SXSW Music Spotlight: Be Your Own Pet

Singer Jemina Pearl gleams with enthusiasm as she recounts newly reunited Be Your Own Pet’s first band practice since their 2008 split. Archives include their self-titled debut, where the Nashville garage punks wreaked havoc on two wheels – ascending to breakneck, Bad Brains-level speed midsong, as Pearl’s vocals quavered alongside thrashing power chords.

“It was wild,” she says. “We’ve played those songs so much that we still knew all the weird breaks and stuff. With some of the more complicated and chaotic ones, we were like, ‘What the fuck were we thinking when we wrote this?’

“We were very obviously 16 years old and definitely didn’t know what a standard songwriting format was. It was all over the place, but it was fun to dive back into our teenage mindsets.”

For sophomore Get Awkward, BYOP pivoted to Sixties girl-group sophistication and leather-jacket-clad art rock riffs. Even slightly more polished, their appetite for the unruly remained. Throughout their four-year run, the singer and bandmates – guitarist Jonas Stein, bassist Nathan Vasquez, and drummer John Eatherly – garnered critical acclaim from almost every major music publication, before even turning 21.

The attention frequently came at the expense of Pearl, subjected to misogynistic criticism that often objectified her. The singer notes that the time between BYOP’s disbandment has allowed her to reflect, and reclaim.

“It was also really healing to give my teenage self a little bit of a hug, like, ‘You’re gonna make it through and it’s gonna be OK,’” she adds. “When I was onstage – when I am onstage – it’s my favorite thing in the world. It’s fun and it’s freeing. It’s a space where you can do whatever the fuck you want.”

As far as SXSW set lists, Pearl mentions room for surprises alongside cuts from 2006’s now-iconic Be Your Own Pet: “We’ll revisit some of our favorites, maybe throw in a couple of covers of songs that were inspiring to us when we were younger. And you know, there might be something fresh.”

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Be Your Own Pet

Wed 15, 11pm, Mohawk