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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. The ‘Bob
Evans’ momentum continued Kevin’s involvement with “supergroup” The
Basement Birds with Eskimo Joe frontman Kavven Temperley, singer/songwriter
Josh Pyke and Bob Evans band sideman Steve Parkin.
Throughout
the “Bob Evans Era” Jebediah was not out of mind as far as the band itself
was concerned. They still got together when the opportunity arose, even
after Kevin Mitchell moved to Melbourne around 2008. Making the second Bob
Evans album found Kevin itching to rock again, and while Basement Birds
seemed to taking him further along the soft singer/songwriter path a fifth
Jebediah album was in fact being written and recorded at the same time as
Basement Birds. Jebediah had been recording sporadically, a couple of songs
at a time. Now Kevin found himself on a cycle of recording with Basement
Birds, then Jebediah for the next two weeks.
Jebediah’s
fifth album ‘Kosciuszko’, (released April 2011 on Dew Process) their first
in seven years, is the band’s first studio oriented album. Where in the
past the band had tried out songs on stage and were aiming in the studio to
emulate their live sound, ‘Kosciuszko’s
songs came together in the studio.
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