Vancouver pop-rockers the Zolas released Ancient Mars back in 2012, but fans who have been enjoying the album for nearly a decade are suddenly seeing it in a whole new light thanks to a surprising revelation from singer Zach Gray. He revealed that the sci-fi-looking blur of colours on the album cover is actually a zoomed-in photo of his dead toenail.
He made the revelation on Instagram, instantly provoking a massive (and horrified) reaction from fans. Exclaim! reached out to Gray, who shared this story about the toe photo:
I took this photo with my iPhone 3GS sometime in 2011 after playing a 3-day ultimate tournament in brand new cleats. My toenail was dying, and the crazy colours must have been its way of saying "good luck in your endeavours." A month-ish later, I met our album art designer Andrew Huculiak at a coffee shop to go through ideas for the cover. I wanted something that felt like a Martian landscape. Beautiful and hostile, maybe a little hopeful? Everything we could find was a little too on-the-nose so we were rifling through my laptop and I showed him this toe photo as a laugh. We zoomed in and let the colours wash over us. We had our landscape. Some time was spent cropping it so there's just enough cuticle that, once you see it, you can't unsee it.
I'd mentioned this fact before but i think nobody believed me until last night it caught on on Instagram. People are shook. Some people are weird about feet — on both sides of the love/ick spectrum — and suddenly their favourite album isn't what they thought it was. It shouldn't make them love it less. To me, it adds a very human dimension. It's a bruise, and metaphorically that's a lot of what Ancient Mars is about. Things change, love ends and leaves a bruise and only when the bruise fades do you realize you miss the bruise too because it was the last trace of that beautiful time you can never return to.
Gross! Gray also sent us the photo and we can confirm that it's really something. But if you want to see it for yourself, you're going to need to buy the image in the form of a newly minted NFT (an NFToe, if you will). It can currently be purchased from OpenSea for the equivalent of $116.54, as of this writing. The Zolas are using an eco-friendly coin called Polygon in order to reduce the carbon footprint of their NFT.
Below, see screenshots of some of the many toe-inspired memes created by horrified Zolas fans.
He made the revelation on Instagram, instantly provoking a massive (and horrified) reaction from fans. Exclaim! reached out to Gray, who shared this story about the toe photo:
I took this photo with my iPhone 3GS sometime in 2011 after playing a 3-day ultimate tournament in brand new cleats. My toenail was dying, and the crazy colours must have been its way of saying "good luck in your endeavours." A month-ish later, I met our album art designer Andrew Huculiak at a coffee shop to go through ideas for the cover. I wanted something that felt like a Martian landscape. Beautiful and hostile, maybe a little hopeful? Everything we could find was a little too on-the-nose so we were rifling through my laptop and I showed him this toe photo as a laugh. We zoomed in and let the colours wash over us. We had our landscape. Some time was spent cropping it so there's just enough cuticle that, once you see it, you can't unsee it.
I'd mentioned this fact before but i think nobody believed me until last night it caught on on Instagram. People are shook. Some people are weird about feet — on both sides of the love/ick spectrum — and suddenly their favourite album isn't what they thought it was. It shouldn't make them love it less. To me, it adds a very human dimension. It's a bruise, and metaphorically that's a lot of what Ancient Mars is about. Things change, love ends and leaves a bruise and only when the bruise fades do you realize you miss the bruise too because it was the last trace of that beautiful time you can never return to.
Gross! Gray also sent us the photo and we can confirm that it's really something. But if you want to see it for yourself, you're going to need to buy the image in the form of a newly minted NFT (an NFToe, if you will). It can currently be purchased from OpenSea for the equivalent of $116.54, as of this writing. The Zolas are using an eco-friendly coin called Polygon in order to reduce the carbon footprint of their NFT.
Below, see screenshots of some of the many toe-inspired memes created by horrified Zolas fans.
