Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers are the most natural, unapologetic and damn likeable punk-rockers you’ll meet
Formed during high school in their hometown of Canberra, Teen Jesus burst onto the scene in 2019 and quickly snapped attention for their searingly good garage punk sound. The opening of 2022 has been a monumental resume-builder for Australian punk rockers Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers: getting plucked to support the Foo Fighters, selling out a headliner at the famous Corner Hotel, invitations to some of the country’s biggest festivals and landing in triple j’s Hottest 200 with their single ‘AHHHH!’ being just the beginning. With these career wins and a few more birthdays under each of the Teenie Jeanies’ belts comes a collective sense of self-assuredness for Anna, Scarlett, Jaida and Neve. It’s a resolve not born of ego or entitlement, but of the coming-of-age they’ve experienced and a healthy confidence in the work they have put in to get where they are.
Maria: How did you get into music? When was the day when you woke up and decided that this is what you wanna do now?
Scarlett: Well me personally, my family is all really musical, it’s just kind of always been something that was around. I think it would be pretty strange for me to not get into music if that makes sense. Me and all the rest of the band we went to a Steiner School. These kinds of schools basically an alternative education kind of system where there's a focus on music and art as there is with all other subjects. So I remember having to learn to play recorder in year two when I was eight, and then everybody had to learn violin or cello in year three when we're like nine. So we've kind of always done music but not necessarily rock music. It wasn't until year eight or nine when we thought that it was really cool. We wanted to do that instead of cello.
So at the end of year nine, we had a sleepover at Neve’s house was the four of us. And we watched all the teen movies you watch at sleepovers in high school. And then we went to “school of rock”. I'm like, “God, that looks so easy. Maybe we should try to start a band”. Luckily Neve already was learning drums. That's why she's so good at drums now, but the rest of us kind of decided what instrument we wanted to learn. So yeah, it worked out really well that we're still doing it now like six years later up and I think it's the best way to start a band is just like we want to have fun.
Maria: How did you come up with a band name?
Scarlett: We spent so long trying to come up with a name but a few years before we started the band, one of my dad's friends was visiting from UK and I remember being in the back of the car, driving back from an a shop with them. And they were the in the front and they were coming up with the stupidest band names they could think of. They said a few funny ones and then dad's friend says «what about Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers». I didn't really take it in at the time. But then when we needed a name somehow it came back to me.
Maria: How would you describe the genre of your music like?
Scarlett: I think like, you know, obviously it’s rock really. Kind of like, I think, it's like a good combo of grunge and pop. We've definitely got a lot of influences. Look, if we're being honest, like it really is just indie rock.
Maria: Who do you think inspires you as an artist?
Scarlett: I think we have a lot of that we've been lucky enough to really kind of fall in with the right crowd. I think in the Australian music industry, people in bands that we call friends now – are definitely the people that I thought I would never be able to meet ever. Like Courtney Barnett, like all these people. There's just a lot of definitely strong women who always been around but now we are able to meet them. It’s crazy to me. But then my favourite band of all times is Arctic Monkeys, so I really look up to them.
Maria: Who’s your dream collaboration?
Scarlett: Probably Alex Turner, but he kind of scares me in a way that. I don't think I could do it. Maybe like, le arousal from wolf Alice. That'd be awesome. She's so cool.
Maria: How would you describe your creative process for writing your latest song “girl sports”?
Scarlett: I actually didn't write “girls sports”. So Anna did, the lead singer, like just at home by herself. It was kind of collaborative in the way that a lot of the lyrics are the things that men have said to us over the years. So they wrote it by themselves and kind of brought it to the rest of the band and we all workshopped it and came up with different parts and stuff. And then when we took it into the studio, we changed it even more. It's just a very gradual process of things being adapted. I remember that they got cat called one day on their street outside their house three different times. I was so angry and just went inside and message the group chat like “hey, what are the worst things that men have said to you at shows?” You know, there's so many things to list and she wrote an absolute banger. I'm so glad that she channeled it in that way. Because I love “girl sports”. It's my favourite song to play live, for sure. And we always get girls coming up to us afterwards saying how important it is to them, which is really nice.
Maria: Do you think that your process of writing songs have changed in any way since you've started releasing your music?
Scarlett: I guess like with the EP it was the first time that I've done writing sessions with people so I got to work with Alex Leigh. It was a very different process because I'd never written with other people before. But I found that really, really helpful because I tend to get very, self-critical and kind of struggle to actually finish things. So working with someone, especially someone that you look up to like that, it helped us to get all the ideas out. My process was definitely really different. But also we wrote all of these songs in lockdown. So I think it was kind of weirdly nice, having that much time to really focus on just creating songs and not stressing about touring or anything. We were just writing for ages, which was really good.
Maria: Do you have like any advice for someone who would want to follow into your footsteps?
Scarlett: That’s a hard one because I think that we have never really wanted to do anything other than just playing fun shows with our best friends. It hasn't really been "let's be in a band and really make it work». It's just been so fun. And then it's been growing so much and it's just a bonus from the fact that we were already having a really nice time. So I don't know, because there hasn't been a plan like that. I don't really know how it worked out. It just kind of happened which is really nice for us.
I'd say just have the right attitude. And being completely honest, I just want to be able to play gigs with my best friends every weekend. It doesn't really matter how many people are watching or how many people are listening to us because we're just having a lovely time. Obviously, you know, it's a bonus. Because that's amazing that people care and people want to watch us and listen to us.
Maria: What is the message that you would like to share through your songs?
Scarlett: I think with the release of Girl Scouts and the name of the EP as well like «pretty good for a girl band» we've spent a long time not being taken seriously as a band. I think because none of us are men. And we are the token girl band, which is ridiculous because Anna's pronouns, are they/she so we're not a girl band. I think that we've been doing this for a long time now. And we're kind of over the bullshit that we deal with a lot. We just want to be taken seriously as a band. We just want people to have fun in a safe space and enjoy themselves.
I think that's the biggest thing like especially for live shows. That's the whole reason we want to be in a band is because of the gigs like it's so fun. Just knowing that people at our shows are respectful and will have a good time. Look after each other and meet new friends at it. That sounds so cheesy, but I think respect people and have a good time is the message.
Maria: If you can have your fans remember one thing about you what would it be?
Scarlett: That's a hard one. I know I said it before but I really think the energy at the shows. I really liked that. Especially lately, now that we've been back into touring so much. It's just been so lovely. The people that come up to us afterwards and beforehand, it’s just lovely. Like we feel that we somehow created this amazing community at our shows.
Maria: Do you have favourite memory from a live show?
Scarlett: Our first show after all the years of lockdown was in Melbourne. And it was the first show and I had COVID all week. And I flew in the morning to Melbourne and we rehearsed all day and then went to the show. And we had to upsize the venue because our original venue lowered the capacity because of the COVID restrictions. So we had this huge venue. And we were so stressed that it was going to be empty. And I just remember, we were hiding in the greenroom backstage being like «oh, we're gonna play show again». We walked out and it was and the crowd was screaming like we are One Direction or something. And I just remember being so overwhelmed and we were all looking at each other like "what what do you mean», it was like so weird.
And I kind of thought about it afterwards and realized that over those few years of lock downs so many more people had started listening to us who didn't know us before. So it made sense that the crowd was that big, but I had never played a show like that ever. And that's amazing. We threw ourselves completely in the deep end. And it was terrifying and overwhelming. But now it's like the best show memory ever.
Maria: Do you have any upcoming and future projects?
Scarlett: We released the EP the other day which is like the five songs that we've been working on for ages. I'm excited to get back into writing again, because we've been so overwhelmed with touring that we haven't really been writing as much as we would like to, so that'll be really nice. We want to go away for like a few weeks altogether and just really write lots of songs. And then our EP tour starts in August which is going to be amazing. It's the biggest headline tour we've ever done. We're going everywhere all over Australia, which is so exciting. I think this is gonna be great.
