Question
Scorpion,
I was checking out the new Headcrusher art and it looked very familiar to me but I couldn't quite place it.=C 2 Then it hit me. It resembles the art from The Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I by Helloween. I was wondering if the artists was influenced by that album, if its the same guy, or was just sheer coincidence. Either way, it looks rockin!
Rock on
Alex Dwyer
Answer
Hi Alex, I talked to the artist, John Lorenzi (United Abominations cover artist and more with Megadeth) about this today. This is what he told me:
"The device in the song and the period in which it was used along with some instructions from Dave Mustaine himself was all I used here. I agree the cloaked characters seem similar but only by coincidence and the fact that they all shop at the same "Cloakery" (I don't think that's really a word.). They could be brothers from another mother but they don't know it yet ;)"
Also, Dave Mustaine recently posted this about the art on the Megadeth Forums:
"This is a Head Crusher. The containers in front of his eyes in the image were to catch the eyeballs as they popped from their sockets.
The robed people were John's idea and represent executioners or a tribunal, I dunno?
Any other artwork pertaining to this song, that is not about this specific device and is specifically about a person in the device while it is being cranked down on his head, forcing his brain to squirt gray oozing brain matter out his ears, and his teeth exploding and all of his head splintering and pulverized as the giant screw is turned over and over; sometimes the executioner would reverse the screw to cause twice the torment, and also hit the skull cap with a hammer to cause more pain.
I encourage you all to look up the head crusher online (you know how much I love to show you things and how great it makes me feel to know that I taught you something) and read all of the material that you can on this. I saw a poster when we were in Amsterdam, and there was a poster for the History of Torture. I tried to see if Dick Cheney was the Grand Poobah emcee, but we took off in the taxi before I could finish reading it. That is when the inspiration came, and I had no idea it was going to be for the Head Crusher. I looked up this stuff because I knew Iron Maiden got their name from a torture device."
