Adding a background to kicker box

Any ideas here?

I am using the kicker box for the title of blog posts by using the info item options. I would like this box to have a background image, but it is not cooperating.

Using CSS background code linking to an image in the "style kicker" options pane does not add a background image.

I also tried general html <img src=""/> in the info options, which worked, but I can not get the info items on top of the image.

I am using the kicker box because my headline options are shut off so that the title of posts/pages are not on "Page" pages as well.