By Royal Appointment ….
Ok, so you may have clocked the artwork on our website for “The King”. This was commissioned following another one of those quirky coincidences that follow this band around (or was it part of the divine comedy by Dionysus).
Andy’s long time friend Andrew Hancock held a house party which was attended by Andrew’s “Uncle Gav”. Andy had met Gavin Mayhew a few times prior to this party having previously admired his paintings adorning just about every wall of Andrews house. Being aware of their mutual interest in the arts, the conversation turned to the new album and would Gav be interested in doing the artwork? Naturally he was and a meeting was arranged in the Black Bull, Wolsingham (where DeeExpus were formed). Andy rang Tony to inform him of said meeting and had he heard of a local artist called Gavin Mayhew? “heard of him?” Tony replied, “I’ve been sick all over his carpet and fallen asleep in his studio several times”. It turned out that Gav, once a native of Wolsingham, was renowned for holding bacchanalian parties of which Tony was a frequent attendee. Tony was thrilled at hearing Gav was to do the artwork as his work is synonymous with Weardale and can be seen throughout the region (including just about every pub sign). This seemed fitting based on the King’s origins.
The meeting was held accompanied by a couple of cheeky beers and the general precise of the story was relayed to Gav. Some brainstorming later and a clear direction that we wanted to avoid the cliched and overused heavy metal look of knights, skeletons, blood, demons etc and Gav had a basic premise on which to create.
All went quiet from Mr Mayhew for a while until one day Andy sent Tony an email with no text and with an attachment entitled “The King”. Tony opened it with a sense of excitement and… The result is what you see here. Tony was delighted at the way Gav had encapsulated certain elements of the tale and is sure that when you hear “The King..” you’ll be drawn into the picture as he was.
You can see more of Gavin’s fantastic work at HERE
