We get a lot of interest in the artwork we use for our releases, largely because it is all produced by Madame Psychosis’ co-founding member and guitarist Bret McCaffrey. We’ve featured Bret and his poster artwork in the past, but we figured it was time to do a deep-dive on his latest creation for our new single, “Hopeless”, which is available on all streaming platforms.

In his own words, Bret explains the inspiration and the process for the “Hopeless” cover.

What inspired the artwork for “Hopeless”?

“The artwork was inspired by the central theme of the song, which is overcoming a hopeless situation and persevering after the end of a bad relationship. The goal with the flowers was to capture a sense of hope (i.e., blossomed flower) within an otherwise hopeless scene (i.e, dead flowers). I chose flowers as the subject as a throwback to the artwork for our first album, as it really felt like “Hopeless” was also a first for us as a band in terms of musical style.”

“Hopeless” artwork a throwback to debut album cover

Explain the creative process for the artwork

“Creating the piece was fun since I had recently received a water colour set as a gift and I was looking for a good reason to use it. The biggest challenge however, was ensuring I didn’t use too much water in my application as it caused the black ink to bleed, so there was some delicate brush work required.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t the first time dead flowers were used in Madame Psychosis’ artwork. Rewind all the way back to 2016 when Bret used them in a poster for a show at The Horseshoe Tavern, as pictured below.

Now that you’ve gone behind the scenes and know a little more about “Hopeless”, we hope you give the track a spin. It is available on all streaming platforms. Thanks for reading.

MP

Artwork by Bret McCaffrey