Be Your Own Pet have returned with new single, “Hand Grenade,” via Third Man Records. The track marks their first new music since the release of their LP Get Awkward, which dropped in 2008 and was written and recorded by the three founding members Jemina Pearl Abegg (vocals), Jonas Stein (Guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass), and longtime drummer John Eatherly. Along with the single, Be Your Own Pet shot a video for the song in Jemina’s basement using an iPhone.

“”Hand Grenade” started out as a threat to the people who harmed me, that I will make them suffer as I have suffered,” explains Jemina Pearl. “But the song grew like a mirror to my own grief process, through anger, denial, sorrow. In the end I gain my power back not through violence, but through self acceptance and rejection of the labels others might put on me. I define myself, no one else.”

The band are confirmed to play this year’s Shaky Knees Festival on May 5 in Atlanta, GA. The following month they head to the UK for an intimate performance at London’s Moth Club on June 6th, then Europe for a string of dates including Primavera Sound.

In 2005, Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet played their first SXSW. The buzz they generated at sixteen years old, along with the release of their debut single “Damn Damn Leash” quickly led to a record deal with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label in the U.S. and XL Recordings in the UK.

Last year, BYOP reunited and toured with Jack White, which rekindled the band’s creative passion and they soon found themselves in the studio. Be Your Own Pet are: Jemina Pearl Abegg (vox), Jonas Stein, (guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass), and John Eatherly (drums).

Be Your Own Pet 2023 tour dates

5/5 – Shaky Knees Music Festival – Atlanta, GA
3/6 – Primavera Sound – Barcelona
6/6 – Moth Club – London
10/6 – Primavera Sound – Madrid

Purchase tickets for Be Your Own Pet HERE