“Ha ha! Got ya!” laughed Kimberly Perry, lead vocalist of pop-country trio The Band Perry. “Y’all thought we’d lost our minds, huh?” Perry, clad in blue jeans, a Merle Haggard t-shirt, and a dark plaid tied around her waste, explained the long con in a short interview with us this week.
“We’re back so y’all can play us again,” she smiled, jokingly elbowing the air as if dropping a big hint to country radio programmers. “This was all a prank Reid thought of.” Kimberly’s brother apparently came up with the idea in 2014, but only planned on the elaborate joke lasting for a year or so. 7 years later, the group is playing clubs and living off Covid stimulus checks.
The Band Perry, on the strength of smash hits like “If I Die Young,” “Better Dig Two,” and “You Lie,” was quickly racing toward A-list status in the mainstream country realm. Suddenly, as if bored with success and money, things took a weird detour. In 2015, the trio suddenly took a hard turn toward pop music, cycling through various and increasingly strange and less country iterations and fashions over the next half decade, leaving fans and critics alike dumbfounded.
“That tan era was my idea,” admitted Perry. “Looking back, it looked sorta incestuous; that was honestly pretty creepy …even for a hoax, which it really really seriously was.” “I’m not kidding now. We’re a country band. Can't believe y'all fell for it.” she followed.
Perry told us they truly did not intend to commit so fully to the practical joke. “I don’t even like electronic music, and I could puke looking at the photos from the ‘yellow’ era… we just kept daring each other to keep it going and keep it going… then the money started running out, so here we are.” explained Perry. “But it’s not about the money at all, I mean it; we just screwed up.”
While not currently signed to a major label, the group hopes the big reveal of the definitely authentic hoax will have the big companies back at their doorstep. “We want to open shows for boyfriend country singers, we wanna do radio tours, we wanna put out syrupy catchy murder songs again!” smiled Perry. “Please believe me that this was just a silly ruse.”
At press time, The Band Perry was planning to sell the prank as a non-fungible token, whatever that means.
In honor of Kelsea Ballerini's invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry last night, the Opry has today announced the release of NOW That's What I Call Opry! Awesome!
Farce the Music's Wall of Honor is a showplace for our well-earned and highly prized Twitter blocks. Today we add a new plaque. Our least favorite country pop country pop country pop flip floppers: THE BAND PERRY!
1. Thomas Rhett - Vacation I mean, there have been worse songs in human history. The song your drunken friend made up about farts one night after eating Taco Bell at 2:14 a.m. "I'm Too Sexy?" Nah, that's better. Uh, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" Nah, still better. Um. Starship's "We Built This City"…yeah, that's a toss-up. You get the point. "Vacation" is bad; real bad; torture bad. It's not only poorly written by FOURTEEN PEOPLE, it's shoddy, sounding as if your friend's "fart song" was given a modicum of production by an intern. "Vacation" transcends bro-country because it's a perfect storm of awfulness. A shit hurricane. A dumpster fire in hell. A train wreck in a funeral home. Thankfully, radio somehow agreed that it was terrible and prevented it from becoming an actual hit. Still, Rhett Akins, what hath thou wrought upon us?
3. Clare Dunn - Tuxedo This would be number one if it had actually made an impact on the country charts. Or 1b, anyway; yeesh "Vacation" is so bad. As it stands, the sheer horror of this thing still gives it a top 3 finish. This makes 2015's "Friend Zone" sound like "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain." Clare Dunn, you should be embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for you, anyway.
4. Luke Bryan - Move "Move" is the next in a long line of shaking it for me and kicking dust up on my kind of night. In fact, it's part 4 in that nightmare of a quadrilogy. Luke Bryan is probably on the verge of leaving crap like this off of his albums, being over 40 and all, but he's still hanging onto those last threads of his frat bro days. "Move" isn't quite as bad as the first three I referred to, but it's still "turn the channel within the first five notes" material.
5. Dustin Lynch - Seein' Red This isn't a country song. This isn't a good pop song. Dustin Lynch has a pretty nice country-sounding voice. The fact that he's made such a swift move from semi-traditional pop-country to disco metro garbage like this is surely a clear sign that he's more enamored with dollar signs than art.
6. Dierks Bentley - Somewhere on a Beach Dierks is better than this, but 2016 was the year Dierks decided he fully did not care what he's better than. He and his management and handlers were probably hoping this was the one that'd finally make him an A-lister, but nope. Still on that B-list, D. I'd rather hang just below elite level with songs I could be proud of than follow the crowd and still miss the mark.
7. The Band Perry - Comeback Kid Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.
8. Florida-Georgia Line - H.O.L.Y. (insert stock commentary about FGL trying to put out more mature songs and sounding ridiculous doing so)
9. Brantley Gilbert - The Weekend I don't have the energy to make fun of Brantley again right now. This is just not good. Brantley's voice only sounds (relatively) good singing the random ballad now and then. He'd rather do these bro party anthems. I'd rather not hear them.
10. Kane Brown - Ain't No Stopping Us Now Just stop. Kane has been another example of "the internet is not the real world" in 2016. You know… how internet popularity and social media bubble mindsets don't necessarily have any footing in the real world… One of those examples will be inaugurated in January. The other will be doing county fair shows for passionate Tumblr fans in the years to come.
