Teen Jesus and the Jean Tears: We don’t want to be the biggest band in the world. It’s just fun to play with your best friends Australian music

“IIf you want to rock, you have to break the rules. A wise man (Jack Black) once said (in School of Rock): “You gotta be mad at the man.” And in 2015, four 15-year-olds in Canberra watching a Richard Linklater film during their slumber party decided they wanted to do just that, so they formed a rock band the next morning, which became one of Australia’s hottest acts: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – a joke name suggested by an uncle that stuck.

The four teens had enough of punk that they were soon being booked to play at venues they weren’t old enough to enter unaccompanied. The adults around them assumed they were in their early 20s, when in reality they were 16 or 17 years old.

“Our parents would tag along and we would have lemonade on the jockey. We would carry our little school backpacks, then go to a pub to play a show – when you look back now, it was really weird. We thought we were really cool,” laughs guitarist Scarlett McCahey, now 24.

“To be fair, that is He was “So cool,” adds 24-year-old singer Anna Ryan.

They are getting bigger and bigger, but they still feel the imposter syndrome; When huge crowds lined up to see Teen Jesus play at Brisbane’s Bigsound in 2018, “I wondered, what are they lining up for? Who’s playing after us?” Ryan says.

The band’s 2022 EP Pretty Good for a Girl Band is named after the praise they’ve often heard; It included the hit song Girl Sports, inspired by Stevenson who, after breaking her teeth in a skiing accident, was told by a male dentist that she should “stick to women’s sports”. (The chorus starts chanting: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“It was meant to be ironic, because it’s obviously very insulting,” McCahey says of the European Parliament address. “But then people come up and say, ‘You guys are too good for a girl group!’

“People will say, ‘Oh my God, you guys are my favorite girl group,'” Ryan adds.

“It kind of backfired a little bit,” sighs bassist Jayda Stevenson.

Their debut, 2023’s I Love You, was more polished, with the melancholic anthem “Salt” and the catchy “Ahhhh”! Winning Best Breakthrough Artist at the ARIA Awards. That same year, they opened for the Foo Fighters on their Australian tour. “Our managers called us and said, ‘Guess who plays for the Foo Fighters?’” McCahey recalls. “So we said who?”

At their first gig (at a school celebration), they played Nirvana covers; Now they were playing with Dave Grohl.

“I had to completely cut off contact. I had to treat him like a normal person, otherwise I was going to throw up,” Ryan laughs.

Teen Jesus later opened for Pearl Jam on their Australian tour, then joined their US tour. “We had never been backstage at a stadium before the Fooeys — so by the time we were touring with Pearl Jam we were like, ‘OK, we’ve done this before,’” McCahey says. “By the time we went to America, we knew how to play those rooms and We also know the band – which is a ridiculous thing to say about Pearl Jam!

Somewhere along the way, the high school band became one of Australia’s most exciting rock bands. “We don’t do it because we want to be the biggest band in the world or we want to be famous,” says Stevenson. “It’s just fun playing shows with our best friends. And I think that energy really comes through in our music.”

Their new album Glory sounds far greater than anything they’ve done before; As poignant and infectious as the best song I Love You, but with a darker synth sound. There’s Balcony, a spoof that Wet Leg fans will love, and the lovely Unscarred, which echoes Cranberry. Listening to her made me feel strangely hopeful, reveling in her confident vulnerability; They still cling to the man.

“I’m done being someone you ignore,” Ryan sings on Unscarred. “Don’t bother calling me back. Don’t bother calling me back.”

“I feel like the gap between the ages of 20 and 25 is really big,” McCahey says. “I’ve lived a thousand lives over the last four years. We’re really professional musicians now. We’re legit. We went into this album with a lot of intention and knew exactly how we wanted it to sound… It’s really good and we’re really happy.”

Glory was produced by Katherine Marks, an Australian producer who has also worked with Boygenius and Wolf Alice. (“She won a stranger grammy,(says McCahey.) They all lived together for five weeks in the studio—sleeping, eating, enjoying the music, watching Married at First Sight, and then repeating it—Marks even monitoring the music they put on during trips to the supermarket—to shape the album’s final sound.

“It’s changed a lot because of her. She’s done exactly what we wanted,” McCahi says.

Has the music industry and the world moved on from the days of “too good for a girl group?” “Sort of,” says McCahey. “I also think there’s been a huge rise of conservatives who think women shouldn’t be able to have an abortion or work. There’s a lot of non-male music out there and it’s really big, which is great. But there’s also the Charlie Kirks of the world.”

Overall, they found that the music industry wasn’t too bad; They admit that Ryan’s prediction that it might be “this terrifying place where people will try to do me wrong everywhere I go” was largely influenced by Alvin and the Chipmunks. But the four have learned to stand their ground: “When we were younger, we were in the mindset that everyone knew what was best, but now we know what is best for us,” Ryan says.

Going from being four friends in a high school band to a professional band who happen to be childhood friends can be a delicate one. But none of them could imagine anything else.

“We’ve been in the band so long that I don’t really know what it would be like without them,” McCahey says. “We all speak this language that no one else can speak. We know each other very well. When we tour, if someone is having a bad day, we can all read them enough to leave them alone and not take it personally.”

“That’s a big thing musically too – not being offended if your idea doesn’t work. When we were 18, we were all a bit grizzled – because we were 18. Now, it’s so easy.”

Suddenly, a new voice came out: the drummer, Neve Van Boxel, who had remained silent the entire time.

“I’m so sorry for not contributing, I drive to work and the traffic is terrible,” she shouts as the others laugh. “I agree with every answer! I have nothing to add!”

Glory will be released on November 7th

Teen Jesus and Jean Teasers songs to live by

Each month we ask our headliner to share the songs that have taken them through love, life, lust and death.

What song do you wish you could write?

Reptiles by strokes. It has one of the best guitar solos ever, and we’re forever jealous we didn’t write it.

What song have you listened to the most times this year?

Love Takes Miles by Cameron Winter. This entire album is pure crack but this song in particular was kept on repeat.

If your life were a movie, what would the opening song be?

Kind of cheesy but you get what you give New Radicals. This song started playing on our tour bus at the end of one of our favorite rides, and it sounded like a movie moment.

What is your favorite karaoke song?

Pumped by the Black Eyed Peas. Do we need clarification? I just want to sing the breakdown part for Fergie.

What is a song that you will never be able to listen to again?

Let it go from frozen. I would pay good money to never hear this again.

What’s an underrated song that deserves classic status?

Lady Moonlight by Julio Inglesias. I know this is a very popular song but personally I think it should be the biggest song in the world. a period.

What song did you love when you were a teenager?

Cigarette Daydream by Elephant Cage. We had a lot of beach trips captured by this song!

What was the first song/album you bought?

The Secret Life of… by Veronicas. Technically, this was my sister’s debut album, but I stole the CD enough times that I could claim it as my own.