'Tis the season for recreating album covers, apparently. First came the reshoot of the Pink Floyd floating pig, and now it's the swimming baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, whose reshoot from three years ago is doing media rounds on the heels of the album's 20th anniversary. Along for the ride is the grown-up baby himself, 20-year-old Spencer Elden.
In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Elden (or "Nirvana Baby," as the CNN ticker identified him throughout) said he got the job because his dad, a Hollywood special effects artist, went to school with the photographer who'd been contracted for the album, Kirk Weddle. Weddle needed a baby, Elden had just been born, so according to Elden's unsentimental account: "They went to the local pool, threw me in the water and that was it." In an interview with Echo Park, Elden's dad gave more dadlike details; apparently babies have a gag reflex that ensured Elden wouldn't die.
Elden, who travels in fairly fancy artistic circles himself, told Lemon he'd never play the album in front of his friends because it'd be "too awkward." Also, he's fine with not getting any royalties because it fits the album art's anti-capitalist message "kinda well." Good thing Nirvana didn't accidentally rope in a baby Kim Kardashian.
WATCH the "Nevermind" baby, all grown up:
(via Daily Mail)