for one leg of the 1999 Marilyn Manson–Hole Beautiful Monsters Tour, but the tour ended after only a few March dates when Hole dropped out and Manson had to postpone dates due to an ankle injury. Imperial Teen ended up headlining a club tour instead. A 1999 article in The Advocate said of the band, "With lyrical allusions to wearing lipstick and male pronouns used to address love objects, Imperial Teen serves up a gay sensibility that ordinarily surfaces only from straight bands like Pulp or Pizzicato Five." Bottum (who came out as gay in 1993) noted, "I think there's a resistance from gay artists to go that route just because it's so predictable. But it is annoying to see bands play it as safe as they do these days. That's why something that visually screams as loud as Marilyn Manson is such a breath of fresh air." Issues with support levels and label restructuring at Universal Records prompted Imperial Teen to switch to Merge Records for the 2002 release of its third album, On, which was produced by Steve McDonald (again) and Anna Waronker (of That Dog). The lead track, "Ivanka" (originally released on the Sweet and Touching 7-inch), received radio play. Imperial Teen toured with the Breeders in 2002 in support of the album. On July 31, 2002, the band played a gig at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, that was recorded for posterity and released three months later as the CD Live at Maxwell's. Will Schwartz joined with Tomo Yasuda for his dance side project Hey Willpower. The outfit, also including dancers Erin Rush and Justin Kelly, released a self-titled EP in 2005. Imperial Teen returned on the live scene with two shows at the South by Southwest music festival in March 2007. The band released its first album in five years, The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band, in late August 2007 on Merge Records. It was later selected as the 38th-best record of 2007 by Rolling Stone magazine. The band's fifth studio album, Feel the Sound, was released on January 31, 2012. Jone Stebbins said in a 2017 interview that the band was preparing material for a sixth studio album, although the process is slowed down by their living far apart from one another. Roddy Bottum revealed in late 2018 that he was mixing a new Imperial Teen album. The album was released