Album out 24 June 2022 / BMG
I had travelled down to Eden to catch up with the boys while they were writing the album. It was the first time I had been amongst it in person while the writing was and demo’ing was happening. We start on the artwork concepts during this time while the creative juices were on a high. For me it was the best way, to be there amongst the energy and excitement of writing a new album. To be all together in the same room to bounce ideas is pretty electric. We always have great brainstorming chats but rarely are they face to face so this was special. We listened to the album many times over glasses of red and dinners made up mostly of Eden’s fresh seafood. With the sense of this album being super fun and at heart really just wanting create a good time. The artwork in Dunies fashion was to be bold colourful and fun to match.
One night Danny told a story of ‘Old Tom’ a famous Orca from the area who was around in the early 1900’s who was famous for his co-operation with the local fisherman. With Old Tom being a rare whale in during his time and the album born in Eden it seemed fitting to call the album Real Rare Whale. A title which was so fun to run with. I imagined the whale almost instantly and when I sat down to draw the process was pretty quick and easy knowing it was the one. Another character born into the ever expanding world of Dune Rats. It’s always a fun journey for me creating artwork with the band. We are all in it from the get go with this one being extra special as we made a bit of holiday around it together. This album has been my favourite to work on. I’m super proud of it and can’t wait for everyone to enjoy it.
Concept for this cover art was inspired by Ed Hawkins ‘climate stripes’ showing different countries and the worlds average temperature from 1880-2021. Created to resemble what might be a school kids interpretation using texta on paper…
Released 9 July 2021 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Artwork Concept / Band Photography - David Herington
Animated Vinyl art direction & design by Lee McConnell / Designed and constructed by Drew Tetz
This one is the second half of a full cover spread I created most of during the process of designing ‘Positive Rising - Part 1’. The initial concept of one whole apocalyptic landscape of day to night, was an idea of David Herington’s, DZ’s all round tour manager, guitar tech wizz that shoots beautiful photos too. DZ were round at my place one night after a gig at the Northern in Byron we were chatting and I showed them stuff I was working on for Splendour in 2019 which was much in the vein they wanted the cover art after also seeing what I did for Jack River who also plays on the same team of I OH YOU. So from there we shot the band walking in the their grey suits. Bunny Man (David) shot the photo you see in centre fold of the record cover too. I then began to search for the right photos to collage to build the Mad Max inspired scene. Some of the of the photos, my own, that I took on my travels through the top of Chile and parts of Bolivia. The bits of scrap metal, train skeletons and junk were from a train graveyard in Bolivia. With this album being the night version I used black as the back cover and background for the record design to contrast the white used on ‘Part 1’ as the day. Scoot below to see the full spread as one.
Released 30 October 2020 / Lovely Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Jeff Andersen Jnr
Styling - Melaine Knight
Hair & Makeup - Alex Ouston
This whole album, singles and all was super fun to work on. Tia had a strong clear vision she came to me with so it was an easy ride creating with the whole album campaign together. All all photos in Brisbane over a two day period with Jeff, Melaine and Alex. Planned out each look for each single and the album. Each single had a bit of a theme so I worked up type treatment in Photoshop along with colour and grains to pump up the vintage feel to suit. Tia had some cool references for colour and style for the Chrysalis cover in particular and really wanted to juice up the colour. It reminded me in some way of the Pulp Fiction cover so that became an inspiration in my subconscious while designing the cover. The reds and yellows in particular and in true Tarantino style - blocky yellow type. I carried the theme of neons glows from the singles through into this cover. Adding the Explicit and Heart logo to the bottom corners to reflect an old VHS style cover. Carrying this on throughout the record packaging. I love of the colour on this record, even more so when I saw the hard copy.
Released 31 January 2021 / BMG
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photos - David Herrington / Vorn Hunt
Vinyl Zoetrope - Tee Ken Ng
Cover Art Animation - Josh Northeast
The initial concept idea of the Rat running on a mouse wheel was BC’s I think. With our creative meeting heaps of ideas always get flung around it’s always fun and pretty out there but always brought back in to make some sense. The cheese aspect has been thrown around in bits and pieces of art and I felt it was pretty fitting in this sense to hit home the title concept visually. Hurrying to get the cheese, but he’ll never get it hence the waiting. The Rat I designed for a tee once called the Death Rat and he’s featured throughout a lot of the creative I do for the band now. A bit of mascot and part of the illustrated world I’ve been creating for Dune Rats over the years. He featured big on the stage of the album tour, a moment I was very proud to see all our hard work come to fruition. The fellas playing on stage to massive sold out crowds sends tingles down the spine. It was also great news to hear the album debuted at No.1 on the ARIA Charts. The second consecutive No.1 charting album for the band.
Released 11 October 2019 / Universal Music
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Concept - Phil Jamieson / Lee McConnell
Grinspoon’s Album ‘New Detention’ was one of the first CD’s I bought with my own money as a kid. ‘Chemical Hearts’ was my favourite song on the album too. When Phil Jamieson gave me a call asking if I would be keen to do artwork for a 20th anniversary record and tour I answered yes pretty quickly. Phil’s a legend, I’m thankful he’s been supportive of my art. We worked closely on the early concepts using his idea of a heart shaped pill along with my idea of a periodic table for the dates of the tour announce video and poster and other aspects of the record cover like the Table of Periodic Thank You’s.
Released 13 November 2020 / Independent
Art Direction - Woodes
Photography - Jordan Drysdale
Typography - Lee McConnell
I came into this project late in the game. Woodes had her album artwork sorted. Shot and designed under her wonderful eye as Art Director. We had been working on a little commission together for something else when she asked if I would be keen to design her logo which would featured over the record cover as a sleeve or sticker and used for future Woodes creative. We played around with charcoal, pencil and paint. I wrote many scripted versions of Woodes over and over. It’s one of those things that you just have to keep writing out, all so similar, until you find the right one with the right feel and aesthetic.
Released 24 July 2020 / Lovely Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Jeff Andersen Jnr
Styling - Melaine Knight
Hair & Makeup - Alex Ouston
Single artwork apart of the album campaign for ‘Chrysalis’. Another period inspired cover drawing from 80’s neon signage, jazz bars, golden champagne & cigarette smoke.
Released 22 May 2020 / Lovely Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Jeff Andersen Jnr
Styling - Melaine Knight
Hair & Makeup - Alex Ouston
Single artwork as part of the album campaign for ‘Chrysalis’. Artwork is inspired by Horror and Thriller movie posters of the 80’s. I did up a mock film poster to use as promo for the single and sell as merch too.
Released 6 March 2021 / Lovely Records
Artwork / Animation - Lee McConnell
This was the first single off Tia’s album ‘Chrysalis’ and released before we did the photo shoot for the rest of the album hence it not containing a photo. Tia and had decided this grainy neon feel would carry across the campaign. Listening to the track and running with the title I felt it sense of repetition in the beat which I wanted to convey in the art. Also as Tia explains the initial feeling of lust plays apart in the song so I thought the use of a heart shape where the title ‘RUSH’ pulses from was fitting. Especially when I animated the artwork.
Released 14 February 2020 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Daphne Nguyen
Styling - Lucy Perrett
Singles - Later Flight / Closer / Dark Star
This was a small little campaign for me having been shot prior coming on board. With all the photo content ready to go it was just some type treatment and layout design to bring it all together for vinyl sleeve, lyric sheet and labels. The simplicity is nice with the photos as the focus.
Released 30 August 2019 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Concept / Band Photography - David Herington
This is the first half of a two part series of album covers that when sat side by side to create one panoramic scene with the concept of day to night across the whole apocalyptic landscape. This was an idea of David Herington’s, DZ’s all round tour manager, guitar tech wizz that shoots beautiful photos too. DZ were round at my place one night after a gig at the Northern in Byron we were chatting and I showed them stuff I was working on for Splendour in 2019 which was much in the vein they wanted the cover art after also seeing what I did for Jack River who also plays on the same team of I OH YOU. So from there we shot the band walking in the their grey suits. Bunny Man (David) shot the photo you see in centre fold of the record cover too. I then began to search for the right photos too collage to build the Mad Max inspired scene. Some of the of the photos, my own, that I took on my travels through the top of Chile and parts of Bolivia. The bits of scrap metal, train skeletons and junk were from a train graveyard in Bolivia. With this album being the day version I used white as the back cover and background for the record design to contrast the black used on ‘Part 2’ as the night. Scoot below to see the full spread as one.
Released 4 November 2019 / BMG
Artwork - Lee McConnell
‘Crazy’ was written about the over consumption of drugs and alcohol and the circus that comes with it. Wear and tear on the body and mind and in some cases ending fatally. I took a bit of a more darker direction than usual on the style of this single cover, which for obvious reasons tells the story better.
Released 24 May 2019 / El Palmo Records
Art Direction / Design - Lee McConnell
Illustrations / Lyrics - Joel Tyrrell
I collaborated on the artwork here with Joel and Nat from the band. They found a photo of their older brother Jake riding a trike when he was 2 or 3 years old and wanted to use that on the cover some how. I suggested we do a photo collage scene. At first we were going to have him riding across an intersection with cars crashing and exploding behind him as a car with Los Scallys sits waiting at the traffic lights perpendicular watching the whole thing go down. We were a long way from a city to shoot the right intersection we wanted to instead we shot a panoramic photo of the Lakes Way along Seven Mile Beach in the local area we grew up. This would be the base of the photo collaged scene that would see Jake riding on the front cover coming from the northern direction with a car overturned and on the back cover the old Merc I shot the boys in coming from the southern direction towards Jake witnessing what lies ahead. I worked up all the photo elements in Photoshop firstly and then printed these to give to Joel to do his thing illustrating over the top. I then scanned the drawing in and we coloured them to suit. We carried this through onto the inner sleeve with another photo of the boys in the car from a different perspective.
Released 16 August 2019 / BMG
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Dunies had the idea that ‘Rubber Arm’ could be depicted as a literal character that finds itself in situations unable to escape temptation. We all know it. I designed the character you see here on the single cover being cheered on the have a snorkel beer bong. As we wanted to hero the character, being the title, I thought a good way to do this would be to set the cover out like a comic book.
Released 31 May 2019 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona / Dana Trippe
Holly AKA Jack River wrote most of this album in her teenage years after the loss of her sister Shannon at a young age. She found solace in writing. This whole album is from a pretty dark time in her life yet the songs are an escapism to a happier place. The Neil Young song ‘Sugar Mountain’ an inspiration and as Holly puts it the lyrics kinda some up the time growing up. Holly and I are close friends so the making of this cover was very special and a big task to visualise her story the way it should. The concept created the world of Sugar Mountain Holly escaped too. A glittery, candy filled teenage dream where she was viewing the reality of life through a drive-in cinema screen. On this occasion being the deluxe version we decided to use the cover of the original Sugar Mountain to go more dimensional, also showing that the release of the album was a big weight off Holly’s shoulders finally having out all her bottled up music. This cover being a celebration of a new chapter. This time round we were able to do a vinyl gatefold with more room to tell Holly’s story. A slide card also featured with a new track ‘Adolescent’ added as well as a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Sugar Mountain’. We also did a lyric booklet too. I’m super stoked with the hard copy
Released 7 June 2019 / BMG
Artwork / Direction - Lee McConnell
Band Photography - Ian Laidlaw
We decided to take a bit of a different approach for this one. We shot the band in a studio in Sydney with the idea to photo collage the rest of the cover using found imagery and illustration. The ‘No Plans’ concept was to show the band happy to stay at home, comfy, watching tele, eating junk food in their carefree sunshiney world that no one say otherwise.
Released 18 January 2019 / Sony Music
Artwork / Animation - Lee McConnell
Photography - She Is Aphrodite
This track is inspired by 90’s pop. Bands like Five and S Club 7 and songs like Len ‘Steal My Sunshine’ were amongst the references. The brief here was to replicate the graphic design of the times to create a logo for Sugar as a hero on the cover art pulled together the basic geo shaped patterns of the time. First creating a generic chrome gradient that was ok to leave my computer for the world to see. This gig was a really fun one. Although super simple it still involved a lot of thought.
Released 22 June 2018 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork / Design - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona & Dana Trippe
Animation - Lee McConnell
Holly AKA Jack River wrote most of this album in her teenage years after the loss of her sister Shannon at a young age. She found solace in writing. This whole album is from a pretty dark time in her life yet the songs are an escapism to a happier place. The Neil Young song ‘Sugar Mountain’ an inspiration and as Holly puts it the lyrics kinda some up the time growing up. Holly and I are close friends so the making of this cover was very special and a big task to visualise her story the way it should. The concept created the world of Sugar Mountain Holly escaped too. A glittery, candy filled teenage dream where she was viewing the reality of life through a drive-in cinema screen. This was the first time did an album cover using this style of photo collage. It is a very time consuming process saucing all the images, but the beauty is you can’t really plan too far ahead it kinda like building a rock wall you find the right rocks as you go that fit the right bits. This album cover was very much like that. A really great feeling of satisfaction once you hit the end. The book pages below show the lyrics of each song with a bit of a visual representation go along with it.
Released 20 January 2017 / Warner Music
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit was my first album with Dune Rats doing the artwork. We all got together at my place in Freshwater at the time. Nutting out the concept. The guys wanted to use one soul object to explain message along with really bold colours. Old pop art covers from the 90’s and early 2000’s by bands like The Offspring were used as inspiration. Logo top left and title bottom right kinda setup. I think it was Brett who came up with the idea of the ice cream cone dropped with veggies all through it. We all settled on that I think we nutted it all out pretty quickly in about 40 mins. I then ran with that idea to draw up the cover art and the back cover art too. If the cover was a close up of a dropped ice cream cone with veggies I wanted to show more of the situation. The back cover was the perfect place for this. Zooming out of the what would have been the situation, the aftermath of a kid who bought an ice cream only to be secretly forced vegetables, kinda like when your parents would hide them under or in mash potato or something, but the kid realising and dropping it and not falling for it. I find the back is great opportunity to tell more of the story and in this case perfect to incorporate the track listing into the artwork as a menu on the ice cream truck. We did a gatefold for the vinyl along a booklet. The CD had this also. Dunies had graphic ideas for each song that they wanted to have in the book next to the lyrics. I got the pencil out and drew up all those too, after inking and vectorising to colour and layout. I was and still am proud of this album. It got nominated for two ARIA’s, one being Best Cover Art. I was over the moon when I heard I got a nomination. It felt amazing to even get the recognition win or not.
Released 3 May 2019 / Independent
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Singles - Nostalgia / Playgrounds / Only Love / Only Sleep / Where Did The Time Go
Released 23 October 2018 / El Palmo Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Nat Tyrrell
Joel’s dog Frankie eating flowers with a splash of colour. No title on this single art. Nat spent the arvo throwing flowers up for Frankie who was jumping up trying to grab them. After multiple attempts he nailed it with this shot.
Released 31 May 2018 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona
Released 3 May 2018 / El Palmo Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Alex Knox
Released 14 February 2018 / El Palmo Records
Artwork / Photo / Music Video - Lee McConnell
I created some visuals, we grabbed a projector, the boys knocked up a quick white wall to shoot the cover for their single ‘HELL’. We shot it on their property deep in the bush with the idea to shoot wide shots to pick up the bush as well as close up to crop in for the video. Just after sundown the mozzies were out in full force. We got it all done in about 5 hours lathered up in mozzie spray. Funny I ended up editing with just the close up shots so we really didn’t need to out in the bush. Was a bit of fun
Released 26 February 2018 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona
80’s pop inspired artwork based on the photos Ashi shot on set of the Ballroom music video directed by Matt Sav. I created four film posters to promote the release of the video. Drawing inspo from the poster of the 1988 film Cocktail.
Released 5 July 2017 / El Palmo Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
The final artwork in the the trio of these graphics I did for Scallys. Being the album we wanted to hero the Reaper again front and centre. I loved using this colour palette which for me was drawn from my memories of watching the sick old cartoons of the 80’s like Toxic Crusader and Widget The World Watcher and the colours they used.
Released 16 June 2017 / El Palmo Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
The second cover of a trio I did for Scallys. Carrying on the Reaper theme. I drew up mutant version of the boys to feature in this Death Party scene too. Love the colour in this one
Released 31 May 2017 / El Palmo Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
This was the first of a trio of illustrated covers for Scallys. The Grim Reaper was to become a bit of a running theme across the three. The liked what I had been doing at the time with colours and subject so we went pretty bold and fluro in parts. These were super fun to do
Released 12 January 2018 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona
Released 17 November 2018 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Ashi Arizona
Released 22 June 2017 / I OH YOU Records
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Matt Sav
Released 25 November 2016 / Warner Music
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Released 6 May 2016 / Warner Music
Artwork - Lee McConnell
Photography - Nick Parkinson
This was my first cover for Dune Rats. I’d only started working with them the year before doing a few posters and some merch. This was shot in Byron by Nick at the Mr Simple yard the day before we started shooting the film clip for ‘Bullshit’. We got together on Friday, I spent the arvo painting new Dunies logo type on a blank wall we cleaned up while the fellas ran through the last bits of production for the video. The arvo was getting on but I got the painting just in time with still enough light to shoot for the single. Was a bunch of fun we had beers after then back to the Northern where I stayed with the fellas. As it always happens we were supposed to have a chill night due to an early start on set, but after dinner and a few more beers we ended up having a huge night and stumbled onto set to shoot. The day ended up being a big party. It was lots of fun with Kid Mac and Allan Hardy who directed and filmed the video getting heaps of good footage. Big celebrations followed, and that pretty much was the start the great friendships and creative partnership I have with Dune Rats today.
Music Video -
Produced by Hype Republic - hyperepublic.com/
Directed by Macario De Souza & Allan Hardy