LOS ANGELES — Former Hellcat Records intern Alexis Merz revealed that the entire band roster consists of The Interrupters dressed in variously colored Fred Perry shirts, confirmed shocked sources.
“It’s been sort of a known secret within the label,” explained Merz. “But for those new to the label, like I was at the time, you start to notice the little things, like the singer of a freshly signed band sounds a lot like Aimee [Allen] Interrupter, but you shake it off because Aimee, and a lot of the bands on this label, all sound like someone doing a Tim Armstrong impression. Hell, I was even mistaken for the bassist of HorrorPops because I wore a Fred Perry shirt. I’ve been sticking with Penguin polos ever since.”
Allen, the lead singer of The Interrupters, explained that there was never any intent to deceive.
“It just kind of just happened,” said Allen. “I remember going into pre-production on our first album, which Tim [Armstrong] produced. We had meetings with Tim and we noticed after the second meeting after playing a song for him he’d ask why we were covering an Interrupters track and to play something original. Naive as we were, we thought this was part of his process. By the end of the meeting, we’d have another contract to sign, with some random band name on it, like Charged GBH or Rat Boy. We soon realized this could be pretty lucrative, so every few meetings, we’d just show up in different colored Fred Perry shirts and Groucho glasses, and we’d have another record contract. No one was stopping us.”
Co-founder of Hellcat Records, Brett Gurewitz, tried to prevent Armstrong from continually resigning The Interrupters.
“After the Interrupters received their fourth record contract, we pulled Tim aside and asked him if he knew that they were pulling a fast one. He’d looked at us like we were idiots, aggressively mumbled something about ‘his crew’ and ‘Travis Barker’ and just left. Nothing resolved. I’m pretty sure he threatened us that day, but I can never understand him. The upside was, the records would sell, so we let it continue. Tim’s either a genius or only really associates people based on the color of their pique polo.”
At press time, Hellcats Records has pledged to improve and has appointed a DEI leader to diversify its roster and donated 100 Fred Perry shirts to Lars Frederiksen.