As both a fan and a friend of the band I am so stoked and grateful that they asked me to create the album art for Slightly Stoopid’s new album, “Everyday Life, Everyday People“.
From my perspective as a professional artist, this is a dream project and it’s been extremely exciting to work on this surf art painting. This marks the 5th album cover that I’ve painted and it’s been a privilege to visualize the vibes and talent of Slightly Stoopid.
Kyle is a good bro of mine. We shoot the shit pretty often about parenting, music, art, surfing and make time to see each other whenever our travels overlap. Our friendship made doing this album cover painting even more rad.
As both a fan and a friend of the band I am so honored and grateful to have been asked to create the album art for this album!” – Jay Alders
About the Process
Showing Kyle the new painting for the first time on FaceTime
It was really important for me to do justice to one of the band’s favorite Surf spots, Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. So I did a lot of research for this piece. I saw every photo and drone video I could find of Sunset Cliffs to get to know this iconic surf break. I even used Google Earth to find weird perspectives.
Kyle and I had a lot of brainstorming sessions on the phone. He would send me over some music that he was working on for inspiration. As I painted, I listened to the tracks in my studio.
The setting of the painting is a surf spot known to locals as “Bird Shit Rock“. I had painted a piece by that same name for the band for their 2016 San Diego show and the band loved it and wanted the album cover to be a sequel to that painting. The back side of the new album and the new single release uses a close-up version of that original Bird Shit Rock painting that I painted.
Quite often when I do freelance work for bands it’s crunch time and timelines are super important, but the band gave me the freedom to not worry about deadlines with this album art. That sort of freedom is super rare in my biz. This gave me the time to use oil paints and go big on a 36 x 36 inch canvas (91.4 x 91.4 cm). I went a bit wild with all of the trippy little details.
I spent about a month painting and when I finished it, Kyle and I FaceTimed. His reaction made all of the time and effort worth it.
Album Release
The new album pre-launched today, May 11, 2018 on iTunes and I was told that it’ll drop in July. The first track “If You Want It“, features Alborosie and sounds soooo good!
The original oil painting is available for purchase. Message my studio with serious collector inquiries only.
Big thanks to all of my friends in the band, the management and to the fans. I’m thrilled to share this with you and be part of the Stoopid fam!
Man this art really spoke to me as in 2013-14 i van dwelled and regularly went out to this same spot for relief. If you were around, I had the bike setup on the weekends at Robbs. Looking back at this view is really special to me and fits perfectly with the sound.