Behind The Music

From left to right: Stanley’s trademark scarab beetle; the robot they stole from Stanley; Stanley’s plane, with the nude twelve-year-old who replaced him.

Remember Stanley Mouse? He’s the guy who did all the Journey covers, even that shitty Frontiers one. He’s also the guy who basically invented the idea of rock merchandise. He’s also the guy who did all the Grateful Dead’s art. You know what he has to show for it? Nothing. The only thing he’s gotten for all his hard work is a liver transplant.

VICE: You used to be the only artist in rock.

Stanley Mouse

: I was sitting in my flat in SF, and Eric Clapton actually called me from London and asked me to come and flame his Rolls Royce…I had some hash on my desk. The hash was great back then. I’m not big on hash anymore.

That was when Bob Seidemann was shooting the Blind Faith cover of me holding a model spaceship. Then they shot it with a nude twelve-year-old girl instead. I think that…that…

Hello?

Yeah, yeah. She said it ruined her life and threw her into decades of alcoholism.

Everyone dicked you over. The Grateful Dead invented that bear logo so they wouldn’t have to pay you, and—

Ed Roth saw me drawing hot rods and mice and stole the idea for Rat Fink. The Fillmore posters were all mine. I didn’t get anything for those because, basically—

I’m not done. You came up with the first four-color T-shirt, which led to bands selling T-shirts.

—but then Bill Graham sent in a spy and stole the idea and got rich.

Wait, I think that scarab beetle concert shirt made up half of Journey’s profits.

I couldn’t believe they let me write Journey vertically. I was like, “What?” They said, “Go ahead.”

Are you high?

Are you high?

What’s with the universe of those album covers anyway? Is it the future or something?

Is it galactic?

That last good Journey album cover is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.

My agent was like a frustrated artist. He always wanted to do covers himself. So I did this giant painting, and they took part of the painting—the head part of the big robot, and he took the head part and took it to another artist and had the artist copy it and sign away his rights. My agent actually signed his name on the artwork and nixed me out of the money. And when the record cover came out it was so shitty, the whole band Journey slowly fell apart after that— maybe not because of the record art, but it might have been the final blow.

That sucks.

I’m tired.