Sheeple Chase 1 - Dead Singer

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Hi there, faithful sceptics, and welcome to another episode of Sheeple Chase, the podcast that gives a long, hard look at the dangerous, the dubious, and the downright dodgy.

I'm true believer Georgie Barker, and I'm Celia Ripley, and I don't believe a word of it.

So, Celia, what weird and wonderful conspiracy have you brought us today?

Have you ever looked at your favourite celeb and suddenly felt like you don't recognise them anymore?

Like their fame has changed them?

Well, today we're investigating claims of three singers dying at their peak and being replaced by doubles.

Ooh, are we doing Paul is dead?

We're doing Paul is dead, Avrilester Morta, and Mia's Bissing.

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So, in the late 60s, a rumor started circulating that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash and was replaced by a look-alike named Billy Shears at the request of MI5

because, get this?

they were afraid that if fans found out Paul McCartney had died, the grief would lead to mass hysteria.

They really thought this was a matter of national security.

Don't forget, Beatlemania was a global phenomenon by this point.

Luckily for MI5, though, the American label Capital Records had already held a Beatles lookalike competition, and it's said that the winner, William Campbell Shears, became the replacement fake Paul, or Fall, as he's known online.

Wait, so the American record label held a competition in the US and just happened to get a scouse singer-songwriter as the winner?

No,

but the other Beatles allegedly taught him how to speak with a Levapudlian accent, play bass left-handed, and sing.

Oh.

Do you think that's why there was such tension between him and Lennon?

Because the fake Paul reminded him of his dead friend?

I mean, I think it's all a load of bollocks, personally.

You've got me curious, though.

What's the evidence?

Evidence is a strong word.

No one knows where the rumour of his death came from, but it happened twice, in 1966 and 1967.

Eventually, the Beatles press manager put out a statement saying he was alive.

Oh, well, if a press manager says it, then it must be true.

Fair.

But he was also obviously fine, walking around and singing and, well, alive.

So that was that.

Until September 1969, when a student newspaper at Drake University in Iowa published an article saying he was dead and the other Beatles were leaving clues about it in their records.

Oh, right, that explains the famous lyric.

We all live in a yellow submarine, except for Paul who's dead.

He died in a car crash in 1966.

Unfortunately, it seems the actual clues were so cryptic they were almost undetectable.

Sgt.

Pepper was the first album released after the rumours, and people claimed the sleeve art included suspicious symbols like a flower wreath on the ground shaped vaguely like a left-handed bass guitar.

I can kind of see it.

If you squint and turn it upside down.

Anyway, people were saying everything was a coded reference to Paul's death.

He's turned away from the camera on the back cover.

In another photo, he's wearing a black patch on his sleeve that says OPD.

For other

Paul died.

Sure, why not?

On the Abbey Road cover, he's barefoot, so obviously that's a sign.

Obviously.

And on page 13 of the magical mystery tour, he's got his shoes off again.

It's almost like people are obsessed with this famous guy's feet.

And in another photo, everyone else is wearing red croissages, but he has a black one.

Okay, that one is actually a bit weird.

Then there's the alleged hidden backmasked messages in the songs themselves.

Backmasking being when you play a record backward and it's supposed to say something else.

Exactly.

Some people claim there's a bit in I'm so tired, where if you play it backwards, it sounds like, Paul is dead, man.

Miss him.

Miss him.

And there's another from Revolution number nine, which apparently says, turn me on, dead man.

Weirdly sexual, but okay.

What?

You're not hot for dead barefoot Paul McCartney.

No, and you'll be really proud of me because I'm actually very sceptical of backmasking.

How come?

Well, playing records backwards absolutely ruins them, right?

So say thousands of Iowan students are all playing their records backwards to listen to secret messages in their Beatles songs.

Guess who has to now go and replace their Beatles albums?

It's all a con by the labels to sell more records.

So you don't believe this conspiracy, but only because you believe there's a different, more profitable conspiracy behind it?

You've got to admit, it makes sense.

But then how do you explain Avril Levine?

Don't you mean Melissa?

Maybe.

There is a theory floating around that Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Levine died in 2003 and was replaced by a look-alike named Melissa Vandela.

At least if you believe the original source of a a single Portuguese blog spot from 2011.

Avril Esta Morta.

That's the one.

The claim got picked up by Brazilian media, then spread among English speakers after a gossip journalist posted a viral thread about it in 2017.

The blog suggests that just before the release of her second album, Avril's grandfather died and her depression became so severe that she killed herself.

Then, rather than make the death public and shelve the album, the record record label convinced a decoy Avril they'd hired to completely take over her career.

So, Let Go in 2002, that was Avril.

And then Under My Skin in 2004 and everything afterwards, that was Melissa?

Not bad for a lookalike.

The blog does claim you can hear the difference, but the whole thing rests on two clips of her singing live.

One from 2002 and one from a few years after.

And do they sound different?

I mean, maybe,

but it's just one clip.

Maybe she had laryngitis that day, or her voice was strained from touring for too long, or...

Maybe she spent all day yelling at a moose.

What?

Well, she's Canadian.

Moose live in Canada.

They're pretty scary.

Okay, then, yeah.

I think it's more likely her voice was tired from yelling at a moose than that she secretly died and was replaced by a clone.

Any other evidence?

I mean, there's a lot of song lyric stuff and talking about how her style has changed over time.

But wasn't she 18 when she got big, though?

You'd kind of expect her style to change.

She was 17.

Exactly.

I mean, God, when I was 17, I said I'd never move to London, get a tattoo, or start a podcast, so you can't really hold it.

I didn't know you had a tattoo.

Mmm.

But what about this stuff about her face changing?

That seems more convincing.

You mean that plastic surgeon who claims her nose has changed shape?

Because as every plastic surgeon knows, being replaced by a a double is the only way that can happen.

Well, alright, but what about her height?

That used to be listed as 5'2, and now it's changed to 5'1 as though she's had height-altering surgery.

Or was measured wearing two different pairs of shoes?

Okay, fine.

But people have been finding new evidence and adding to this theory for years.

Where does stuff like that come from if this whole thing's just one big chitpost?

Well, people started calling the fake Avril Melissa after a photo shoot where Avril Levine's holding her fist up and the word Melissa is written on it in Feltip.

The idea was like, oh, they've labelled her so they don't lose track of who's who.

But the photo's clearly from around 2010, when the original Avril's supposed to have already been dead for seven years.

Maybe she was just proud of her name and telling everyone, hey, it's me, Melissa.

That's one interpretation, but it doesn't explain the surname Vandela, which seems to have just come from nowhere.

Hmm, sounds like a cover-up to me.

Oh, Georgie.

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

Hmm.

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So, do you want to introduce me as missing since I know how much you've wanted to talk about it?

Oh, yes.

Right.

It's 2018 and the Riot Girl revival is in full swing.

Baggy jeans, bikinis, and bass lines everywhere.

And nobody's jeans were baggier, nor their lines bassier, than the Manic Pixie Scream Girls.

Their cover of Dolly Parton's 9-5 goes viral, and they sign with Revolution Records.

Their debut, Nowhere and Everywhere, went to number 3 in the UK and I think number 6 in the US.

Oh yeah, they were huge for an alternative act.

But then, as they start promoting their second album, things get...

weird.

It wasn't that weird.

Oh, it was weird.

Everywhere they went, people would just not recognise Mia Hill.

There's videos of people who definitely met her before, clearly having to be told who she is at awards ceremonies and stuff.

She dyed her hair and a couple of people didn't recognize her at first.

That's not sinister!

So...

Really?

It felt like there were loads.

People talk about it like there were loads, but it's always just those two misprints.

Either way, it's still enough for people to start sharing the theory that the original Mia Hill had died and been replaced by a lookalike.

There was so much song lyric analysis.

I remember being very convinced by Six Feet Down, so bury me deep if it helps you sleep.

You've tried to replace me, but you can still taste me.

And then there's the fact that you can't really hear me or on any of the tracks.

Yeah, but nothing that can't be explained by bad production.

It is a bit too coincidental though.

The not being recognised, being left out of articles, the barely audible sound, it's all happening at the same time, and it's only happening to Mia.

Well, the first reference to her rumoured death is this interview in the Liverpool Echo with a cleaner at one of the hotels the Manic Pixie Scream Girl stayed in for a tour.

And it was basically just gossip about the state of one of the rooms when they left.

Apparently, it looked like the site of a cage match, and the bathroom smelled like someone had died in it, which seems to be enough to set all of this off.

You know, Mia's missing was trending on TikTok for a while?

Yeah,

most of the comments were saying things like, this is really far-fetched, or this person's an obvious troll.

But there was a petition for a government inquiry into why the police weren't investigating Mia Hill's murder.

Yeah, I never signed that petition.

It was ridiculous.

Yeah, because either they're not investigating because they don't think she's been murdered, which, like, fair enough.

Or they're not investigating because whoever did it is influencing the police and so is definitely powerful enough to shut down an inquiry.

Either way, it's pointless.

Right.

I mean I suppose those are both options.

Although I think one's a lot more likely than the other.

So who do you think did it?

Well nobody.

I don't think she was murdered.

Sure.

But if she was murdered, who's your suspect?

Hmm.

So for any listeners who don't know, people can't decide if it was an obsessed fan who broke into her room, the band's manager, Callie Jones, or one of her bandmates.

If I had to pick, I guess the bandmate theory is the least ridiculous?

Nope.

It was the manager.

She had access to the room, knew Mia's schedule, and Callie was always hovering around fake Mia when the rumours started.

She probably found the look-alike, trained her up, and was keeping an eye on her.

But there are a lot of people that would need to be in on it.

The rest of the band, the manager, the producers, friends, and family, everyone involved in training the replacement.

It would be a whole production.

Right, but this is the entertainment industry.

Putting on productions is literally their job.

I guess that's true.

Well, either way, that's us done on the Doppelganger suite.

So, what do you think?

Are you convinced by any of these theories?

Definitely not the Avril Levine one.

I don't think Paul McCartney is dead, but I think the record companies have stoked it because so many of the clues can only be found if you buy more records.

As for Mia's missing, I was convinced by it at the time, as she really did seem different, but it sounds like I've built it up in my memory to more than it was, so

maybe not.

I think the real conspiracy is the music industry in general.

How about you?

Do you believe there's a crisis of imposter celebrities?

Unsurprisingly, I don't.

No.

Then I guess that closes the case of the celeb swappers.

Conclusion: Sing is fine.

Music industry, sketchy.

Sounds about right.

Well, thank you for bringing those three weird and wonderful conspiracies, Celia.

They really struck a chord.

So, any big plans for the weekend?

Nothing much.

You?

I'm taking Captain Barker for another haircut.

They give her a little bandana at the end and everything, and dog cologne.

I'm sure she'll look very dashing, but I think you need to get out more.

You can talk.

Anyway, join us next week for another episode, and in the meantime, you can rate and review us on all your favourite podcast apps.

And remember, if you're a band manager, it never hurts to keep a few look-alike agencies on speed dial.

Sheeplechase and the Magnus Protocol are podcasts distributed by RustyQuill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 international license.

Sheeple Chase was created by Sasha Sienna, directed by April Sumner, and based on the works of Jonathan Sims and Alexander J.

Mule.

This episode was written by Sasha Sienna and edited with additional materials by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J.

Mule with audio edits by Nico Vitesse, mastering by Meg McKellar and music by Nico Vitese.

It featured Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker and Lorianne Davies as Celia Ripley.

To subscribe, explore exclusive extras and enjoy early access ad-free episodes, visit members.rustyquill.com or join our Patreon.

Rate and review us online, follow us on social media, or email us at mail at rustyquill.com.

Thanks for listening.

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