Mommy Dearest: An Interview With Be Your Own Pet’s Jemina Pearl (Part II)

On becoming the punk-rock Loretta Lynn and learning to love the Beatles, Disney not so much

You told the New York Times “there aren’t many punk records about motherhood,” which sounded awesome on paper even before I heard the record. Was that idea in place before you started putting words to it?

It’s funny because after I had my daughter Lula — who is now 10, so like, a decade ago — I was really wanting to do music again after feeling like I needed to take a break for a lot of different reasons. But then I was like, I miss doing music but no one wants to hear what it’s like to be a mom. Society really makes you feel that way, it’s kind of heartbreaking. Now over the past ten years I’ve come full circle and been like, ‘no, I want to be the punk rock Loretta Lynn!’ I think there’s a lot of women like myself who are — maybe they’re not mothers, maybe they are — in their mid-30s, and it’s like, I love so much music but so much of it doesn’t really speak to where I’m at in my life right now. So I didn’t necessarily set out to do that but I’m also very much someone who [believes] “write what you know.”