Artwork from The Fratellis’ Costello Music reimagined as a Jack Vettriano painting for National Album Day

The artwork from The Fratellis’ debut release Costello Music has been re-imagined as a Jack Vettriano painting in celebration of National Album Day.

Artist Gerry Gapinski created the new version of the iconic cover using spray paint and hand-cut stencils, with the completed work unveiled outside Edinburgh’s Avalanche Records ahead of Saturday’s event.

The band’s frontman Jon Fratelli said: “We’re really pleased Costello Music has been chosen to be part of National Album Day – for us recording an actual album with an incredible producer in a studio that we’re still not sure really exists all felt magical enough.

“To see it for sale in the record stores that we’d spent half our lives in was surreal. To hear that people were actually buying copies was just about the best news we’d ever heard.

“The artwork for the album almost perfectly captured the character of the band and the music at that time.

“Reimagining it in the style of Jack Vettriano makes sense to me and we are all really happy with the result – it’s a clever interpretation and we feel honoured to have been chosen for the mural.

“If it encourages people to pick up an album, whether it’s ours or someone they maybe haven’t really heard before, then that’s great.

“Whatever the art form, an artist being influenced or inspired by something we created is always a good thing.”

The Fratellis 2006 debut was chosen by Avalanche Records owner Kevin Buckle because of the iconic artwork – and the album’s continued popularity among record-buyers of all ages.

It has sold over a million copies in the UK since its release.

Buckle said: “I wanted to choose an album that gave the artist something to work with image-wise and would be recognised by all ages.

“Costello Music is still a big selling album for Avalanche especially with younger buyers and Gerry has captured the original fifties feel while cleverly referencing a famous painting.”

Gapinski said: “The idea was to present the butler and the maid having a party on the beach, listening to The Fratellis, after their classical dancing employers had left the beach. A contrast between high culture and popular culture in a musical sense.

“This contrast is mirrored by the stencil graffiti art style I used to paint it, in contrast to the classical painting style of Vettriano’s original painting. I decided in the design stage I would try to keep the vintage, ‘pin-up’ feel of the original Fratellis album cover, so there would be a connection and continuity with it, that hopefully folk could recognise.”

National Album Day takes place on Saturday October 15, in association with Bowers & Wilkins and BBC Sounds, with this year’s theme celebrating debut releases.

The Fratellis play the OVO Hydro with the Kaiser Chiefs on November 11, with tickets on sale now.