Sain magazine - Animal Instincts
Don't ask Jebediah about the meaning behind their new single "Animal". Says bassist Vanessa Thornton mysteriously, "It reminds me of a train. It's got this rolling chugga chugga sound. It doesn't stop at any stations, it just keeps chugging along." She adds, "I think it's about going out and partying...but I couldn't be sure."
Vocalist, co-songwriter and guitarist Kevin Mitchell hates giving explanations as to what songs are about. "But since you ask, Vanessa is right," he admits. "It's about picking up, basically. It's not much of a scene. After we finished Slightly Odway, I broke up with my girlfriend at teh time. So I spent the last two years of touring and then going in to record this album basically as a single person. That's had an influence on a lot of the songs."
The pure-pop vocal harmony behind the lines "I know everything I do tonight/Means nothing if I don't succeed" belies the dark energy behind the lyric. "I'm insufferable when I'm in heat,"Kevin concludes. "It's my animal instinct."
"Animal" - which has on it's b-side "Supposed to Say" and live staple "The Less Trusted Pain Remover" - is a taster to the Perth band's second album of Someday Shambles. The album was produced by Mark Trombino (Knapsack, Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World) who captures some harder-hitting sounds than their debut.
"we chose him because he'd done the last two records by Knapsack," says Kevin. "They're kinda like a discordant punk band, this weird indie rock pop crossover. We manily made teh decision because of the direction we could see the songs going. They were still pop songs like "Odway", but they were getting more complicated, not as straightforward, they had a bit more depth to them."
"There were so many things that we learnt during recording and after releasing Slightly Odway," Jebediah recalls. "We all had grown so much in the last two years. We just wanted to make a record that was just better than Odway in every way - sounds, songwriting, structures of songs. A record that's more grown up, without losing the things that are inherently Jebs."
Jebediah's growth came quickly. Guitarist and vocalist Chris Daymond was such a fan of The Simpsons that he vowed to name his first child after Jebediah Springfield, the founder of the show's town of Springfield.
Instead, in 1995, he volunteered teh name for the band he formed with Kevin and Vanessa, who were also in theatre art classes with him at school. They roped in Kevin's brother Brett as drummer. Early rehearsals took in covers from punkers Archers Of Loaf to The Muppets. After only 13 shos, they won the National Campus final, their Twitch EP debuted the Perth charts at No.1 and "Jerks Of Attention" became their first hit.
Not long after, there was a bidding war between recording companies, won by Murmur, which had signed silverchair. Slightly Odway continues to sell. It's almost close to double platinum status, which means sales of 150,000. Part of the reason behind the album's success is that Jebediah had no qualms about hitting the road and playing every nook and cranny in this country. They're still one of the hardest working bands. Last month they were in Canada. This month they're doing lengthy national dates with Garageland and Sugarchild. There's no let up. They're also locked up for the Livid Festival (Brisbane) in October, and Homebake(Sydney) in December.
Vanessa "We all have our roles in the band when we tour. Chris handles the artwork, Kevin deals with the checking on of the hotels, Ben looks after the finances..and me, I drive the car!"
(Ben was used...it's meant to be Brett..this mag is well known for it's spelling errors)