This month marks the 50-year anniversary of the release of Sticky Fingers, one of the greatest and most notorious of the Rolling Stones’ 30 studio albums. The songs, of course, have been embroidered on FM radio for decades—with “Brown Sugar” stirring controversy to this day—but just as unforgettable is the seamy LP cover, which depicts an anonymous denim-clad crotch, an image arranged by Andy Warhol, with a real, working zipper embedded on the cardboard. The zipper pulls down to reveal another crotch in white underwear.
The album cover was a collaboration between Warhol and Craig Braun, who was known in the heyday of vinyl records as a designer of sophisticated cover packages, starting with the Velvet Underground & Nico LP adorned with Warhol’s famous banana print, which could be peeled from the album itself to reveal a suggestive pink banana underneath. (Original copies of the album can sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay.)
The story behind the Sticky Fingers cover begins with Warhol, who in the 1960s stewarded Braun, a working-class Chicago guy, from the mundane world of die cutting and print manufacturing to the hot houses of rock and roll, high art, and high society, which at the time were bleeding together into a new jet set. Overnight, Braun went from a printer of hype stickers for record companies (“Includes the hit single…!”) to socializing with Jann Wenner, Lou Reed, Elaine Stritch, Richard Avedon, and Salvador Dalí. It was heady stuff for Braun, who, after winning a Grammy in 1974 for his packaging of the orchestral version of The Who’s Tommy, fell into the classic 1970s pitfall of cocaine addiction. After recovery, he began an acting career, appearing in TV shows like Law & Order and Billions. (His son Nicholas Braun played Greg Hirsch in HBO’s Succession.)
What follows is the story, in Braun’s own words, behind the invention of the Sticky Fingers LP cover, from the identity of the crotch(es) on the album to the reputed source of the Rolling Stones’ iconic lips-and-tongue logo, which first appeared on the back of the Sticky Fingers album in 1971 and has since been deemed one of the most recognizable brand logos in history.
The interview was conducted and edited by Joe Hagan.
So Mick [Jagger] and Andy, in some club some night, were talking about album packages [for their next record]. And Andy said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to put a blue-jean zipper on a cover?” And Mick said, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, man.” So Marshall [Chess, Rolling Stones Records president] laid that idea on me. I said it sounds like a real challenge because putting something like that on the cover could easily do damage [to the record]. It was a very complicated project, and meanwhile, I had five or six other ideas.
One of them was to do a triptych panel of this castle that I think Keith [Richards] rented, a chateau in the South of France. So you’re looking at the outside of a castle and then you open it up and, holy shit, it’s the inside of the castle and they’ve got all this equipment and speakers, monitors set up and guitars and everything. One of them, I did a public execution where I had Mick’s head cut off and these two nude chicks in the middle of the desert reaching for his head.
Marshall had a house at the top of Mulholland and Coldwater [in Los Angeles] and he was taking a house at the beach, so I took over his house up there and it had a pool. It was really the cabana house. It was Al Jolson’s house. So I had a photographer with a waterproof camera go [underwater in the pool]. And then I blew up these heads of the Stones. This was after Brian Jones died [he was found dead in a swimming pool]. And so these faces were looking in the pool. It was so fucking sick, man. So dark. I couldn’t. I thought, Jesus…. I was cringing myself when I saw the prints. But anyway, I didn’t show that because that’s when Mick Taylor joined the band for Sticky Fingers.
One night when I was high—and I mean, that was almost every night. I had a glass desk in my office and all that was sitting in front of me was a Bambú cigarette-paper package, because I just rolled the joint, and I thought, It’s square. That’s a perfect package. So I got ahold of my illustrator and my mechanical guy and I said, the next morning, “Let’s make this part of the Stones presentation. Bambú Rolling Stones. It’s perfect. And we’ll do a giant cigarette paper with the Stones inside.” It was a motherfucker and I still kept it. And then when Marshall saw that, he said, “God, that’s fantastic.” And I said, “Well, yeah, but you’re staying with the zipper?” And he said, “Yeah.” So I said, “Okay, I’m going to send this to [record and film producer] Lou Adler.”
So I called Lou, I said, “I got a package for the second album for Cheech & Chong. Man, you’re going to fucking die when you see this.” I have to say, the first [Cheech & Chong] album was a motherfucker, but the second one, there were about four laughs in it, between you and me. But that’s an example of a package that would have sold without a record in it. And I did billboards with giant, 40-foot joints on them, “Do a number with Cheech & Chong.” I did buses. All the buses in L.A. had this 12-foot strip, “Do a number with Cheech & Chong,” with this joint. It was a huge success. I think it sold three, four million copies.
After Marshall saw the different ideas, the [Stones] were pretty stuck on the zipper idea. So Marshall says, “You know, Ahmet [Ertegun, cofounder of Atlantic Records, distributor for Rolling Stones Records] wants to do a sound session in the Century Plaza Hotel in L.A., where he’s going to play the album for all the promotion guys and all the salesmen all over the country, the regional guys, everything. I’m in the lobby and Marshall comes down out of the room and I said, “That fucking album, that’s the best album I’ve ever heard of the Stones, man.” And he was happy too. Everyone was buzzed. You know, the Erteguns were buzzed. All the salesmen were buzzed. And, of course, they’re going to be hyping one another, like I was hyping Marshall, but it was legit. There was some strong, strong tracks, “Bitch” and “Brown Sugar.” I said, “There’s four or five singles in this, man.” He said, “Yeah, there are.” So I’m thinking, They’re going to order a million.
Next I went to the executive V.P. of Talon Zipper. I was trying to get the zippers for nothing, because they were going to cost like a nickel. So I say to the guy, “You’re going to be known everywhere around the world.” He said, “Why is that?” I said, “Because you’re going to give me four-and-a-half-inch zippers and they’re going to be on every Rolling Stones record.” And he said, “We’re already known.” So I said, “You’ll be known doubly, triply. It’ll be much bigger.” He said, “I don’t think you understand, sir, but our customers are not people who buy records. They’re the garment industry. And we already have all of that. So me, no, I’m not going to go for it.”
So we had to go everywhere in the world to find the zippers, but we eventually did: Cort zippers, a nickel less than Talon.
Then I got [Warhol’s] Polaroids from the Factory. He gave me about eight Polaroids, because I had him shoot the rear end too. And they were all black and white. And really shitty black and white. I don’t know if you remember early Polaroid cameras, but basically there was no black and white, it was just shades of gray. So I had things to work with, but it was not art that could be reproduced. So there was a new technique at that time called posterization. Do you remember the movie Serpico, with Al Pacino? That [movie poster] was an example of posterization, which creates a high contrast between the dark and light tones. I wanted to have a feeling of denim, black denim. So I sent it out for what’s called a mezzotint line conversion. So we took those tones that were now black and white and made a stippled effect, like a basketball effect.
When I decided that the zipper could damage the vinyl, I decided to fold in a third panel [behind the zipper]. I told Andy, “I want you to get that same [model] and do a shot of the tighty-whities from the middle of his stomach, down to his legs. And I want to do it in color, so if somebody opens a zipper, they see the pants and the flesh.” So he said, “Oh, that’s a nice idea.” I said, “And I want you to get the same guy.” But I don’t think he did. Fred Hughes [Warhol’s business manager] told me the guy that’s on the front of that album is Corey Grant Tippin. He’s the guy on the front. He was a makeup guy. A sweet, very handsome gay guy, one of the guys that hung out at the Factory. And Andy told me he shot two or three guys. But it was Corey’s pictures that he thought were the best because he dressed right and he had very tight jeans. In those days, girls wouldn’t even wear underwear. They wouldn’t. They’d have slacks on because they’d say they show the ridge, so they would just put Kleenex on their crotches. And I did too. I didn’t wear underwear. Everything was very tight. So this guy was probably a little bit aroused or something, or maybe he was that big. I don’t know.
Now, I think the inside guy—this is about 90%—was one of the editors at Interview, a guy named Glenn O’Brien. I think it’s Corey Tippin on the front and back cover, and Glenn O’Brien [on the inside in the underwear]. I don’t know whether Corey was missing that day, but I did hear that Andy called Glenn O’Brien to come in and he shot that underwear shot. And so I think it’s him. People think it’s [Warhol film star] Joe Dallesandro. They thought it was Mick. Even thought it was me, some people. But I wanted it to be ambiguous because I said, “If girls think that that’s Mick’s dick, we’re going to sell more albums.” I was always thinking about selling. That’s why I said, “Andy, I got to put your stamp on the inside. I want your name. So when people open it, they see ‘Andy Warhol.’ Then people will get a piece of art, you know?”
I decided when I saw the [Warhol] stamp at the Factory, I said, “I’m going to do a stamp on the belt.” And so I got two stamps made, one of them said, “The Rolling Stones,” the other one, “Sticky Fingers.” And it was small up at the top. And I was telling Marshall, “Look, you mentioned that some kid in an art school is working on a logo for Mick?” And he said, “Yeah.” So I said, “I need that, Marshall. Get the logo.” He says, “I can’t get involved with that, man. You want me to come between Mick and this kid?” [The “kid” was John Pasche, the designer officially credited with the Rolling Stones lips-and-tongue logo; he reportedly sold his copyright to the Stones for 26,000 British pounds in 1984.] I said, “I need the artwork. I got to have it.” I was screaming at him.
I said, “Marshall, have you seen a sketch or anything?” He said, “Well, you know, the guy is just doing black-and-white artwork. It’s not finished. But I did get a stamp.” So he sends this thing and it’s the overall shape of [the Stones logo], the lips, and then I can see this bulbous tongue, but it’s like a squashed-out image. So when I saw it, I said, “Marshall, this is not helping me at all.” But then I remembered getting a book in London from a guy named Alan Aldridge. He was an illustrator and he did a book called [The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics]. And I remember this one illustration for “Day Tripper,” and it was a girl, this cute little blond girl, and she was eating a lollipop or a popsicle. And she had her huge tongue out and the lip outline. That was like magic for me. I said, We can do it now. So I got my guy down, the illustrator guy, Walter Velez was his name. We combined the two in a salad, like a design salad. So I went through maybe six different iterations of that logo.
I didn’t show [the design] to anybody. I wanted it to be dramatic. I wanted it to be a surprise. So I called Marshall, I said, “When will you and Mick be in the same place? Because I’m going to send somebody with the original mechanical artwork [for the cover].” He says, “Tomorrow! He’s going to be here tomorrow at noon time.” So I said, “I’ll have my guy go to the airport tonight and bring this case of mechanicals for you guys to approve.” And I told this kid, Mark, I said, “If they say anything about the logo, say, ‘I don’t know, Craig just told me to bring this to you.’ You don’t know shit and don’t offer any opinions about anything. Don’t even say it’s great or it looks good. Let them respond to this. Let them look for what’s wrong with it. As soon as they say it’s okay, initial it, have them initial it, get on the fucking plane, and come back.”
So I’m on pins and needles because I think Mick is going to say, “What’s this logo, this doesn’t look like the one that the guy showed me, the sketches and everything. This doesn’t look like it.” What I care about is whether Mick is upset and he tells Marshall, “Your friend is not going to produce the package, fuck him.” So all of a sudden I’m saying goodbye to a quarter of a million dollars. That’s what I would have made on it initially. I made more than that on it.
So Mark calls me from the airport and says, “I’m coming back—it’s okay!”
I was dancing around my office, man. So we had an okay on all the artwork and they love it. They loved it! So, long story short is, Andy was paid $4,000. I think Atlantic wrote the check. But I remember the price for the Polaroids was four g’s. Anyway, I probably made no less than $300,000 on it, but I also had 20 people working for me.
But then after all that, there was a production problem with the zipper. When you have a zipper pull, there’s a round thing that holds the pull, and that’s why I had those corrugated inserts made. But what I didn’t anticipate was, they put something like 25 albums in each box, and they stack these boxes in the trucks. I never thought about that, but a truck is riding hundreds of miles and these boxes are weighing heavily. The back of the zipper handle was damaging the “Sister Morphine” track on side two. All of a sudden, I get a call from [Atlantic partner] Nesuhi Ertegun’s assistant and he says, “Craig, we’ve shipped out over 50,000 already and we’re getting a lot of complaints. A lot of them are damaged.”
I said, “They can’t be damaged, man. I put corrugated [cardboard] between the albums.” He said, “No, they’re damaged and Nesuhi says he’s going to put you out of business.” I said, “Put me out of business for what?” He says, “Because he told you that we should be printing that zipper on there.” I said, “I know, I had that discussion with him, but I said Mick wants the zipper, Marshall wants the zipper, the Stones want the zipper, and that’s the deal they made with Ahmet. So tell Nesuhi that’s the deal. It’s nothing to do with me.” He says, “He thinks you sold them on the idea of using the zipper.” I said, “Well, he’s wrong about that. And I’m not going to take a bath with this.” He said, “You know how Nesuhi is.” He was a tough fiscal guy. He wasn’t physical, but he was fiscal.
I’m thinking, Have I been through enough with this? This is worse than my first marriage at the end. In the middle of the night, I’m still at my office—I’m an obsessive guy, that’s why I became an addict, I think—I’m thinking, How can we fix this? I’m playing with the zipper on this package on my desk and all of a sudden, I’m thinking, What if I pulled it down? I pull it down and all of a sudden, that nib, that round thing, is in the center disc label where the tunes are [listed]. Who gives a fuck if there’s a dent there? I couldn’t believe that I came up with that! And now, with the zipper pulled down, it’s even sexier, it’s even a better cover with the zipper pulled down!
I call Nesuhi the next morning and I tell him, “I got the solution!” And I described it to him. He says, “You think it’s going to work?” I said, “Yes, I do think it’s going to work. What we’ll have to do is extend the conveyor belts in these [pressing] plants, so that the glue that’s on the fabric that holds the zipper will get a chance to really adhere. And then when it comes to the end of the conveyor belt, we’ll have these little old ladies pulling the zippers all the way down and then putting the album in the shrink-wrap machine, and it’ll be a winner!”
He said, “We’ll try it.” We had about four or five pressing plants, and I had my production guy call and give them instructions on how to do it. It was like, “Score!”
So yeah, that package, it’s right up there in my own personal pantheon. It was nominated for a Grammy that year and I went. It was in New York that year. I was at this table of people. I had written a little speech, like 40, 50 words. I knew it was a lock and everyone said, “You’re going to get it, man, you’re going to get it.” So he comes to the, “The best album package for 1971…Pollution!” I looked at this guy who worked for me, Ralph. I said, “What did he say?” He said, “Pollution” [the 1971 LP designed by Gene Brownell and Dean Torrence for blues-rock band Pollution]. I said, “That can’t be.” And all of a sudden I thought, I’m hearing something. You know what I mean? I couldn’t fathom that it could be any other album. I knew it was going to be this album. And I guess I was heightening the value of it because of all that I went through. It’s like giving triplets at birth. I was incredulous. I started to get sick to my stomach. I went in the bathroom, I was snorting some blow. I was trying to bring myself back to life. It was like the biggest shock of my life. I couldn’t believe it. And then people are giving me patronizing, “Oh, man. It was great. You were robbed.”
That stuff doesn’t make you feel better. I was really brought down by that, man. I thought, Jesus, that’s a stake in the sand. How can they not? I designed that whole package. I put in my life and soul into it.
At the same time, I was doing The Carpenters. Can you believe that? I was doing a special package for The Carpenters at the same time as I did the Stones and they came out two weeks apart.
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