be your own PET

In both of their incarnations, Be Your Own Pet make the most of Jemina Pearl's livewire vocals and her bandmates' surging garage-rock. While they were still in their teens, they blasted out of Nashville, Tennessee in the mid-2000s with music that was as frenzied as it was catchy. Their careening noise-pop -- and Pearl's lyrics in particular -- tapped into the exuberance and chaos of being young, and on 2006's Be Your Own Pet and 2008's Get Awkward, they blurred the boundaries between fun and violence. This volatility, along with the pervasive sexism Pearl encountered, led the group to break up shortly after the release of their second album. However, their influence was felt in bands like Paramore and Big Joanie, and when they returned in the 2020s with live dates and 2023's ferocious Mommy, Be Your Own Pet sounded fully in control of their music and destiny. Be Your Own Pet was formed in 2004 by a group of friends at the Nashville School of the Arts. Singer Pearl, bassist Nathan Vasquez, drummer Jamin Orrall (who ran the label Infinity Cat with his brother Jeff), and guitarist Jonas Stein (who was in another band on the label, Jimmy Cushman?, at the time) took their name from a song by fellow Infinity Cat group Art Circus. They honed their wild-eyed-yet-poppy sound by playing house shows and gigs at the all-ages venues Guido's Pizza and Bongo Java, then worked on demos with producers including Jacquire King and Orrall's father, singer/songwriter Robert Ellis Orrall. Be Your Own Pet released their first single, "Damn Damn Leash" -- a hooky, punky, whip-smart song that echoed the best of Blondie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- as a CD-R on Infinity Cat in September 2004. The single made its way to BBC Radio One presenter Zane Lowe, whose support for Be Your Own Pet helped "Damn Damn Leash" reach number 68 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Meanwhile, attention-getting gigs at 2004's CMJ and 2005's South by Southwest began creating a buzz for Be Your Own Pet in the U.S. A string of EPs for Rough Trade and XL followed, including a re-release of Damn Damn Leash and Fire Department in 2005, and Let's Get Sandy (Big Problem) in early 2006; the latter two releases both charted in the U.K. That March's Adventure became the band's first U.K. Top 40 hit. Thurston Moore, another early fan, signed Be Your Own Pet to his Ecstatic Peace imprint to release the band's material in the U.S. April 2006's Summer Sensation, a collection of Be Your Own Pet's demos and EP tracks, became the band's first widely distributed U.S. release. Produced by Redd Kross' Steve McDonald, the group's full-length debut Be Your Own Pet delivered wild-eyed garage-punk inspired by Dawn of the Dead and Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan among other subjects. The album was released that March in the U.K. (where it peaked at number 47 on the U.K. Albums Chart) and in the U.S. that June. In September 2006, Orrall left Be Your Own Pet to go to college and concentrate on his garage-rock duo with his brother, JEFF the Brotherhood. With John Eatherly behind the kit, the band returned to the studio with McDonald in mid-2007. Around that time, Infinity Cat issued the Not Rocket Science EP. Released by Universal, Ecstatic Peace, and XL, March 2008's Get Awkward was a heavier but still mischievous set of songs touching on punk, new wave and girl group pop. The album entered the Top Ten of the U.K. Indie Albums chart, while four of its singles ("Food Fight!," "Super Soaked," "The Kelly Affair," and "Black Hole") appeared in the Top Ten of the U.K. Indie Singles chart. Several songs were deemed too violent by Universal and were removed from the U.S. edition of Get Awkward, but were released in June as the Get Damaged EP. After performing several U.K. shows, Be Your Own Pet disbanded in August 2008. The band cited the increased pressure and expectations surrounding them during the making and promotion of Get Awkward, as well as the misogyny directed at Pearl, as reasons for their breakup. The group split just before they had the opportunity to write the music for the fictional band Sex Bob-Omb in Edgar Wright's film adaptation of the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Beck wrote the music instead). Pearl's solo album, Break It Up, appeared in October 2009 and included contributions from Moore, Dave Sitek, Iggy Pop, and Eatherly, who co-wrote its songs. Later, she played in the Ultras S/C with Ben Swank, with whom she started a family. With his other project Turbo Fruits, Stein released a string of albums in the late 2000s and early 2010s, then became a successful DJ. Meanwhile, Eatherly played with groups including Chairlift and Smith Westerns and fronted the band Public Access T.V., which issued a pair of acclaimed albums in the late 2010s. In 2021, the members of Be Your Own Pet reconnected when discussions about reissuing their albums led to writing new songs. Early in 2022, the band opened for Jack White on several dates of his tour, marking their first shows in 14 years. After signing to Third Man Records, Be Your Own Pet entered Nashville's Battle Tapes Recording studio with producer/engineer Jeremy Ferguson. Arriving in August 2023, Be Your Own Pet's third album Mommy offered fierce garage-rock driven by Pearl's uncompromising lyrics about motherhood, control, and authoritarian politics.
© Heather Phares /TiVo