photo by Lyndsay Siegel

Man, it's one thing to tattoo your favorite band's logo on your bicep, calf or even your ass, but to have something like Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance logo inked on your chest is a major commitment.
Such inkjobs are prevalent at rock festivals and, of course, at Priest shows, but they're usually not attached to an experimental, instrumental metal musician who's more frequently compared to Isis than to anyone from the new wave of British heavy metal.

And yet, the mechanical Priest eagle belongs to Pelican guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec. The dude must love Priest -- either that or the tattoo artist wasn't skilled enough to do H.R. Giger tattoos.

Pelican are currently in the middle of a U.S. tour and have dates scheduled through May 30 in Hollywood. If you go and see them, don't shout "Freebird" between songs. Instead, cry out "You've Got Another Thing Comin.'" And don't miss the online premiere of Pelican's video for "Dead Between the Walls" next week on the Headbangers Ball Blog.

We thought we were clutching at straws when we decided to ask the Grammy award winning art guys from Demon Hunter, Don and Ryan Clark to send us some exclusive illustrations. But we figured, "Well, what the hell (oops, we mean heck). All they can do is say no." To our surprise, they didn't turn us down. In fact, with no hesitation they sent us six kick-ass drawings that haven't been published anywhere else.

We'd like to think we're jaded enough not to get too impressed by anything, but we were genuinely humbled that the dudes who do all of the killer album art for Tooth & Nail and Solid State Records and have designed covers for Foo Fighters, Chris Cornell and Will I Am, were totally into contributing stuff to our metal blog. Kinda makes us reconsider doing so many stories on really evil bands like Deicide and Gorgoroth -- at least for, like, two seconds.

Click "more" to read what singer Ryan Clark has to say about the six original illustrations, then check them out for yourself: Read more...