Although Masked Intruder conceal their faces behind ski masks, the quartet’s sugary pop-punk nevertheless reveals an unguarded emotional core. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, the group emerged during the early 2010s, shuttling between Red Scare and Fat Wreck for their initial pair of full-length albums while issuing numerous EPs and split singles along the way. They ultimately aligned with Pure Noise Records, which issued the Billboard-charting III in 2019.
The band members, who insist they first assembled behind bars, perform under the aliases Intruder Blue on vocals and guitar, Intruder Green on guitar and vocals, Intruder Yellow on bass, and Intruder Red on drums. Their songs fuse yearning melodies with an outlaw twist that recalls the Bay Area pop-punk lineage of Green Day and the Mr. T Experience. The self-titled debut arrived via Red Scare Industries in 2012. Throughout the following year the group issued several split singles, among them The Wedding 7" alongside Dan Vapid and the Cheats as well as Red Scare Across America with Elway and Sam Russo.
Fat Wreck Chords signed the band in 2013 and promptly reissued the debut; their follow-up full-length, M.I., surfaced the next year. The association with Fat Wreck proved brief: by 2016 the quartet had relocated to Pure Noise Records and delivered the EP Love and Other Crimes. Their third album, III, arrived in 2019, produced by Roger Lima of Less Than Jake and Mike Kennerty of the All-American Rejects; it reached the Top Ten of Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart and later received a deluxe edition titled III Turbo in 2020. To mark the tenth anniversary of the debut album, Red Scare issued a special Record Store Day vinyl reissue in 2022.
