The Offspring Are Staging Massive Mosh Pits to a Taylor Swift Cover

There is no obvious connection between Taylor Swift’s 2008 country-pop hit “Love Story” and the violent physicality of a mosh pit. The Offspring are testing that assumption. Since mid-June, the veteran California punk band have been performing a charged-up version of the song at European festivals, treating Swift’s teenage tale of forbidden love as fuel for something more chaotic.

During recent sets, including an appearance at Hellfest, frontman Dexter Holland introduced the cover by declaring Swift “fucking punk as fuck,” then instructed the crowd to form a wall of death during the bridge. The band say 50,000 people sang along at the French festival, with a significant portion slamming into each other. “People don’t realize that Taylor Swift is actually super punk,” Holland told a crowd in the Netherlands.

The Offspring’s rendition amplifies the original’s tension—written when Swift was 17 and frustrated with her parents—into a surge of overdriven guitars and double-time drums. It’s been played nine times since it first appeared on June 16, according to Setlist.fm, with the band openly calling for the biggest mosh pit ever formed to a Taylor Swift song. Whether any official record will be certified remains unclear; no word on Guinness involvement. But for a group whose own catalog includes plenty of