Don’t think that was supposed to be in there.
There’s probably not a ton of overlap between the fan bases of pop star Taylor Swift and Aaron Lewis, the country star and lead singer of rock band Staind. But Lewis is now seeking answers after at least one Swiftie received part of his upcoming album – used as packing material.
The whole thing started when a Taylor Swift fan named Christa Jo posted a video on her TikTok (@heartwasglassidroppedit) unboxing merch that she ordered directly from the singer’s website, including a CD of her new single “I Knew It, I Knew You” from the Toy Story 5 soundtrack.
While opening up the package, Christa Jo noticed what she thought were lyrics on a piece of shredded paper that was taped to cardboard. And when she pieced it together, she realized that while it did contain lyrics, it wasn’t from any Taylor Swift song: It was the CD insert from Lewis’ unreleased album Give My Country Back.
She apparently wasn’t too familiar with Lewis, so like any good Swiftie she began researching to figure out who he was and whether the packaging could be some sort of Easter egg for an upcoming project. But after giving his music a listen and realizing that Lewis and Swift don’t exactly see eye-to-eye politically, Christa Jo quickly realized that it must have been some sort of mistake to use his album insert as packing material.
@heartwasglassidroppedit I debated on posting this video cause I don’t want to draw attention towards music that I’m not sure deserves it, but this may be the weirdest find ever in a swiftie merch box!!!! #swiftie #umg #staind #musictok #leakedmusic
Well Lewis caught wind of the situation, and shared the video on his own social media:
“Oh look, there’s my new album, that hasn’t even been released yet, shredded as packaging paper in Taylor Swift merch.”
So how could this have happened? To come to a possible explanation, you have to look at the connections here: Lewis is currently signed to Big Machine Records, which is that label that Swift was signed to early in her career – sort of.
If you’re familiar with Swift, you probably remember her feud with her former label back in 2019, when founder Scott Borchetta sold the label to Scooter Braun and his company Ithaca Holdings. The sale included the masters from Swift’s career while she was signed to the label, something that upset the pop superstar and created a ton of backlash for Braun and the label.
Well back in 2021, Ithaca Holdings was acquired by Korean entertainment giant Hybe Corporation, with Borchetta remaining on as CEO of Big Machine. But earlier this year, Borchetta announced that he was exiting Hybe and would be taking the Big Machine name with him, relaunching the record label as an independent venture with a roster of artists including Riley Green, The Band Perry, Rascal Flatts, and of course Aaron Lewis.
While it’s not technically the same label that Swift had as a new artist, Big Machine still shares one thing in common with Swift: The label has a distribution deal with UMG, the parent company of Swift’s current label, Republic Records.
All that to say, UMG distributes both Lewis’ and Swift’s music – and therefore would be responsible for packing and shipping products from both artists.
UMG has yet to comment on how the album insert ended up being used as packing material, something that Lewis said during an interview with USA Today he doesn’t understand either:
“I haven’t even put the record out yet. It’s not like it’s old stuff that was just sitting around that they decided to make packing material out of. It’s my new record. I just don’t understand how something like that can happen.”
Still, Lewis says he doesn’t have any animosity towards Swift and makes clear that he doesn’t believe she had anything to do with – or even knew about – the situation:
“We live in two very, very different worlds. And she’s such a huge star that her world doesn’t intertwine with anyone’s worlds. I certainly wouldn’t be trying to bring her into this or blame her for anything. It just so happens that it was my record cover in her gift box for her fans.”
In fact, Lewis had good things to say about the pop superstar from their one interaction with each other years ago, when Swift noticed that the Staind frontman had the number 13 – her lucky number – tattooed behind his ear:
“There was some block party thing that was happening downtown and I played a set during it and she was there and we got pictures. We were cordial and friendly.”
And in case anyone thought it was a publicity stunt, Lewis quickly shot down those rumors too:
“I don’t want people to think that this was an opportunity to promote my new record. I don’t understand how a shredded-up copy of my new record’s art ended up in a Taylor Swift gift box for her fans.”
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Swifties probably aren’t the target audience for Lewis’ album anyway…
