A Band You Should Know: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers
Older siblings’ friends always seem to be incredibly cool to us younger siblings and this may just be the perfect example of why, in reality they may actually be, that cool. Or at least this one is anyways.
A little over a year ago I landed my first film job. I was completely underqualified for the position, yet thanks to one of my older sister’s best friends being someone important on the job, they gave me a shot. It was during this time that I first heard of this band. Alex (my sister’s friend) asked me what I was doing one Friday after work, because she had a spare ticket to a gig. I asked who the artist was, and she said ‘Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers’. Teen Jesus and the who? I looked up this peculiar name for myself and all there really is to say beyond this, is that I’ve been a devout follower of theirs since.
From selling out national tours, to playing just about every Aussie music festival, to supporting artists like the Foo Fighters, and as of recently signing with Mom and Pop Music - it’s fair to say that this four-piece are up to quite a bit. So, if you don’t have an older sister with cool friends to show you cool fucking bands, maybe I can be that stand in for you today.
I had the pleasure of having a chat with their bass guitarist, Jaida Stephenson, last month whilst they were in the thick of their latest tour, ‘I Love You Too’. Here’s what we spoke about.
Hey Jaida, how are you doing?
Good, how you going?
Good, good! So, you just kicked off the national tour for your latest release, ‘I Love You Too’. Tell me what it was like releasing the deluxe edition of the album verses releasing it as a debut album?
It was super exciting. When we recorded the album, we didn’t have a deluxe in mind, so it was a bit of a surprise! We got pitched the idea to us and we were like actually this would be awesome because we had these three songs that didn’t make the cut on the original album… It’s been really well received and seeing a bunch of people already singing the words to the new songs [in the crowd] off ‘I Love You Too’, I’m like – how did you even have the time to learn these!
People are devout and rightly bloody so! There are some cool features on the album too. How was it working with Softcult and The Linda Lindas?
It was crazy, we’re really big fans of them both… Softcult are a Canadian band so we obviously couldn’t be in the same studio. So, we sent them the song ‘Dull’… and they just completely transformed it. They added all these amazing harmonies and all these extra layers. They really just turned a good song, into a great song.
And then The Linda Lindas with please me, I remember watching a video of them like four years ago on Instagram and being like ‘oh my god these guys are awesome’ and I’ve followed them ever since. So, when we T’d up working with them, I couldn’t believe it…
That’s awesome. Ok, the name Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, It’s insane. I love it! Tell me about that.
It’s pretty huge, I can’t believe it actually stuck to be honest, but I am so glad that it did. We went through a few band names at the beginning… Then Scarlett was in the car with her uncle one day and he was like “do you know what a cool band name would be – Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers.” Scarlett bought that to the band as like a bit of a joke and it kind of stuck… we had this sort of movie moment before our first show. The MC went to announce us as ‘dandelions and the enigmas’, and Scarlett, like ran up and told the MC that we were actually Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers.
That is so good, such a good story. Maybe one day when you guys have a doco, Scarlett can re-enact that.
Yes definitely. Scarlett running across the stage in slow motion.
When you formed as a band was it an instantaneous like wow, where onto something good, or was it a bit more of a work in progress?
Not at all. We were so bad. Neve was already playing drums, she’s always been a sick drummer and Anna has always had a great voice, but not me and Scarlett. I mean Scarlett was a celloist, like a really good celloist beforehand, so she was already an incredible musician, but she hadn’t ever picked up a guitar. And um, I think I played recorder until that point, haha. I got designated bass because I have big hands…
That’s hilarious. That makes me wonder, did you at times feel like you had to sort of fake it to make it?
100%. Like personally, it took me until just last year to actually consider myself to be a musician… and I’ve been playing bass for nearly ten years now. I think it’s that like imposter syndrome, especially as women, we always seem to have more of it when it comes to starting out in a new career.
For sure, also us Aussies love to consider ourselves less than we actually are, the whole tall poppy syndrome thing.
Yeah! All that self-deprecation.
Ok, I’ll wrap it up in a moment but tell us what you have coming up for you as a band?
Yes! This whole month of November is freaking huge for us. So, we’ve got the rest of the album tour, we’re going to the Aria Awards next week – we’ve been nominated for our first Aria which is very exciting, and they’ve also asked us to play. We’re kind of wetting our pants but we’ll see how we go. And then we’re doing the Pearl Jam tour next week as well which will be pretty wild.
And to finish it off, who is a band or artist that you think we should be listening to?
Ooo… ok, Sonic Reducer. They’re actually Scarlett’s little brother’s band from Canberra, but I’m not just suggesting them for that reason… They just got the Royal Otis European/UK tour support, and they’re just on an upwards track, it’s awesome. I’m also a really big fan of the band Dust from Newcastle… And Full Flower Moon Band, who is the band that is supporting us on our tour at the moment.