10 Most Devious Punk Rock Tricks And Hoaxes
3. Dwarves - Faking A Death
This raucous garage-punk band already had a reputation for shock value and excess but pushed things a little too far when they formally announced that one of their members was dead.
In 1993 the band told their label, Sub-Pop, that their long-standing guitarist known as ‘Hewhocannotbenamed’ had been stabbed to death in a bar fight, after which the label dutifully announced the guitarist’s death in a serious official press release and allowed the band to include an insert in their newest album, Sugarfix (1993) paying tribute to him.
When the band finally admitted the prank, which had been quite elaborate and involved testimonies from others as well as flowers being sent to the label’s offices, they were perhaps unsurprisingly dumped, although they were back on a new label by 1997.