Behind The Artworks: The Rocket - Another Reason Not To Fear The Sky (2018)

Synth driven pop punk outfit The Rocket aims to bring a refreshing take on the classics they all grew up with. With a keen ear for infectious melodies and an illustrious live reputation, the band has played big stages such as Groezrock, Europe’s biggest punk rock festival.

After a break to pursue other musical endeavours, The Rocket are back in full effect. Their new album ‘Another Reason Not to Fear the Sky’, is proof of the reinvigorated energy and ambition the quintet brings to the table. The band is now keen to give us an insight into the creation of the album's artwork.

“It took us a long time to reach a consensus about the artwork for ‘Another Reason Not To Fear The Sky’ (the same thing can be said about the title, by the way). We have a history of having “artwork with personality”, so we set the bar pretty high for ourselves.

To reach the level we wanted to achieve this time around, we decided on working with a Belgian graphic designer called Ashkan Harati. His name might not ring a bell but he worked with Belgian triple A pop names such as Oscar and The Wolf and Bazart, and he’s a rad dude. We liked his style, so it shouldn’t surprise you that the end result of our artwork is just about as far removed from his trademark style as you can possibly get, haha.

At first, Ashkan came up with some really cool ideas involving literal rockets, rusted metal, etc. - but those didn’t really resonate with us. All of them seemed either too metal, too generic or too mellow. Around that time, Stijn went on holiday to the US and (being the rocket geek he is) visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They had a whole bunch of astronaut suits and gear on display, including prominent badges which were assigned to specific missions etc.

Stijn took a bunch of pictures, sent them to the rest of the band and Ashkan, and here we are. Ashkan made custom “patches” for all tracks (a wave for Tsunami, a post stamp for Postcard, a rocket with a shadow for Shadow, and so on), and we continued the “patchwork/stitching” theme in the lettering of the cover as well (and later in the lyric video for Die A Little). We’re really happy with how this all turned out, and we think the artwork’s at least equally emblematic (no pun intended) as our previous work, which was really important

to us.

Fun fact: there’s three different versions of the album, each with their distinct own artwork. Since all tracks have their own emblem, and there’s different track listings for the digital, CD and LP versions (with bonus tracks for those last two) you can see different patches on all three versions. We love little details like that!” reveals the band.