Zolas fans are horrified to learn ‘Ancient Mars’ album cover is a dead toenail

The uncut image is now sold as an eco-friendly NFT

Published December 2, 2021

Vancouver pop rockers Zolas released Old Mars back in 2012, but fans who have enjoyed the album for almost a decade suddenly see it in a whole new light thanks to a surprising revelation from singer Zach Gray. He revealed that the sci-fi-like blur of colors on the album cover is actually a zoomed-in image of his dead toenail.

He revealed the revelation on Instagram, which instantly elicited a massive (and appalled) reaction from fans. Shout out! reached out to Gray, who shared this story about the toe picture:

I took this picture with my iPhone 3GS sometime in 2011 after playing a 3-day ultimate tournament in brand new braces. My toenail was dying, and the crazy colors must have been its way of saying “good luck with your endeavors.” A month later, I met our album art designer Andrew Huculiak at a coffee shop to review ideas for the cover. I wanted something that felt like a Mars landscape. Beautiful and hostile, maybe a little hopeful? All we could find was a little too on the nose so we tore through my laptop and I showed him this toe picture as a laugh. We zoomed in and let the colors wash in over us. We had our landscape. Some time was spent pruning it so there are just enough cuticles that once you see it you can not see it.

I had mentioned this fact before, but I think no one believed me until last night it caught on Instagram. People are shaken. Some people are weird with their feet – on both sides of the love / ick spectrum – and suddenly their favorite album is not what they thought it was. It should not make them love it less. To me, it adds a very human dimension. It’s a bruise, and metaphorically it’s much of ancient Mars is about. Things change, love ends and leaves a bruise, and only when the bruise disappears do you realize that you also miss the bruise because it was the last trace of the beautiful time you can never return to.

Gross! Gray also sent us the picture and we can confirm that it really is something. But if you want to see it for yourself, you will have to buy the image in the form of a freshly struck NFT (an NFToe, if you will). It can currently be purchased from OpenSea for the equivalent of $ 116.54 at the time of writing. The Zolas use an environmentally friendly coin called the Polygon to reduce the CO2 footprint of their NFT.

Below you can see screenshots of some of the many toe-inspired memes created by appalled Zolas fans.

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