Josh Cheuse

Born in New York City in 1965, by the time he was sixteen Josh was photographing bands in the nightclubs that would become his second home. In 1981 he used the payphone at his high school to call The Clash at Electric Ladyland Studios in Manhattan and asked to photograph the band. What he got was an invitation to what would become a twenty-five year career creating photographs and artwork for the music world.

After winning a full scholarship for photography to the School of Visual Arts in New York, Josh immediately hit the road tour with Big Audio Dynamite, coming back to school to use the darkroom or to photograph LL Cool J and his posse in the studio. He began designing B.A.D’s merchandising and sleeve artwork, shooting video with an early portable Sony camera, and even road managed the band for a time. He photographed his friends the Beastie Boys and documented the hip-hop and reggae scenes for publications such as SPIN, Rolling Stone, Musician and Time Out.

In 1989 Josh Joined Joe Strummer in LA to create artwork for Joe’s first solo album Earthquake Weather. In London to finish the sleeve, he shot, produced and directed two videos for the albumwith Joe using hand-cranked war cameras they bought on Portobello Road. Continuing his collaboration with Strummer in Wales, where Joe was producing the Hell’s Ditch Album for the Pogues, Josh photographed the band and began making the cover art on the Xerox machine in the studio. Next stop was New York to design the Clash on Broadway box set for then CBS records.

Josh moved back to New York in 1993, and was offered a job at Sony Music as an art director, designing packaging and websites for everyone from Bob Dylan to Run-DMC, Stevie Ray Vaughan to Tony Bennett, while still finding time to go on the road to photograph groups like Oasis and the Black Crowes for kicks. He has recently photographed Son Volt, Scottish band The View, and contemporary artists Damien Hirst and Michael Joo.

His working friendship with Joe Strummer continued throughout two more solo albums until Joe’s untimely death in 2002. Josh directed a video tribute for Joe’s version of the “Redemption Song” sponsored by Hellcat Records and MTV2.

Josh is currently a senior art director at Sony BMG Music Entertainment and lives in Jersey City, N.J. with his wife, actress Cara Seymour, and their cats, Riff and Pearl.

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