Man, the things that artists are going to go through to get a perfect album…

Bloodline Muscadine recently released what is sure to be one of the best albums of the year, Shipping to 16th Ave. I’ve had it on repeat since it came out, and there’s not a bad song on the whole album. It’s so good, from the writing to the music to the production…

But one part of the album that people might not think too much about is the cover art.

And Muscadine Bloodline half Gary Stanton took to Instagram to tell us the crazy story behind that photo on the album cover.

If you’re not familiar, here’s the album cover we’re talking about:

The photo shows Gary, along with the other half of Muscadine Bloodline, Charlie Muncaster, standing in front of what appears to be an abandoned building.

The building, which Gary says he found while sick with COVID last year, is “somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee.” And after the discovery, the boys decided to take pictures in front of the building to use for their album cover.

So about a month later Gary, Charlie and their photographer Wales Toney came back to take the pictures. – and I’ll let Gary do it from here:

“We’re there for about 30 minutes, okay, and it’s right next to this main road, and we’re like standing on the pavement, so we didn’t think about it.

Well, this guy pulls up in his double truck. He’s got a mason’s lodge hat, overalls, work shirt. And he starts swearing at us, and thinks we’re those guys who broke into that store behind us a week ago.

Anyway, he pointed a gun at us and he said ‘If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to put a cap up somebody’s ass.’

I have never heard an 80 year old man say “put a cap up someone’s ass”.

But we thought since we went through it that it had to be the album cover, because it was worth pulling a gun on us. This is the album cover.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t hang around too many burglars these days, but if you look at the album cover, Gary is wearing a tucked-in button-up shirt and Charlie is wearing a nice jacket. Is this how criminals dress these days when they break into abandoned buildings?

And another dead sign that they’re probably not here for any criminal activity: they had a fucking photographer with them. Did this guy think he was documenting his crimes for social media or what?

Luckily, this (apparently) didn’t turn into anything more serious than it already was, and the end result of the confrontation was the photo they used for the album cover. and a hell of a story to tell.

Everything you need for the album to be perfect, right?