It is one of the most recognizable images of the late 90s: a distorted, fish-eye shot of a bikini-clad woman, legs submerged in a Jacuzzi, staring blankly up at the lens. For nearly 30 years, the cover of Deftones’ seminal sophomore album Around The Fur has been a staple of alternative metal iconography, plastered on millions of T-shirts and bedroom walls. Yet, the story behind the photo has largely remained a mixture of rumor and mystery—until now.
In a comprehensive new video feature by Jenkem, the key players behind the image have finally come together to tell the full story. The feature tracks down photographer Rick Kosick, famed for his later work on “Jacka**,” art director Kevin Reagan, and the elusive cover star herself, Lisa Hughes, to revisit the night the accidental masterpiece was captured.
Before he was documenting stunts for Johnny Knoxville, Rick Kosick was hired to hang out with Deftones in Seattle during the recording sessions for Around The Fur. In the new video, Kosick revealed that he had zero mandate to produce an album cover; his job was simply to document the vibe.
“They invited me to come shoot photos during the recording of Around The Fur in Seattle, Washington. Not knowing what it’s going to become. I had no idea that this would make it to the album cover, at all. Maybe that’s why it worked, you know? ‘Cause there was not the intention, ‘I got to go there and shoot a cover,’ you know? Like, just go there and have fun, hang out, shoot photos, stay in your lane. That’s what I did,” Kosick explained (as transcribed by theprp).
He described the band as being deep in their “party phase,” a lifestyle centered around a rental condo and a hot tub.
“They were kind of in their party phase stage of the band — as you probably should be — and so we went back to their their condo that they rented during the recording of this record, and there was this girl hanging out in the jacuzzi. And I just went up and took a couple… two photos. That’s it. Walked away.”
It wasn’t until weeks later that Kosick realized what he had captured.
“Few weeks later, I get a call from the label. ‘Hey, come by and check this out. We want to show you something.’ And the art director [Kevin Reagan], he was like, ‘Well, what do you think?’ I was like, ‘Wow.’ I was blown away. I was like, ‘This is so cool looking. This looks… I love it’ — of course, I’m going to say I love it. It’s my photo — But I was just really… looking back, I was just really excited because it felt right after all the mockups and everything, this one looks incredible.”
For Lisa Hughes, the path to becoming a metal icon was unintentional. In the Jenkem feature, she opened up about the misconceptions that have dogged her for decades, particularly the label of “groupie.” Hughes revealed that she maintained a friendship with guitarist Stephen Carpenter for years after the shoot, attending shows not as a hanger-on, but as a friend.
“I found those articles, you know, about like [me allegedly] being a groupie and this and that. And I was like, maybe I should just start a little page just about myself and so people know that I’m Lisa. I’m just this awesome chick from Auburn, and I like to have fun. And there’s no groupie action going on here. Just me having a kick-a** time, you know?”
She also addressed the scrutiny regarding her appearance in the raw, unretouched photo—specifically comments about a visible blemish.
“It’s a pretty cool looking shot, right? Like with the fisheye lens just looking down. You know, it’s kind of risqué a little bit with my breasts, and people have asked, ‘Oh, look, you got a pimple there.’ I’m like, ‘Who gives a s**t?’ What does that really matter? I’m a human being. I’m not a model and I could care less really. That’s me. It’s just cool looking. And if you look at the whole shot and the legs going into the hot tub, it just looks pretty awesome.”
The album has experienced a massive resurgence recently, driven by TikTok trends and a younger generation discovering tracks like “My Own Summer (Shove It).” Frontman Chino Moreno, speaking on the “Broken Record Podcast” last year, corroborated the chaotic energy that led to the photo.
“We were just like wild, out every night, partying, driving around, listening to the roughs from the day. And that album cover was, we had a Jacuzzi at our apartment… There was a hot tub downstairs. So every night, at the end of the night, after all our bar hopping, we’d go with everybody we’d meet from the bar, ‘let’s go back to our place. We’re gonna go the hot tub.’ And that photo was just from a random night there, whatever. And it got mixed in with all the other photos from the thing. So when they came and [started] spreading all the photos out for the album cover, that picture was there. And it was literally just like everybody pointed at that one. I mean, it’s very 90s too. So 90s. So it like really represents that time. It’s kind of funny.”
Moreno admitted that he is still baffled by how a candid party snap became such a lucrative piece of merchandise.
“You know it’s so weird that even as far as our merchandise goes, that t-shirt with that album cover on it is like one of the biggest sellers. But it’s such a random photo, it makes no sense at all.”
However, he expressed joy at seeing Hughes embrace her legacy in recent years.
“She was a friend who we befriended while we were there in Seattle. And I did see a thing the other day, it was cool, they showed like, you know, her then and now. So it was her like, now — she’s probably our age now too, like, you know, maybe late 40s, early 50s — and she’s holding up the album cover, and she’s, like, smiling, whatever. ‘This is me’, you know when she was young as well. But who knew, Right? It’s like even when she was asked, ‘Hey, we want to use this for the album cover.’ But then thinking that, like, 30 something years later, whatever it is, that would be such an iconic photo with t-shirts and all these like teenagers now wearing that picture on their t-shirt.”
The new feature also confirmed several long-debated details about the image:
- The feet visible next to Hughes on the cover belong to Rick Kosick.
- The drink sitting poolside was Hughes‘ cocktail of choice at the time: ‘Silk Panties’ (vodka, peach schnapps, and peach bitters).
- Remarkably, this remains the only album cover Kosick ever shot.
