AM Conspiracy is a new hard rock band from Orlando, FL featuring Jason “Gong” Jones (Formerly of Drowning Pool). Their self titled debut album drops next week from Burnhill Union Records. Stephen Jensen photographed the band last spring when they were recording the album up in Racine, WI, and was asked to create the album artwork for their debut.

Click here or on the image above to see the cover.

AM Conspiracy singer Jason “Gong” Jones, who himself is an accomplished tattoo artist, contacted Stephen with several different concepts for the cover of his debut album during the course of recording. Stephen and Jason hit it off immediately and began bouncing ideas back and forth. When Jason came up with the idea to do a stylized version of a dollar bill with altered and hidden imagery it took a bit of “selling” to the record label. Stephen loved the idea and sat down with Jason to help expand the idea and bring his vision to life.

For the main image on the cover, Jason wanted to feature the band’s faces carved over the sculpture of Mount Rushmore with a radio antenna on the top of the mountain spreading the AM Conspiracy message. The photo would appear as part of the engraving on an altered one dollar bill (to symbolize their first album). Stephen used some of the stylized filigrees that appear on the one dollar bill and played into the conspiracy theories regarding hidden imagery that are mixed into the engravings on the original currency design.

Stephen and Jason worked together to carry the conspiracy theory imagery throughout the rest of the album artwork including the layout of Washington DC, UFO and alien implants, the Paul McCartney death hoax, the JFK magic bullet theory, the Lincoln assassination, and the faked lunar landing. Gong made a late night call to Stephen immediately after seeing the first draft of the album cover. He was blown away that Stephen was able to take the vision exactly as it appeared in his head several steps further.

Check out the album when it’s in stores this Tuesday, January 12, 2010.