Local indie rock legends Jebediah have announced a new tour to celebrate their 30 years of making music.
And that’s a sentence that suddenly made a lot of 90’s indie kids feel really old. The tour will include two shows at The Rosemount Hotel, a venue the band has played many times during the early days of their career.
As well as the tour this October and November, the band will be putting their first three albums out on vinyl for the first time.
“It feels surprisingly not that old, despite the fact we are all well into our middle ages now,” shares leader singer Kevin Mitchell.
“Being in this band is like stepping in and out of a time capsule. It doesn’t matter how many years go by, every time we are on stage, or in the studio, or rehearsal room or just hanging out together, it’s somehow 1995 again, you know?
“Obviously, our lives have changed immensely but when you are around lifelong friends I think there is a part of you that stays the age of your youth. You still relate to each other the same way you did as teenagers. I’m sure anyone who catches up with old school friends would have experienced this a bit. So that’s how it feels. It’s not always easy but it’s also a gift.” Mitchell said.
The band formed in 1994 when the members were still students at Leeming High School. They took their name from The Simpson’s character Jebediah Springfield, the founder of the fictional town of Springfield. It kicked off a wave of Perth band’s been named after cartoon characters, Flanders and Cartman are of the same era.
The following year they won the National Campus Band competition, giving them a slot at the Summersault Music Festival opening up for Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters. The following year they out their first Ep Twitch, and soon after their debut album Slightly Odway was released, as it spent more than a year in the Australian Top 50.
More albums followed with Of Someday Shambles arriving in 1999, the self titled Jebediah in 2002 and Braxton Kicks in 2004. The band went on hiatus in 2005. Lead singer Kevin Mitchell launched a successful solo career as Bob Evans, while bassist Vanessa Thornton joined Felicity Groom’s band The Black Smoke. Over the years Thornton has played in many Perth outfits including Axe Girl and The Tommyhawks.
The band have reformed more albums, and many tours over the years. Kosciuszko came in 2011, and their most recent collaboration OIKS was released just last year.
As part of the 30th anniversary celebrations fans will also be able to get their hands on some new translucent vinyl pressings of the band’s first three albums, for some it’s the first time they’ve been released on vinyl.
They also come with new artwork that recreates their memorable covers as cartoon images.
“The new vinyl releases will have awesome new artwork and some of them will be getting their very first vinyl release ever, so that’s exciting,” reveals Mitchell.
“I’m also really excited about the digital re-releases as we have found lots of old demo recordings that no one has ever heard before and B-sides that have never been digitally released so they are going to be really cool collections of material that hopefully long-time fans will enjoy.
“That is one of the redeeming features of digital music and streaming and stuff, is that it is very easy to put that kind of stuff out for people to hear. It’s really for us and the hard-core fans to enjoy, a place for all this archival stuff to sit publicly.”
With eight headline shows locked and loaded this October and November, Jebediah fans can expect plenty of favourites to be making appearances as part of the 30 Odyears Tour.
But longtime fans will also be pleasantly surprised with what’s in store later this year, with the 30th anniversary run guaranteed to pay homage to the present and incredible past of Jebediah.
“We’ve been playing a lot of festival sets where we wheel out all the hits, so to speak,” shares Mitchell, “so it’s time for us to curate a set of songs that aren’t just a parade of singles. So hopefully the set will be different to anything we’ve done before and be more of a deeper cross section of our history that represents a bit of everything.”
Tickets for Jebediah’s THIRTY ODYEARS Tour are on sale now.
Head to https://jebediah.ffm.to/thirtyodyears for tickets and information.
THURS 16 OCT | LION ARTS FACTORY, ADELAIDE SA | TICKETS
FRI 17 OCT | ALTAR, HOBART TAS | TICKETS
SAT 18 OCT | THE CROXTON, MELBOURNE VIC | TICKETS
THURS 23 OCT | TRIFFID, BRISBANE QLD | TICKETS
FRI 24 OCT | FACTORY THEATRE, SYDNEY NSW | TICKETS
SAT 25 OCT | THE BASO, CANBERRA ACT | TICKETS
FRI 31 OCT | ROSEMOUNT HOTEL, PERTH | TICKETS
SAT 1 NOV | ROSEMOUNT HOTEL, PERTH | TICKETS
