Jebediah

Jebediah was formed in May 1995 in the Perth suburb of Leeming.

Singer Kevin Mitchell met guitarist Chris Daymond at theatre class in high school, where they are remembered as performing an acoustic version of Pearl Jam's 'Elderly Woman Behind The Counter' at their final year ball. At the school's last assembly that final year, with two others, they performed Smashing Pumpkins' 'Today'. Vanessa Thornton had known Chris from childhood, and took part in the same theatre classes. She'd played guitar in a band called Hybrid.

In May of the year after leaving school Kevin, Chris and Vanessa assembled in a rehearsal room to form a new group., with Vanessa agreeing to switch to bass. The group's first rehearsals saw them trashing songs by anyone from Archers Of Loaf and The Muppets until guitarist Daymond stumbled over a riff which opening the floodgates to the group's songwriting. Their original guitarist Almin Fulurija only lasted that one practice session. He was replaced by Kevin's older brother Brett, who had been playing drums in bands for years but had to be talked into dusting off the kit to complete the Jebediah line-up. The band name comes from Jebediah Springfield, the founding father of TV's The Simpsons' home town.

Jebediah's first performance, back at Lemming High's ball saw them perform covers of songs by Green Day, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, plus one original. In October 1995, Jebediah won a national campus band competition with what was just their thirteenth gig of their career together. Six months later they signed to Sony subsidiary murmur, home to silverchair and Perth's dirty-pop heroes, Ammonia. They were signed on the strength of their live shows alone. There were no demo recordings.

After establishing themselves on the indie charts with the EP 'Twitch' and a single, ' Jerks of Attention', the group's debut album 'Slightly Odway' arrived in September 1997, achieving national Top 10 and platinum sales status. The album was produced by Neill King (The Smiths, Rancid, Madness, Elvis Costello). The album title 'Slightly Odway' is a comment on the slightly odd way they feel they approach life as well as music. In March 1999 they began sessions towards the second album, 'Of Someday Shambles' with Mark Trombino, best known for his work producing Blink 182's 'Dude Ranch'. But it was his work with indie popsters Knapsaack which attracted Jebediah to their new producer. Trombino took Jebediah through their paces over two and a half months, determined to achieved a more varied but at the same time more focussed result. Self-conscious about the naivety on the band's debut Kevin Mitchell was determined to develop his lyrics for the songs on that second album. Although it achieved top ten success, 'Of Someday Shambles' proved to be a difficult album for Jebediah themselves, and for the third album they resolved to try to have fun again, recorded relatively quickly and instead of importing a producer worked with local production hero Magoo (Regurgitator, Powderfinger, etc).

As a mark of their attitude towards the record the third album was self-titled. They had just started writing songs for the fourth studio album when in February 2003, Sony decided to drop Jebediah from its roster. Undeterred the group went about financing the record themselves. The result was July 2004's self-produced 'Braxton Hicks', released on the group's own label, Redline Records.

Along the way singer Kevin Mitchell accumulated a group of acoustic pop songs. When he had enough he released them on the album 'Suburban Boy', not to distract from Jebediah under the guise of 'Bob Evans'. A critical and creative success, “Bob” recorded a second album, 'Suburban Songbook' under major label patronage.