roadrunner thought the album title should be "Master of the Sun", and that the artwork should be more "heavy metal", perhaps something more like a monk with an axe (Ironically, this very concept had been developed five years earlier for Jeff's original band Battleaxe). Jeff felt that Sacred Blade needed a more progressive cover, one less confined to the metal genre. The gatefold sleeve was also rejected due to the increased cost of production, and the fact that no other band had a gatefold debut album (which was why Jeff insisted on it). With both parties unwilling to compromise on their positions, it was mutually agreed that the contract should be set aside.

Jeopardy answer: Jeff's final cover.

Production continued throughout 1985, and Jeff continued to develop the gatefold album concept. He brought school friend Ken Wuschke on board to do the album typsetting. He also enlisted the talents of Kieth Manning, (who had previously supplied the band with a rehearsal space and acted as roadie) who created matted stainless steel artwork as a hobby. After Jeff did the layout for the outside cover on two sheets of masked stainless steel (for complete details on the cover creation see Folding Space in Commandscript Volume 5), Kieth set about cutting out the logos and creating the masks which Jeff was to use (see sidebar for descriptions of the cover elements). Jeff created the oil paintings he needed, and applied the outer space treatment to the stainless steel masks.

Meanwhile, management was negotiating with Enigma Records, who expressed interest after the Roadrunner deal was cancelled. Here too we found resistance to the packaging, which by this point Jeff was insisting on. Several months later we began talking to Black Dragon Records in France. They, though resistant to the idea, were finally convinced to go along with the gatefold packaging (this was the one of the main factors in our descision to sign with the label). What happened after that is another story. If you insist on knowing more, the story continues...