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Heavy metal art designer Krusher Joule has taken to social media to tell the story behind the “ridiculous” cover for Black Sabbath‘s 1983 album Born Again.
Joule is the famous designer of a number of iconic album covers, from Iron Maiden’s Live After Death and Japan’s Tin Drum to the iconic run of Ozzy Osbourne covers spanning Diary of a Madman, Speak of the Devil and Bark at the Moon. He has designed biographies, tour programs, and been a successful UK rock DJ over his 50 year career.
The Born Again cover, included below, has long been noted for its atypical garishness, making the story behind its selection a long discussed point among heavy metal fans, journalists, critics and historians.
Joule’s story, as posed on Facebook, routinely refers to Sharon Osbourne, wife and long-time manager of Ozzy, as “the hoofed one,” and includes the claim that her father, legendary rock manager Don Arden, threatened to shoot his dog:
“Then there was that time when Black Sabbath’s manager Don ‘Complete And Utter Fuckin’ Bastard’ Arden threatened to shoot my Heavy Metal Hunting Hound Bullseye which resulted in the band’s Born Again album cover. Actually before reading this you might want to make yourself a cuppa as this one’s a bit of a fuckin’ epic!!
The Black Sabbath Born Again album sleeve was designed under extraordinary circumstances; basically what had happened was that the hoofed one and Ozzy had split very acrimoniously from her fathers (Don ‘Thieving Bastard’ Arden) management and record label. He subsequently decided that he would wreak his revenge by returning Black Sabbath (whom he managed) to the International megastars that they had once been in the ’70’s.
His plans included recruiting Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, getting recovering alcoholic/drug addict Bill Ward back in on drums, get them to record Born Again and stealing as many of the fuckin’ hoofed one and Ozzy’s team as possible and as I was designing Ozzys sleeves at the time I of course got asked to submit some rough designs.
As I didn’t want to lose my gig with the Osbourne’s I thought the best thing to do would be to go to the meeting with Don ‘Gangster Boy’ Arden, the one where he threatened to shoot my dog and because of that heinous act I decided I’d submit the most ridiculous ridiculous and obvious rough designs for the cover and get the beers in with the rejection fee, but oh no, life ain’t that fuckin’ easy. In all I think there were four rough ideas that were given to the management and band to peruse (unfortunately I no longer have the roughs as I would love to see just how fuckin’ bad the other three were), anyway one of the ideas was of course the baby and the first image of a baby that I found was from the front cover of a 1968 magazine that my parents bought me as a child in order to further my education called ‘Mind Alive’, so in reality I say blame my fuckin’ parents for the whole sorry mess. I then took some black and white photocopies of the image that I overexposed, stuck the horns, nails, fangs into the equation, used the most outrageous colour combination that acid could buy, bastardised a bit of the Olde English typeface and sat back, shook my head and fuckin’ chuckled.
The story goes that at the meeting Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were present but no Ian Gillan or Bill Ward. Tony loved it and Geezer, so I’m reliably informed, looked at it and in his best Brummie accent said, ‘It’s shit. but it’s fucking great!’ Don ‘Robbing Bastard’ Arden not only loved it but had already decided that a Born Again baby costume was to be made for a suitable [little person] who was going to wear it and be part of the now infamous ‘Born Again Tour’.
So suddenly I find myself having to do the fuckin’ thing. I was offered a ridiculous amount of money (about twice as much as I was being paid for an Ozzy sleeve design) if I could deliver the finished artwork for front, back and inner sleeve by a certain date. As the dreaded day drew nearer and nearer I kept putting off doing it again and again until finally the day before the big payoff date I sprang into action and with the help of a neighbour, (Steve ‘Fingers’ Barrett) a bottle of Jack Daniels, the filthiest speed that money could buy on the streets of South East London and half a tab of acid we bashed the whole fuckin’ thing out in a night, including me hand lettering all the lyrics. I delivered it the next day where upon I received my financial reward. But that wasn’t the end of it oh no, when Gillan finally got to see a finished sleeve he hated it with a vengeance and hence the now famous quote ‘I looked at the cover and puked!’ Not wanting to sound bitchy but over the years I’ve said the same thing about most of Gillan’s album sleeves. He also allegedly threw a box of 25 copies of the album out of a hotel window. Gillan might have hated it but Max Cavalera (Sepultura, Soulfly) and Glen Benton (Deicide) have both gone on record saying that it is their favourite album sleeve, and I’ve even heard whispers that Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was a fan of it too, which sort of makes sense as he used a baby on the ‘Nevermind’ cover.
Another story that I’ve heard told about the sleeve, and this might just be fuckin’ evil, malicious gossip, but as soon as the first set of printers proofs were delivered to the Jet Record offices one was put on a bike with the words ‘Congratulations on your first born’ and sent to the hoofed one to piss her off as she was in hospital having just given birth to her and Ozzy’s first born Aimee and ever since then the baby on the cover has been known as Aimee, fact or lie, you fuckin’ decide…sigh.”
Born Again is Black Sabbath’s 11th album, and the only one to feature Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan on lead vocals. See the infamous album cover below.
English (US) · 