FANGIRL Online: 20 years of Be Your Own Pet
To properly express my feelings about Be Your Own Pet I need to take you back to the summer of 2006. I was freshly 15 and, although my obsession with emo bands was still going strong, indie sleaze was making serious waves to my wardrobe and my music taste. My days were filled with surfing Myspace and scouring the local record store to find bands to listen to. Be Your Own Pet had just released their now infamous self titled debut album with 15 songs and a runtime of 33 minutes. Now I don't remember if it was myself or a friend that discovered BYOP, but what I do remember clear as day is the first time I heard Bicycle Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle. I then found out that the whole band were also teenagers - only a year or two older than me... my mind was officially blown.
Be Your Own Pet quickly became one of my friends and I's favourite bands and when they announced their second album, Get Awkward, in 2008 we hoped we'd get to see them live. We were still teenagers but now we had fake IDs and most of us were out of highschool when it was announced BYOP had joined the Nylon Magazine tour and would be playing Vancouver on June 17th 2008. The only problem: the venue they were playing was the only one where our fake IDs didn't work (they were onto us). "That's fine" we thought, "they'll play Vancouver again!" ... oh how wrong we were...
Well, to be fair, they did play Vancouver again.. but not until 2023. More on that later... back to 2008: the Nylon tour would prove to be fateful to BYOP and infact it was at the Vancouver show, the one we couldn't attend, where the band would break up for over a decade. "It all went down in the green room bathroom." lead singer Jemina Pearl tells me. "I threw a beer bottle and it shattered the glass shower door." She's very candid about their substance abuse as teenagers and how everything was just too much, too soon. "We were bad kids." She adds with a grin that makes her gold tooth sparkle.
When they reunited and released their latest album, MOMMY, in 2023 it sent me right back to my teenage self and I was obsessed all over again. When they announced a Vancouver show that year I knew it was my time for redemption. I stuck around after the show to talk to Jemina, we became instant buds, swapping numbers and following each other on instagram. I had to pinch myself - the girl I looked up to was now a woman and she was even cooler than I could've imagined.
Back to presant day and BYOP are now on the West Coast leg of their 20 year anniversary tour where they are playing their first album in full. This leg started in Seattle and I made the journey across the border because I learned my lession - I am never missing a BYOP show ever again.
To say that seeing their first album performed in full healed me would be an understatement. Watching them absolutely plow through those 15 songs with energy and ease as the crowd screamed back every word was truly cathartic. I caught myself putting my camera down to sing and dance more than ever - it was like my body was begging to be in the moment and soak it all in.
After playing the first album in full they treated us to an encore of 8 songs from their other records, including crowd favourite Becky, and one brand new song which they promise will be on their next record. I still can't believe my fave band is back together, let alone making another album. The best part of this show for me was watching the band get the praise and love they deserve. Seeing the diverse crowd and hearing their stories about how this band has affected their lives is what music is all about.
BYOP FOREVER.
