On the heels of playing to packed rooms and enthusiastic audiences at SXSW, Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet have dropped a new single, “Hand Grenade,” via Third Man Records. 

The song marks their first new music since the release of their Get Damaged EP (XL Recordings) in 2008 and was written and recorded by the three founding members Jemina Pearl Abegg (vox), Jonas Stein (guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass), and longtime drummer John Eatherly.  Picking up right where they left off and clocking in at just over 3 minutes, “Hand Grenade” is an exuberant return.

“‘Hand Grenade’ started out as a threat to the people who harmed me, that I will make them suffer as I have suffered,” explains Jemina Pearl. “But the song grew like a mirror to my own grief process, through anger, denial, sorrow. In the end I gain my power back not through violence, but through self acceptance and rejection of the labels others might put on me. I define myself, no one else.”  

In 2005, Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet played their first SXSW.  The buzz they generated at sixteen years old, along with the release of their debut single “Damn Damn Leash” quickly led to a record deal with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label in the U.S. and XL Recordings in the UK.  BYOP went on to release 2 albums – 2006’s self-titled debut and Get Awkward – to critical acclaim on both sides of the pond (including a Nylon Magazine cover) before they broke up in 2008.   

Photo Courtesy: Kirsten Barnett