Audio By Carbonatix
Be Your Own Pet doesn’t play punk rock like your random lipstick-wearing MTV pinups, or your pop-punk-happy jokesters, or even your serious-as-cancer anarchists. This Nashville, Tennessee, trio kicks out the raucously inebriated jams in the spirit of ’77 with style. Only a year or two removed from high school, singer Jemina Pearl, bassist Nathan Vasquez, drummer Jamin Orrall, and guitarist Jonas Stein formed Be Your Own Pet and started playing “local freak scenes” until record companies salivated. Be Your Own Pet dropped an EP in the U.K. last year, but don’t bother looking for it, because it sounds wack. The band’s self-titled album, where Pearl sings about being a “Wildcat” and Stein shreds over Vasquez and Orrall’s monster rhythms, is a lot better. Now Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth is mentoring the quartet, and everyone’s talking about these kids like they’re the next big thing. “I’m an independent motherfucker/And I’m here to take your money,” sings Pearl on “Bunk Trunk Skunk.” It’s kinda funny, since the group’s debut album is coming out on Universal Records. Go figure.
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