Ever wondered about the identity of the woman on the cover of Converge’s Jane Doe? I didn’t! I mean, the album is called Jane Doe, fer Chrissakes. It’s literally telling you not to think about it.
But now we’re all gonna be thinking about it anyway, because a French actress and model, Audrey Marnay, believes that’s a portrait of her on the Jane Doe cover… and her evidence is pretty convincing.
Marnay recently took to social media to share a photo of herself taken by photographer Jan Welters for Italian edition of Marie Claire and published in May of 2001, when she was 20-years-old. The photo is very clearly the basis for the Jane Doe artwork (above), released in September of that same year.
In an accompanying message, Marnay writes:
Hi CONVERGE, it’s “JANE DOE”
Shall we talk!?
🤔
Marnay also included photos of the image being used for merch and tattoos. My personal interpretation of this is that Marnay is saying “Hey, you owe me money,” but maybe I’m being too cynical.
Converge have not, as of this writing, responded. But it’s noteworthy that during a recent Decibel interview commemorating Jane Doe‘s twentieth anniversary, frontman Jacob Bannon — who also created the cover art — said of an oil painting resembling the image:
“Yeah, I heard about that. That painting was also a few blocks from our lawyer’s office in L.A. It was definitely a rendition of our cover, but it was meant to be an homage, not a lift, I guess. There have also been some other incidents. One high-end clothing company chose to use the image on a variety of t-shirts. They actually solicited my girlfriend’s old store to carry their items and she brought it to my attention. When our lawyer contacted them, they claimed they got the image from a poster they saw on a wall in Italy, to which I responded, ‘Yeah, our tour poster.”
The fact that it was a poster in Italy, and that the Marnay photo is from an Italian magazine, is kinda curious, but maybe it’s just a coincidence.
Regardless, Bannon continued:
“I’ve had that happen with other images I’ve made for other bands as well. The world is full of thieves.”
Then, bassist Nate Newton gave this quote, which seems destined to be fodder for Marnay’s attorneys:
“It’s interesting to me how the cover of that record—the Jane Doe face—has become almost iconic in the hardcore scene. It’s almost like the new Misfits skull or something—not that I’d compare us to that, but it blows my mind that we still sell a shitload of Jane Doe shirts. Go to a hardcore show and there’s a good chance you’ll see a kid wearing a Converge shirt, and there’s a good chance it’ll be a Jane Doe shirt.”
You can view Marnay’s original post below. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
Meanwhile, Converge will release Bloodmoon: I, a new collaborative album featuring Chelsea Wolfe and Stephen Brodsky, on November 19. Listen to the title track here.
[via Metal Injection]