From Oasis to Pink Floyd and more – we take a dive into who featured on the cover of their albums, and where they ended up.
On August 12, 2025, the death of legendary Hollywood stuntman Ronnie Rondell was announced. Film magazines paid tribute to the 88-year-old as being a “one of a kind” mentor.
Keep up with the latest news here.
Rondell had been a stuntman since the 1950s, appearing on films and TV shows including The Karate Kid, Days of Thunder, Waterworld, Predator 2, Lethal Weapon, The Crow, The Matrix Reloaded, Star Trek, Charlie’s Angels and Speed.
In 1970, he co-founded the Stunts Unlimited talent agency, supplying stunt performers for Hollywood films. But what is so interesting is that Rondell’s death was acknowledged by music magazines and publications across the globe.
This is because Ronnie Rondell featured on the cover of one of the best-known rock albums of all time – Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here – while on fire.
Many of the people who featured on classic album covers went on to find some kind of fame of their own.
PINK FLOYD: WISH YOU WERE HERE (1975)
Behind the concept of Wish You Were Here’s artwork is the idea that humans hide their true feelings in fear of getting burned. UK design studio, Hipgnosis, had previously worked on Pink Floyd’s albums, and this time chose to zero in on Wish You Were Here’s third track. “Have a Cigar” speaks to insincerity in the music business.
Hipgnosis’ co-creators Storm Thorgerson and photographer Aubrey “Po” Powell were kicking around ideas. Thorgerson suggested, “What about an image of two businessmen, and one of them is getting burned in a deal?” Powell questioned how they were going to do that, and Thorgerson simply replied: “Set a man on fire.”
At Burbank Studios in California, Powell took the shot of two stuntmen depicting businessmen shaking hands, and one of them was on fire. This was a particularly dangerous stunt – usually, a shot of someone on fire is full of action, but Wish You Were Here’s iconic album cover demanded the two men shake hands and be still.
Ronnie Rondell was the man on fire. Since the shot was taken before CGI, Rondell was set alight for real, dressed in a fireproof suit underneath his business fit.. His head was protected by a hood, underneath a similarly fireproof wig. Powell knew the stunt was an unpleasant one, but Rondell agreed to do 14 shots. “We were lucky there was no wind while we shot,” Powell recalled.
Worth noting: Things went awry on the 15th shot. A gust of wind blew the fire straight into Rondell’s face, burning off an eyebrow and part of his moustache. Powell told Rolling Stone in 2017, “his team jumped on him, sprayed him with extinguishing foam and saved his life. He just got up from that and said, “That’s it. I’m never doing this again.” But I had it in the can.”
WEEZER: HURLEY (2010)
US actor and comedian Jorge Garcia appeared first as Hector Lopez on Becker, and notably as Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on Lost from 2004 to 2010.
The album cover of Hurley was cropped from a real-life photo of Garcia embracing Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo when they met by chance during a TV taping. Cuomo stated, “No words are on the cover because all we wanted was his amazing face.” Fair enough.
Jorge Garcia, now 52, most recently starred in the comedy series Bookie (2023-2025).
Worth noting: At some point, guitarist Brian Bell claimed the album title was a branding exercise for surf clothing company Hurley International, which he said paid for the recording. Bizarrely, later on, Bell said it was “an accident”, even though Hurley International did end up creating a line of Weezer clothing.
LED ZEPPELIN: HOUSES OF THE HOLY (1973)
The striking cover of two naked blonde children climbing up the stones of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s influential 1955 science fiction novel Childhood’s End. The novel was about alien overlords who invade Earth and turn it into a peaceful paradise.
Houses of the Holy’s artwork concept was by London art collective Hipgnosis (who were also behind Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon the same year). The first idea – of a loud green tennis court and racket – came from Storm Thorgerson, reflecting his tongue-in-cheek comments that Zeppelin’s music was a “racket”. Incensed, Zeppelin sacked him and hired his colleague, photographer Aubrey Powell.
The shoot was a miserable one: it took ten days, from dawn to sunset. It rained throughout. However, an accidental tinting during post-production gave the cover that apocalyptic look Powell had been trying to emulate throughout the process.
Aged seven and five at the time, the cover features siblings Samantha and Stefan Gates. Samantha went on to become a respected actress, appearing in films Edward the King, the Water Babies, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Shades of Darkness.
Stefan became a food writer and a TV presenter for the BBC’s Cooking in the Danger Zone. The show involved travelling to “dangerous places” and trying out their food – including eating rats in India, radioactive soup in Chernobyl, 18-month-old rotting walrus in the Arctic Circle, and sheep testicles in Afghanistan.
Stefan hadn’t listened to Houses of the Holy until 2010, when a BBC documentary crew took him back to Giant’s Causeway and filmed him listening to the iconic album on an MP3 player. He commented, “I found the cover very scary. It was so apocalyptic”. Mission accomplished.
Worth noting: When Houses of the Holy was released, some stores refused to stock it because of the nudity. Atlantic Records wrapped it in brown paper to cover the image. Jimmy Page couldn’t see the problem. “Children are houses of the holy; we’re all houses of the holy – I don’t see how that’s naughty.”
OASIS: (WHAT’S THE STORY) MORNING GLORY (1995)
The cover of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory features two men passing each other on the street. If the cover comes across a little mysterious, it’s probably because it came from a quote Noel Gallagher was spouting at the time: “There aren’t ever answers. There are only ever more questions”.
“The idea was that you had these two guys passing in the street,” cover designer Brian Cannon explained. “You didn’t have any idea who they were, where they were going, what they were saying to each other.
On the back sleeve, you see one of the guys disappearing, and he’s going: ‘What the f**k? What the f**k did he just say to me? What the f**k was that interaction all about?’
Cannon had met Noel by chance in a lift in Manchester even before Oasis got signed, he recounted to The Big Issue. Noel glanced at Cannon’s Adidas sneakers, which he’d bought in Italy and were not available in the UK, and said “Alright, where the f**k did you get them trainers from?” Gallagher continued and asked Cannon what he did for a living, and was impressed when he found out Cannon was a record sleeve designer and had recently worked for The Verve.
Cannon explained, “So he says, ‘When we get signed’ – not if, mind – ‘you’re gonna design my sleeves.’ Then he got out of the lift, and that was it. That’s a true story.”
For the Morning Glory cover, Cannon wanted to make the first shot at first thing on a Sunday morning at 5am. Probably to no one’s surprise, Noel and Liam didn’t turn up after drinking all night, even though they were supposed to be the feature on the cover.
Cannon had to move quickly into Plan B and ended up playing the guy with his back to the camera. The other man featured on the cover is DJ Sean Rowley, and if you look closely at the background to the left, the album’s producer, Owen Morris, holds the album’s master tape in front of his face.
The street was Berwick Street in London’s Soho district, chosen because there were a lot of record stores there at the time. They took one shot at Berwick Street and wandered around taking more clicks, but that first shot was the one Cannon had envisioned.
Cannon went on to do two more Oasis sleeves (being a North Englishman and sharing their humour, he became close to the Gallaghers) and also worked for an array of acts including The Verve, Suede, Ruthless Rap Assassins and Super Furry Animals. He also managed the Scottish experimental Beta Band.
Worth noting: Cannon’s next Oasis sleeve, Be Here Now, cost $750,000. Getting the Rolls-Royce into the swimming pool took two long days.
BLINK-182: ENEMA OF THE STATE (1999)
Before landing on Enema of the State, Blink-182 were tossing up Turn Your Head And Cough, Vasectomy, Vasecto-you, and Does That Look Infected? for the title. But the idea was always for the album cover to feature a sexy nurse.
Their record company gave the band a collection of models’ photos and asked them to choose, and ultimately, they went with Janine Lindemulder. She went on to play the nurse on the cover, about to give the band an injection, and also appeared in the music videos for “What’s My Age Again” and “Man Overboard”.
What the band didn’t know was that Lindemulder was a well-known adult entertainment star and had also appeared in the Howard Stern movie Private Parts.
Soon after the shoot, Lindemulder left the industry to raise her son and planned to become a school teacher. What then followed was a marriage in 2022 to West Coast Choppers founder Jesse James – a turbulent one, with accusations of domestic violence, cheating, and a divorce when she was seven months pregnant with her daughter. In between stints in adult entertainment, there were reports of jail for tax evasion and a spell in rehab. Lindemulder has moved to Oregon and is active on social media.
Worth noting: The original pressings of Enema of the State featured a red cross on the nurse’s uniform; however, Red Cross, the organisation, told the band it was illegal for anyone to use it except for them. The cross was dropped from the cover before lawyers got involved.
