Behind The Artworks: Red Vanilla - Where I Should Be (2026)

The artwork for ‘Where I Should Be’ came together really naturally and ended up saying a lot about where our headspace is as a band right now. The title itself has a double meaning to it – on one hand it’s about acceptance, and realising “yeah, I am exactly where I’m meant to be right now, and I’m trusting the process” but on the other it’s also that more anxious feeling of questioning the future, wondering where we should be by now with the band’s success, and whether we should be further on already.

 

The cover is my arm reaching out, holding a bunch of spray-painted, multicoloured flowers. The flowers themselves are significant because each colour represents one of the six singles we’re releasing from the EP with red, yellow, green, blue, orange and pink. They’re all different, but they’re held together as one bunch, which mirrors how the songs all stand on their own but are all still moments in the same chapter of our lives. We spray-painted them instead of using natural colours so the cover art was super eye catching, and also just fun to look at.

 

Putting them against a bright blue sky was a conscious choice too. Our last EP (Days Of Grey) artwork used multicolour as well, but it was against a grey sky background, and that contrast with the this EP being so bright is significant. Back then, life generally felt heavier - we were all teenagers, trying to find ourselves, and had no idea what we were doing with the band. With Where I Should Be, there’s this sense of hope and growth that we really wanted to visually portray.

 

One of my favourite details is the “Red Vanilla” tattoo on my wrist being visible. There’s no other writing anywhere on the cover, so having that tattoo in the shot felt like we still got our signature on there. The image was shot by my friend Katie Nicoll - also a Dundee musician. I told her the image I was hoping for, and she captured it perfect. I love this cover so much - like I say, I think one of my favourite things about it is how fun and bright it is just to look at, even ignoring any kind of meaning behind it. I can’t wait to get a print out on my wall - I just think it’s a really nice piece of art, and I’m so happy it’s representing something so important to us.