The cover for Aaron Lewis’ upcoming album seems to have been used as wrapping paper for a Taylor Swift merchandise box. On Thursday, the Staind frontman reacted on social media to a video where a young woman was unboxing Swift’s merch and found Lewis’ unreleased album cover, “Give Me Back My Country,” among the shredded paper.
“Oh look, there’s my new album, not yet released, shredded as wrapping paper for Taylor Swift merchandise,” he posted on X. “Isn’t that about something—”
The album is set to be released on July 17 through Big Machine Label Group. Lewis admitted he had no idea about the mix-up until his team informed him. “I don’t have social media. I’ve never felt like it was important to me,” he stated. “I didn’t even have a MySpace, so I didn’t catch anything like that. And when this was brought to me, I just thought, ‘What’s going on? This is just weird.’”
Lewis explained, “This is the cover of my new album, which hasn’t been released yet. As artists, we trust our distributors to manage our material and ensure they handle what we provide.”
He expressed his confusion over how the situation occurred, saying, “I don’t want to think it’s malicious, but at the same time, I don’t know if it’s not. I haven’t even put out a record yet. I didn’t just decide to make packaging out of old records. This is my new record, and I really don’t understand how something like that could happen.”
Despite the odd circumstances, Lewis holds no animosity towards Swift. “We live in two very different worlds, and she’s such a big star that her world doesn’t intertwine with anyone’s,” he noted. “I’m not trying to drag her into this or blame her—it just happened to be my record jacket that was in a gift box for her fans.”
He added, “I don’t want people to think this was an opportunity to promote my new record. I genuinely don’t understand how a shredded copy of my new album art ended up in a gift box for a Taylor Swift fan.”
Representatives from Big Machine Label Group and Universal Music Group, who are said to be managing product operations and merchandising, have not yet responded to requests for comment.
