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For every musician or band that makes it, there is an untold number of talents that slip under the radar.

That means people sometimes have to go to extreme measures to get that first break, and whilst it’s often said that you ‘have to fake it to make it’, that’s seldom more true than in the case of Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, two college friends from Dundee, Scotland.

Unlike the infamous ‘Threatin’ fake band saga of 2018, Bain and Boyd were actual musicians pursuing rap careers, but after being shot down they created an elaborate backstory that seemed to work in their favour.

Bain became Brains McLoud, and Boyd became Silibil, and together they became Silibil ‘N Brains, rapping in fake US accents, landing a record deal with Sony UK, and recording three albums.

That makes them legit artists, but spinning yarns about having been trained by Eminem definitely helped them stand out.

As part of VICE’s ‘Fakes, Frauds & Scammers’ series, they unpacked how the duo pulled the wool over the eyes of so many:

It’s actually a good example of when a little fib spirals out of control, and eventually, people who knew them from Scotland started to post online about the fake backstory.

As NPR reports in a 2010 story on the duo, they were caught in a very tricky situation:

“It just got carried away,” Bain says. “There was so much money involved. The plan was originally to come out, but… when it got big enough… we stood to be sued [by the record company].”

The stress of the lies had Bain and Boyd at each other’s throats, Bain says. They even stopped talking to their friends and parents.

“We were so in love with these characters,” he says. “We couldn’t get out of the character. It was complete insanity.”

…Finally, in 2007, Bain came out with the truth in a debut performance with his new band, Hopeless Heroic. He says it was the first time he’d been on stage sober. The reaction was mixed, but Bain says it was an inspirational story for some.

Bain went on to write a book about the experience, California Schemin’: How Two Lads from Scotland Conned the Music Industry, and there was also the 2013 documentary, The Great Hip Hop Hoax.

Here’s that trailer:

There is still an active Facebook page for the duo, although it mostly features music by Brains McLoud.

Look, if Kanye West can dupe people into thinking he’s a genius, why can’t two blokes from Scotland tell a few tall tales about their lives, too?

[sources:vice&npr]