Taylor Swift’s latest merch drop left country artist Aaron Lewis stunned after pages from his upcoming album appeared as packaging material in fans’ orders.
“Oh look, there’s my new album that’s not even out yet, shredded like wrapping paper in Taylor Swift merch,” the Staind frontman wrote on X Thursday. “Aren’t those some s—.”
Lewis was reacting to a fan’s unboxing video, which showed the fan, confused, piece of shredded paper together revealing the cover of Lewis’ unreleased record “Give Me Back My Country”.
Fans who ordered Swift’s new “I Knew It, I Knew You” CD Collection initially thought the shredded pages contained hidden Swift lyrics.
Instead, Swifties on social media realized the paper featured lyrics, artwork and album pages from Lewis’ upcoming album, which is due out July 17 through Big Machine Label Group, Swift’s former label, with merchandise handled by Universal Music Group.
Lewis said he first learned about the mix-up from his team because he doesn’t use social media.
“I don’t have social media. I didn’t when I was younger. It never felt important to me,” he shared USA today.
“I’ve never had a MySpace myself. So I don’t see any of that stuff. And when it was brought up to me, I was just like, ‘What’s going on? This is just weird.'”
The “Country Boy” singer said he couldn’t believe fans had received parts of an album that hasn’t even hit stores yet.
“It’s the cover of my brand new record, which hasn’t even been released yet,” he said.
“As artists, we put our trust in the distribution companies to get our material out and trust them to be responsible for what it is that we give them.”
Lewis, whose music has become more conservative since his early nu-metal years in Staind, said he has no explanation for how the album material ended up as filler.
“I don’t know how this happened,” he admitted. “I hate to think it’s malicious, but at the same time I don’t know it’s not.”
“I haven’t even put the record out yet,” he continued. “It’s not like it’s old stuff that was just sitting around that they decided to make packaging material out of. It’s my new record. I just don’t understand how something like this can happen.”
Lewis previously met Swift during a Nashville event in 2016 when they were both affiliated with Big Machine and said he doesn’t blame the Grammy winner for the packaging failure.
“We live in two very, very different worlds. And she’s such a big star that her world doesn’t mesh with anyone else’s,” he said.
“I certainly wouldn’t try to bring her into this or blame her for anything. It happened to be my album cover in her gift box for her fans.”
He also insisted that he is not looking to capitalize on the attention surrounding the accident.
“I don’t want people to think this was an opportunity to promote my new record,” Lewis said.
“I don’t understand how a shredded copy of my new record’s artwork ended up in a Taylor Swift gift box for her fans.”
