Pay It Backward

"Right before the show, the promoter, Josh Andrande, calls to say Cypress Hill wants $3000 more cash to headline," says Stiletto Silhouette singer Jason Fitzpatrick. "Something about they were paid half in Mexican money... We really wanted to play; it was gonna be a big deal, so my girlfriend went and got the cash and handed it over to him.... He kept telling us, 'Don't worry, you'll get it back.' "

Fitzpatrick alleges the band never got their $3000 back and says they were never paid for playing January's Des-Madre Fest at El Foro in Tijuana. "Cypress Hill never performed, and the crowd basically rioted.... They were throwing bottles as we tried to get our equipment out."

Stiletto Silhouette drummer Andrew Carillo says, "We haven't been able to reach Josh; his voice mail's always full.... The reason we trusted him so much is because we met him through our rhythm guitarist's dad and he was very good to the band. He talked about getting us huge shows, like playing for 30,000 people at the Bull Arena with Slipknot, Korn, and the Deftones."

The band says they're considering civil and criminal options. At this writing, the FreakMeOnline.com website (which coproduced the TJ event with Billy Bad Ass Productions) is down, and correspondences sent to the company's (rarely updated) MySpace page have gone unanswered.