Time to remember visionary album designer
Andie Airfix created some of the world's most famous album covers but is only just being officially recognised in his home town through a new exhibition
He was the graphic designer whose cover for Def Leppard’s Pyromania album would help revamp the band’s image ready for mainstream success. His work on a boxset for Paul McCartney was name-checked by the ex-Beatle in Billboard Magazine. When Metallica headlined Glastonbury in 2014, he was there watching from the side of the stage.
But although Andie Airfix worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry, he has gone largely uncelebrated in his home town - something his brother is now putting right with the help of Warrington Art Gallery and Museum.
“We were constantly amazed at these things that kept turning up in Andie’s life and Andie was as surprised as we were that he was getting a massive amount of work and respect from all these superstars,” says Tony McGuire, Airfix’s brother.
“He always said: ‘I’m really privileged to be able to do this.’ There were challenging times and it could be stressful because there were always deadlines. But he told me it was a pleasure to work for these people.”
As a teenager, Airfix would spend hours in his family’s home on Culcheth Hall Drive creating alternative covers for his dad’s classical LPs. Later, after two years living in the Himalayas and a spell as a teacher, in the summer of 1976 he ended up in London where his talent was spotted by the owner of Country Cousin ‘Supper Club, Restaurant and Gallery’ on Kings Road.
Christopher Hunter, whose friends included Danny La Rue, Freddie Mercury and Shirley Bassey, put on an exhibition of Airfix’s paintings inspired by his travels in India before offering him a job as the club’s resident designer.
Airfix wrote an account of this in a blog post in 2009, 11 years before his death after a short illness: “‘Chris,’ I said, ‘I have no experience at all in design. I wouldn’t know how to start’. He laughed at me. ‘Darling, darling,’ he said, ‘If you really want to do it, there are people out there who will show you how. Learn, dear boy, learn.’”
From there, he was hired to revamp the Blitz Club, where he became connected with influential record industry types. They included new wave band the Thompson Twins who, unhappy with the art work for their upcoming record Quick Step and Side Kick, asked him to design a replacement. It reached No. 2 in the UK albums chart.
In 1983, Airfix was chosen to design the cover for Pyromania by Def Leppard’s manager Peter Mensch of Q Prime. Airfix wrote in his blog: “‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘DEF LEPPARD are different to your average heavy rock band – the sleeve needs to reflect that. We’ve all had enough of tattoos, terrible pictures of half-naked women riding motorbikes and fire-breathing monsters - it’s all too cliched now. We need something different – more modern.’”
Sitting in Battersea Park after this conversation, Airfix was watching the ducks and pondering “What would really freak people out as an image?” What, he asked himself, would constitute an attack on our materialistic world that would be totally unacceptable? His answer, with the benefit of hindsight, seems ominous?: An attack on a skyscraper, with a weapon’s sight aimed at the building.
“Andie had this unique ability where he could talk to a musician, they could tell them what their thoughts were for a record cover or tour programme and then he could match that in print,” says Tony.
“That’s why he wanted to get really involved with the artists, as well as the management companies, because he had this incredible ability to represent the ideas that were in their heads.”
In the 1990s, Airfix teamed up with Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Guns N’ Roses to create artwork for their tour programmes. He also began a long partnership with Metallica by designing their Binge and Purge live album boxset. Other designs included the Live Aid and Live 8 DVDs.
“Andie had this ability of not being starstruck by people,” says Tony. “He’d talk to musicians as if he’d known them a long time.”
He made genuine friendships too. When Airfix’s mum died, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich paid for him to be flown first class to San Francisco to distract him from his grief.
“Lars often described Andie as family. He was not just someone who did the graphic design for the band. They really got to be good mates. They were almost like brothers and when they were together they were a crazy pair,” says Tony.
“[Andie] said: ‘I would never have thought in my wildest dreams I’d be in the same room as people like Paul McCartney, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page but here I am working with them and going down to the pub with them.’
“But Andie didn’t want any of the accolades that were thrown at him. He just said: ‘No, I’m the album cover designer. That’s enough for me.’”
The Andie Airfix Exhibition is free to view at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery from February 3 to March 31.
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Another View - Landscapes by Women Artists: This exhibition, opening in April at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, Wirral, will explore how women artists explored the issues of their day, asking questions about class, gender, politics and more through their depictions of landscape. Forty works dating from the early 1800s to the 1980s will include pieces by Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), Ingrid Pollard (b. 1953) and Dame Ethel Walker (1861-1951). Free entry.
Culture Skip: Uncover Liverpool has launched “Freecycle but for the arts” - an online hub where organisations, artists and creatives can donate items and materials they no longer need or request items, materials and supplies for their creative projects. Culture Skip’s aim is to promote a circular economy within the arts sector, fostering resource sustainability and minimising waste. More here.
Animal Farm: Ian Wooldridge’s stage adaptation of George Orwell’s novel explores the chilling reality of constant surveillance in what its creators promise will be a “powerful retelling”. It’s at Octagon Theatre Bolton from February 1-24. Tickets and a rehearsal video here.
Thank you for reading this edition of Stored Honey. Next week, in addition to your usual weekly email, I will be sending out my picks of things to see and do across the North West in February. As usual, this will be exclusive to paid members, who also receive a monthly podcast episode and full access to the Stored Honey archives. If you would like to receive the full list of highlights, there’s still time to sign up as a member for as little as 77p per week.
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Have a great week,
Laura
