No Doubt, “Push and Shove”

No Doubt, Push and Shove (2012)
Interscope Records
Artist: El Mac (cover painting), Yu Tsai (photography)

No Doubt recruited LA based street artist, El Mac, to create the album artwork for their comeback record, Push and Shove. Frontwoman Gwen Stefani had been a long collector of his works, and he was known around LA for his surrealistic murals painted from his own photos.

He met with the band for a photoshoot in 2012 to shoot what would become the album artwork. His goal was to mainly focus on the heads of the band members to create the art. He photographed all four members and would use images to create his impressive black and white line-art style paintings.

Combined, the four would make up the artwork of the band’s sixth album, with Stefani and guitarist Tom Dumont on dark backgrounds, and bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young on light backgrounds. After the shoot, the band was gifted their own portrait that El Mach had created.

The interior artwork is quite different from the front cover El Mac had created. The interior artwork uses bright, colorful, pop-art style images of the band by Yu Tsai.