Jesus Christ Pose

I originally shot this photo for Exposure Magazine back in 1989.  It was a cover shoot with Perry Farrell, the lead singer of Jane’s Addiction.  We had done some portraits before we did this bed set-up.  Everything was going along perfectly,  Perry was great and back in those days I was shooting film, so we were going through roll after roll.  We got to the last roll and I told Perry this was it, 12 shots per roll…10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and so on, I get to the last frame and say last “shot of the day Perry!”  Like a crazy, unexplained moment, he just did Jesus!  I shot it and knew I had something special.

The magazine ended up killing the session and asked me to do a reshoot.  They wanted something a little easier, nothing too risqué.  The writer and I both thought they were crazy!  For fuck sake, it’s Perry Farrell! In the following years some magazines have published the photo, but what made it extra special was in 1991 I made a simple promo card out of it and mailed it to everyone I knew.  One of the people to get the card was Susan Silver manager of Soundgarden.  I was told that Chris Cornell saw the card and wrote the song Jesus Christ Pose inspired by my photo.  I was told that the song is about this image of Perry starring at you in his Jesus Christ Pose.  Fucking crazy!  For me, the image, the song and the moment will always be one of my favorites.  Having a song written by Chris about one of my photos is better than him writing me a love song!  Fucking brilliant!