Exclusive: Matt Biolos Explains Why He’s Suing Lady Gaga

In one of the stranger crossovers between surf culture and mainstream pop spectacle, Matt “Mayhem” Biolos — the San Clemente-based surfboard shaper behind …Lost Surfboards — is suing Lady Gaga.

Yes, that Lady Gaga. Oscar-nominated actress. Grammy-dominating pop star. Fashion cyborg. And now, unexpectedly, defendant in a trademark lawsuit brought by a man who’s spent four decades massaging rails and cutting rocker lines.

It’s the kind of story that makes you double-check the date to confirm it’s not April 1st.

But the suit is real. The 8x-women’s-world-title/2x-Olympic-gold-medal-winning shaper is suing the pop star.

And at the heart of it is one word: Mayhem.

The issue? Gaga’s new album is called Mayhem, and her merch line — already plastered across social media and e-commerce channels — features that word on T-shirts, hats, and hoodies. The design? Strikingly similar to the Mayhem arch logo that Biolos began sketching in a high school notebook in 1986.

“I started drawing that logo in high school for my punk band flyers and T-shirts,” Biolos told Stab. “We started putting it on surfboards in ’87. In 1991, we registered it as a business. We’ve been making and selling Mayhem clothing for over 30 years. It’s my whole life.”

The visual connection between Gaga’s merch and the surf brand isn’t accidental. The artwork for the Mayhem album was created by Brodie Kaman — an EU-based creative director and graphic designer whose grunge-leaning, DIY aesthetic is deeply rooted in subcultural iconography. Which, incidentally, is where Biolos has been living for decades.

Based on the 742 accounts he follows on Instagram, there’s not a ton of crossover in the surf world. Take from that what you will.

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“At first, it was just her album cover. I was like, okay, it’s a word. There’s an insurance company with a guy named Mayhem,” Biolos explains. “But then I started seeing T-shirts. Sweatshirts. Hats. And then I saw ‘Gaga Mayhem’ in an arch that looked very familiar. That’s when it became a red flag.”

In other words: you can name your album Mayhem if you want. But when you start selling merch that crosses into the same commercial categories — with decades of trademark precedent — you’re wading into legal waters.

“We have registered trademarks for the name Mayhem in tees, hats, sandals, sweatshirts, surfboards skateboards, snowboards. Surf accessories.,” Biolos says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Helvetica or Comic Sans — if it’s on a T-shirt, and that T-shirt says Mayhem, it’s infringing. The font is secondary.”

When Biolos’ team reached out to Gaga’s legal camp in hopes of resolving things quietly, they were — in his words — “shrugged off.”

“They basically told us, ‘You’re nobody. We’re not even going to acknowledge you,’” he says.

Now Gaga’s defense is being handled by one of the highest-paid lawyers in pop culture, Orin Snyder — the same guy who’s represented Bob Dylan, Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, Elton John, Mariah Carey, LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Bruce Springsteen and Mark Zuckerberg.

His statement to the press?

“It’s disappointing, but hardly surprising that someone is now attempting to capitalize on her success with a baseless lawsuit…”

Biolos isn’t buying it.

“That’s just a high-powered New York lawyer covering his ass,” he says. “We reached out to them in good faith. They blew us off. Now they’re spinning it like we’re trying to cash in. We’re not. We’re trying to protect what we built.”

Matt explained TMZ and other news outlets picked up the story after they filed publicly. “We’ve filed an injunction to stop her from doing the apparel, stop her from using our trademark on apparel, and that’s a public filing. So someone dug it up. Maybe TMZ has a team of 20-year-old kids just looking for things.”

But this time, the headlines aren’t going anywhere. The lawsuit is real. And Biolos is not backing down.

“In a perfect world, we’d like them to stop,” he says. “Stop making merch with our trademark. We’re not trying to tell her not to make music. But when she’s doing a 50-stop tour, and she’s selling 10,000 Mayhem shirts a night… that’s a problem.”

And it’s not just about Gaga’s tour merch. It’s what happens when a mega-star co-opts your brand at scale.

“You walk out of SoFi Stadium after a show and there’s 30 trucks filled with her gear — $60 T-shirts with my name on them. Then you’ve got bootleggers in the parking lot slinging knockoffs for 10 bucks. I don’t want to see that with my logo on it.”

Biolos is no stranger to trademark battles. In the early 2000s, when ABC’s hit show LOST tried launching a clothing line, Biolos and his partner Mike Reola pushed back — and won.

“They were more amicable. We let them do one shirt. But they had a whole thing planned — it all got pulled.

“We’ve also been on the other side of this deal,” Mayhem continues. “We’ve done tongue-in-cheek things where you take light beer from Miller and you knock it off and make it say ‘Lost Surfboards from Mayhem.’ And you get a letter from Anheuser-Busch or whoever it might be, saying, ‘You can’t do that. It looks too much like our logo. It’s an obvious infringement.’ And we’re like, ‘Well, it’s just a joke.’ But they have the legal high ground, so you stop.”

So, is this just a bit of song and dance — or is Mayhem seriously going after Gaga?

“We’re a core, boutique brand,” Biolos says. “In the surf world, Mayhem means something. If Gaga turns it into a pop-tour fashion gimmick, it dilutes everything we’ve built. We’re not going to let that happen.”

While Matt says he’s open to what the legal process might yield — including a potential settlement — that’s not the endgame.

“This isn’t about squeezing Gaga for a cut. I don’t need the money,” he says. “This is about protecting the identity and authenticity of our work. Me and Mike have poured 35 years into this thing. It’s all we’ve got. We’re going to protect it.”

Biolos informed us that the reason Stab in the Dark star Kolohe Andino rebranded his apparel line 2% to Steko was due to a trademark dispute from an apparel brand working under the same title.

“This happens all the time, and we’ve done it on smaller levels. You have to protect yourself. There were MMA guys recently that started doing T-shirts that says Mayhem Gear, and they were totally oblivious. You’re like, ‘No, no, no, no. You can’t do that’. You stop them.”

So yes, Matt Biolos is suing Lady Gaga. In a world where surf brands rarely register above the pop culture fold, this may be one of the most high-profile legal clashes in surf history.

And if Gaga didn’t know who Biolos was before, she sure does now.