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“If you want to rock, you’ve gotta break the rules. You’ve gotta get mad at The Man,” a wise man (Jack Black) once said (in School of Rock). And in 2015, four 15-year-olds in Canberra watching the Richard Linklater film at a sleepover decided they wanted to do just that, forming a rock band the morning after that has become one of Australia’s most exciting acts: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – a joke name suggested by one of their uncles that stuck.
The four teenagers had enough punk brio that they were soon being booked to play venues they weren’t old enough to enter unchaperoned. Adults around them would assume they were in their early 20s, when they were actually 16 or 17.
“Our parents would tag along and we’d have lemonade on the rider. We’d have our little school backpacks, then go to a pub to play a show – when you look back now it was really strange. We thought we were really cool,” laughs guitarist Scarlett McKahey, now 24.
“To be fair, it was pretty cool,” adds singer Anna Ryan, 24.
They got bigger and bigger, but they still felt impostor syndrome; when huge crowds lined up to see Teen Jesus play at Brisbane’s Bigsound in 2018, “I was like, what are they lining up for? Who is playing after us?” says Ryan.
Their 2022 EP Pretty Good for a Girl Band was named for the backhanded praise they often heard; it included the hit Girl Sports, inspired by Stephenson who, after knocking her teeth out in a skating accident, was told by a male dentist that she should “stick to girl sports”. (The chorus kicks off with the chant: “Fuck off, fuck off!)
“It was meant to be ironic, because it’s obviously deeply offensive,” says McKahey, of the EP’s title. “But people would come up after that and be like, ‘You guys ARE pretty good for a girl band!’”
“People would be like, ‘Oh my god, you guys ARE my favourite girl band,’” adds Ryan.
“It backfired a bit,” sighs bassist Jaida Stephenson.
Their debut, 2023’s I Love You, was more polished, with the wistful anthem Salt and the catchy belter Ahhhh! winning them 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’s playing with the Foo Fighters?’” McKahey recalls. “And we said, who?”
At their first gig (at a school fete), they’d played Nirvana covers; now they were playing with Dave Grohl.
“I had to completely disconnect. I had to treat him as a regular person, because otherwise I’d throw up,” Ryan laughs.
Teen Jesus later opened for Pearl Jam on their Australian tour, then joined their US arena tour. “We’d never been backstage at a stadium before Fooeys – so by the time we were touring with Pearl Jam we were like, OK, we’ve done this before,” says McKahey. “And by the time we went to America, we knew how to play those rooms and we also knew the band – which is a fucked thing to say about Pearl Jam!”
Somewhere along the way, a high school band had become one of Australia’s most exciting rock acts. “We didn’t do this because we want to become the biggest band in the world or we want to become famous. It’s just fun playing shows with our besties. And I think that energy really shows in our music,” says Stephenson.
Their new album, Glory, sounds a lot grander than anything they’ve done before; as punchy and contagious as the best of I Love You, but with a darker, synthy sound. There is Balcony, a taunting banger that will be loved by Wet Leg fans, and the lovely Unscarred, which has echoes of the Cranberries. Listening to it made me feel oddly hopeful, basking in its confident vulnerability; they are still sticking it 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 being 20 and 25 is actually huge,” says McKahey. “I’ve lived a thousand lives this past four years. We’re actual professional musicians now. We’re legit. And we went into this album with so much intention and knew exactly what we wanted it to look like … it’s really good and we’re really happy.”
Glory was produced by Catherine Marks, an Australian producer who has also worked with Boygenius and Wolf Alice. (“She won a freaking Grammy,” says McKahey.) They all lived together for five weeks at the studio; sleeping, eating, jamming, watching Married at First Sight, then repeat – with Marks even monitoring what music they put on during trips to the supermarket – to shape the album’s ultimate sound.
“It changed so much because of her. She really made it exactly what we wanted,” says McKahey.
Has the music industry, and the world, moved on from the days when they were only “pretty good for a girl band?” “Kind of,” says McKahey. “I also think there’s been such a rise of conservatives who think women shouldn’t be able to get abortions, or work. There’s a lot of non-male music that’s really big, which is great. But there’s also the Charlie Kirks of the world.”
Generally, they have found that the music industry is not so bad; Ryan’s expectation that it might be “this terrifying place where people are going to try and wrong me everywhere I go”, they admit, was largely shaped by Alvin and the Chipmunks. But the four have learned to stand their ground: “When we were younger, we were in the mindset of everybody else knows best, but now we know what is best for us,” Ryan says.
The transition from being four friends in a high school band to a professional band who happen to be childhood friends can be delicate. But none of them can imagine anything else.
“We’ve been in the band for so long that I don’t even really know what it would be like without it,” says McKahey. “We all speak this language that nobody else can speak. We know each other super well. When we’re touring, if someone’s having a bad day we all can read it enough to leave them alone and not take it personally.
“That’s a big thing musically too – not getting offended if your idea doesn’t work. When we were 18, we were all a bit grizzly – because we were 18. Now, it’s so easy.”
Suddenly, a new voice pipes up: their drummer, Neve van Boxsel, who has been mute the entire time.
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“I’m so sorry for not contributing, I’m driving to work and the traffic is terrible,” she shouts, as the others laugh. “I agree with every answer! I have nothing to add!”
Glory is out on 7 November
Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers’ songs to live by
Each month we ask our headline act to share the songs that have accompanied them through love, life, lust and death.
What’s the song you wish you wrote?
Reptilia by the Strokes. It has one of the best guitar x bass solos of all time, forever jealous we didn’t write it.
What is the song you have listened to the most times this year?
Love Takes Miles by Cameron Winter. This whole album is pure crack but this song in particular has been on constant repeat.
If your life was a movie, what would the opening credits song be?
Kinda cheesy but You Get What You Give by the New Radicals. This song started playing in our tour bus at the end of one of our favourite tours, and it fully felt like a movie moment.
What is your go-to karaoke song?
Pump It by the Black Eyed Peas. Need we explain? I just want to sing Fergie’s breakdown part.
What’s a song you can never listen to again?
Let it Go from Frozen. I would pay good money not to hear this again.
What underrated song deserves classic status?
Moonlight Lady by Julio Inglesias. I know this is a pretty famous song but I personally believe it should be the biggest song in the world. Period.
What is a song you loved as a teenager?
Cigarette Daydreams by Cage the Elephant. We had a lot of beach roadtrips soundtracked by this song!
What is the first song/album you bought?
The Secret Life of… by the Veronicas. Technically this was my sister’s first album, but I stole the CD enough times that I’m going to claim it as my own.
