UPDATED: Beyoncé's Lemonade vinyl snafu: Meet the Canadian punk band on Side A

Update: One day after As It Happens aired this interview, Zex was dropped from its record label. Magic Bullet Records says multiple people have come forward accusing guitarist Jo Capitalicide of sexual assault. Capitalicide has called the allegations "completely untrue and hurtful."

Story transcript

Jo Capitalicide was as shocked as anyone to discover that five of his band's songs had inadvertently ended up on Beyoncé's latest album.

"I've only heard Beyoncé for the first time a few days ago," Capitalicide, the guitarist for the Ottawa punk band Zex, told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann. 

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Nevertheless, the first five songs of Zex's 2017 album Uphill Battle were mispressed onto Side A of several European vinyl copies of the artist's 2016 album Lemonade.

The band found out about the snafu when someone called them from a record store in London, England, Capitalicide said.

A customer had returned their copy of Lemonade, prompting the shop owner to investigate the mysterious punk band via Shazam, a smartphone app that identifies music.

"Clearly somebody didn't do their job at the pressing plant. There was a discrepancy somewhere and now there's this whole funny ordeal happening," Capitalicide said.

In a statement to Pitchfork, LP. Columbia Records acknowledged the mistake. 

"Due to human error at the Celebrate Records plant in Germany, which Sony uses to manufacture vinyl, a small amount of the European run of the Beyoncé Lemonade vinyl included music from Canadian punk band, ZEX, on Side A," it reads.

"Beyoncé and ZEX were not aware of or responsible for the mispress. Fans who purchased the vinyl will be refunded and given a replacement copy. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused."

The gaffe has worked out favourably for the Ottawa-based punk rockers.

Not only has the band's name been blasted all over major music sites on Monday morning, but they've even picked up a few new fans.

"I mean, most people probably felt ripped off even if it was a mistake, but a lot of them said, 'Oh, I was really curious and I looked into it and then I found out it was a band named Zex,'" Capitalicide said. "And now, next thing you know, they're buying the records."

Capitalicide says one of the misprinted vinyl records is being sent to him. 

But the mix-up is not enough to make a convert out of Capitalicide, who said he tried listening to a track on Lemonade.

"It's just not my thing," he said.

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