Be Your Own Pet

Be Your Own Pet (also known as BYOP or stylised as be your own PET) is a punk/garage rock band from Nashville, Tennessee, formed in 2004. For most of their career, the band's line-up has consisted of lead vocalist Jemina Pearl, guitarist Jonas Stein, bassist Nathan Vasquez and drummer John Eatherly. After originally releasing early singles and EPs with Nashville-based Infinity Cat Records, the band signed to XL Recordings and Thurston Moore's label, Ecstatic Peace/Universal Records in the UK & North America respectively. Be Your Own Pet released their self-titled debut album in 2006, receiving critical acclaim from publications such as NME and Pitchfork. Shortly following the release of their second album Get Awkward in 2008, the group disbanded, citing misogyny directed towards and experienced by Pearl and a general burnout from pressures of the music industry as the reasons for their split. Following a fourteen year hiatus, they reunited in 2021 after being specifically requested by American musician and songwriter, Jack White to open up on a few southeastern US dates of his Supply Chain Issues Tour in support of the two studio albums he would release that year. They subsequently signed to Third Man Records (co-owned by White and Pearl's husband, Ben Swank) soon after, where the group released their third studio album, Mommy on August 25, 2023. Biography The band formed while all members were in high school at Nashville School of the Arts. The group honed its sound playing house shows and gigs at the all-ages venues Guido's Pizza and Bongo Java. The band released their first single, Damn Damn Leash, as a CD-R; the track made its way to BBC Radio One presenter Zane Lowe, whose support for Be Your Own Pet won the band an early U.K. following. Meanwhile, attention-getting gigs at 2004's CMJ and 2005's South by Southwest began creating a buzz for the group stateside. A string of EPs followed.