Pete Alander and Kassu Kortelainen from K.K. Downing's (ex-JUDAS PRIEST) Steel Mill spoke with legendary MOTÖRHEAD cover artist Joe Petagno (also LED ZEPPELIN, PINK FLOYD, NAZARETH) recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Steel Mill: Can you name piece of your artwork you are personally most proud of?

Petagno: "Motörhead's Another Perfect Day. This was over and beyond the Snaggletooth motive and it stands today, 27 years later, as a testament of my powers of innovation and difference in repetition. More recently, SATAN'S HOST's Great American Scapegoat and SIGH's Scenario 4 Dread Dreams."

Steel Mill: You're perhaps best known for your work with Motörhead, starting when you met Lemmy in the late 70´s. How did you two meet and what memories do you have from that time?

Petagno: "I met Lemmy in '75. I had just finished the Swan song logo for Led Zep, and I was working on some sketches for their formula car which I was to paint. He had just fallen out with Hawkwind, whom I had worked with earlier that year, and he asked me if I would help him out with cover art for his solo project 'Bastard'. I genuinely sympathised with him, he was down and out…this was back in another universe, on another planet, in another dimension. I have a lot of good memories from those days, times change, unfortunately some people do too."

Steel Mill: What is the thing with you, genitals and censorship? Sacrifice has a great illustration by the way…

Petagno: "Ha…I just like to mix it up a little, provoke the status quotient. I have no idea why people are so upset about a genital or two, especially in today's media circus where sex and violence are the rule rather than the exception. With Sacrifice it seemed like a good idea. We all bleed / pray at secret sacrificial altars and utilising sexual symbols (yoni / lingam) is one way to depict this…and the mouth being an erogenous zone - why not twist the truth ...tongue and cheek - so to speak."

Read more at K.K. Downing's Steel Mill.