Jebediah came together during May 1995 inside Perth, the most geographically remote of Australia’s major cities and equally distant from the nation’s other urban hubs as from its Asian neighbours—an isolation that has repeatedly fostered unusual musical crossbreeds. Kevin Mitchell on guitar and vocals, Chris Daymond on guitar and Vanessa Thornton on bass first encountered one another while taking theatre-arts courses together at high school. Mitchell’s elder sibling Brett, already experienced behind the kit in local groups, was recruited to round out the lineup.
Early practice sessions consisted of dismantling material by Archers of Loaf and The Muppets until Daymond happened upon the riff that became “Superhero 6,” after which the band’s stock of aggressive yet melodic distorted-pop songs began to flow freely. Their debut appearance occurred at the school ball, where the set mixed covers of Green Day, Pearl Jam and Nirvana with a single original composition. The quartet took its name from Jebediah Springfield, the founder of the Simpsons’ fictional hometown. On only their thirteenth show, in October 1995, Jebediah claimed victory in a nationwide campus-band contest. Six months afterward they inked a deal with Sony’s murmur imprint—the same label already home to silverchair and to Perth’s own dirty-pop heroes Ammonia—purely on the evidence of their concerts, without any demo recordings having been made.
Once “Jerks of Attention” and the EP Twitch had secured them a foothold on the independent charts, the band’s first full-length release, Slightly Odway, reached stores in September 1997, entering the national Top 10 and attaining platinum certification. Neill King, whose résumé includes work with The Smiths, Rancid, Madness and Elvis Costello, handled production. The album’s title itself alludes to the slightly odd manner in which the members perceive both their daily lives and their music. April 1999 saw them enter the studio to begin work on the follow-up, Of Someday Shambles.
