Storm Thorgerson - Taken by Storm

Emerging from the creative maelstrom of 60s London, Thorgerson was a member of the seminal UK design firm Hipgnosis. His signature style of sleeve art came to involve surreal and elaborately staged photographic juxtapositions in vast landscapes. At 64 and still working in the medium today, he is bringing a selection of fine art prints to Sydney in signed limited editions, which are for sale from $500 each.  

How did you select the images for this show, Storm? The ones I've chosen range from Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel up to the Cranberries, Muse, The Mars Volta. It spans about 40 years of work. God, that's a long time. I must be getting really old.

What influences you? I went to film school and I think I'm very influenced by film, in the sense of trying to get largeness, or breadth, into the image to reflect the music. I think the painters and photographers I'm fond of have all had an influence. I'm fond of Kandinsky, Magritte, Ernst, Van Gogh and to some extent Dali. Also photographers like Bill Brandt, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Man Ray. But it's as much to do with growing up in Cambridge in the early 60s, a time of change in England.

The nub of the issue is trying to represent the music. Trying to find some way to translate the audio into a picture or design. But the images come from all different places. Houses of the Holy for instance comes from a book called Childhood's End by Arthur C Clark. Dark Side of the Moon comes from a natural phenomenon. Absolution for Muse comes from a children's book by Maurice Sendak.

A prism refracting light doesn't seem to have much to do with the idea of The Dark Side of the Moon...
[Laughs] Oh yes it does! The connections are often lateral, or convoluted, because I get access to the band and can talk to them and find out things that you wouldn't know. Connections, theories, themes, preoccupations, obsessions that have been in the musicians' minds.

So what was the reasoning behind that enduring image?
It was largely because the keyboard player [the late Richard Wright] said he didn't want one of my bloody pictures again! "Can we have something cool and graphic?" So I did something cool and graphic for him.

I believe you went to school with Pink Floyd founding members Roger Waters and Syd Barrett.
I did, yes. I didn't really know Syd that well in school, he was two years younger than me. Roger and I were friends through our parents. We used to play sport together - we were very keen on cricket and rugby.

Your ongoing association with the band grew from there?
Not really. I didn't work with them at first. It was only when Syd went off the rails and David [Gilmour] joined the band that we met up and they asked a friend of mine if he would do the cover to A Saucerful of Secrets [1968]. He said no for some reason and I said I would. It was chance.

Ten-plus original albums and countless re-issues - such a lengthy collaboration between a band and a designer must be unusual. Too fucking long mate! They've been trying to get rid of me for years, I think.

Why haven't they? Maybe it was because we came from the same background we could speak the same language. They wouldn't have stuck with me if I hadn't produced the goods.

How has the music industry changed since the heady days of the 60s and 70s? I don't know that it's changed particularly. Rock'n'roll is still rock'n'roll, full of excess. The music business has to adapt for changing technologies but I think still there is a need for visuals: advertising, t-shirts, gigs.

So the era of the album cover isn't over? Well it is, probably, but don't tell anybody Nick, otherwise I'll be out of a job! I don't think so necessarily though, because even though the kids these days might be used to downloading, the tactile, touch quality, having something to hold, doesn't necessarily go away. Vinyl is having a resurgence.

How has digital technology changed the way you work?
It doesn't, because all the things we do we do for real. We only use a computer to clean up, we don't use it to create. We would rather stage events or build sculptures or organise a load of models, mostly because if you do it for real it looks better. Expensive though; sometimes dangerous, and often hard work. But it's more fun.

What was the most difficult album cover you ever shot?
One was [1987 Pink Floyd album] A Momentary Lapse of Reason, a picture of 700 hospital beds on the seashore. They were all wrought iron and very heavy and we put them down on the beach and then it rained, so we had to take them all in again and repeat the exercise two weeks later. But the most difficult was for a band called Gentlemen without Weapons. They had an album called Transmissions [1988]. That was people sitting on top of 20-foot telegraph poles and we had to do it for real - pile driving and bulldozing. A complete fucking nightmare. I was obviously off my trolley.

Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy (1973), with naked children crawling up a mountain of rocks, is another memorable one.
A woman came up to me the other day and said she was the mother of those children. Isn't that weird? It was a very successful cover for us and a bit scary - in the 70s Led Zeppelin were so massive and sold so many records. We did great work and I've always been exceedingly fond of Robert Plant. A great guy. I think that cover would be quite hard to do today. You'd probably be accused of being a paedophile.

One of Australia's top photographers, Bill Henson, has recently been persecuted over here for something comparable. It created a storm of contr-  sorry, bad choice of words.
Yes, choose another one! Controversy is good for rock'n'roll, so the fact the cover caused controversy was probably good for Zeppelin. The accusations in America and Spain were such rubbish.

You even did the cover of AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap [1976].
It wasn't very good I'm afraid, but yes, I remember. I wish we'd done better or they might have employed us again. It was just an idea that wasn't really strong enough in hindsight.

What's your most recent commission?
We've just done a huge sculpture the size of a small house made entirely of suitcases. We shot that last week for a little band in Vancouver called Thornley. It's a great picture.

Thank you Storm. I hope you can make it over to Sydney.
So do I - I would like to see Sydney. Where should I stay?

The top hotels are clustered around Circular Quay.
Hang on, I don't have the money for top hotels. I'm not a rich man for Christ's sake! I would be if I got paid a royalty. Very rich.
 

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