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Interviews

In My Room: Be Your Own Pet

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VIEW BE YOUR OWN PET’S ROOM, FULL-SIZE

1. NEON SIGN Jonas Stein: “My dad used to own a restaurant, but it failed. I kidnapped this before he could sell it.” Nathan Vasquez: “It was the only light source when we would practice.”

2. ZAAT MOVIE POSTER Stein: “This is for a ’70s monster movie my mom was in. This one guy who is obsessed with the movie came to Nashville to get her autograph on a few things and left us with two posters.”

3. MACHETE Vasquez: “We use the machete to cut down thorn plants when we go hiking. Especially during the night-it’s the biggest pain in the balls to walk into thorns all of a sudden.”

4. BUZZCOCKS POSTER Stein: “They are my favorite punk band. I really like the mouths in place of the nipples-” Jemina Pearl: “Don’t say nipples.”

5. SCHECTER GUITAR Stein: “This is my favorite guitar. I didn’t know that much about the company; I just saw it in a store and bought it impulsively.”

6. MANNEQUIN HEAD AND NURSE HAT Pearl: “The head I found at an antique mall-I had been looking for one for a while. The nurse hat is from my Halloween costume, which I first wore onstage at a show in Oxford, England. I also wore it on New Year’s, in a hot tub.”

7. THE RUNAWAYS’ QUEENS OF NOISE Pearl: “Thurston [Moore]’s friend owns a record store in Massachusetts, and we went there right around my birthday. This album was, like, $40, and when I went up to the register, [Moore] said, ‘There’s a sale on Runaways records today, right?’ And he just gave it to me.”

8. SKATEBOARDS Stein: “I usually like to have one on tour, but I haven’t been able to ride, because I need to put some wheels and trucks on these decks. All my hardware got stolen at South by Southwest last year.”

9. FOUR-TRACK RECORDER John Eatherly: “I got in on eBay for $80, and we recorded most of the first album on it. It’s my baby.” Vasquez: “It’s captured everything we’ve done, no matter how horribly awry or slightly better.”

10. KEYBOARD Pearl: “I found that at a thrift store in Nashville for, like, $7 this summer. It has so many switches and awesome things.”

MORE ABOUT BYOP
Sitting in the Nashville house where they formed, Be Your Owen Pet reminisce about their early years, all the way back in 2002. “Jonas was the only one with a driver’s license,” recalls Jemina Pearl. “He’d drive us all here, we’d practice until dinner, then our parents would pick us up.” Now with a second album, a spunky blast of garage punk called Get Awkward (Ecstatic Peace), BYOP have moved on to a more professional practice space. My mom misses us,” says Jonas Stein.