We already knew something might be brewing from the Nashville group Be Your Own Pet after they played packed rooms a couple weeks ago at SXSW. But today, the group officially returned with their first new song in over 15 years called "Hand Grenade."
The single is ruthlessly persistent, cutting the chains of grief with barbed-wire garage rock. "I'm not your victim / I'm my own person," Jemina Pearl declares. "I'm not some causality / I set myself free." The lyrics' imagery point to a fearless urge to detonate a hand grenade, but Pearl isn't succumbing to self-destructive tendencies—instead, "Hand Grenade" is about putting your finger on the pulse, willing yourself to live despite the threats of others. Be Your Own Pet are back stronger than ever, ready to blow shit up.
“‘Hand Grenade’ started out as a threat to the people who harmed me, that I will make them suffer as I have suffered,” Pearl explained. “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.”
Watch the video for "Hand Grenade" below.
