The Chicago Tribune has posted a new interview with Storm Thorgerson, the designer of The Cranberries’ Bury the Hatchet and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee album covers, not to mention a whole catalog of iconic rock covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Audioslave, The Mars Volta, etc.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Cranberries: “Bury the Hatchet” (1999)

“The band, especially the singer [Dolores O’Riordan], was interested in the desire to bury the hatchet. The cover is a diptych. It’s an affirmative statement about paranoia, and the want to stand up against nameless authority — the capitalistic rich, parents, police. But the all-seeing eye of consciousness is threatening the man, and pursues him everywhere. He can’t get away, and the eye pushes him into the corner of the picture. On the back, he’s standing and shouting at the eye to go away.”

Facts: While shooting in Monument Valley, Thorgerson nearly got busted by the Navajo police, who initially thought he was being disrespectful but later asked for his e-mail address.