Grenade Jumper Suck: “I Ran A Jonas Brothers Fan Twitter Account”
Sydney pop-punk quartet Grenade Jumper have gone off with a bang in 2023.
They’ve released two firecracker singles so far this year: the energetic ‘Fluorescent’, which features Brae from Dear Seattle, and ‘Crazy’, an all-too-accurate track about trusting your gut, even when people around you are doubting you. The band’s sound mashes together an ability to create massive pop-tinged choruses with a love of chugging guitars and thumping drums, resulting in tracks that are equally polished and powerful.
They’ve just announced that they’re heading on a bumper Australian tour, playing a quartet of shows supporting Between You & Me alongside Besties. We caught up with three-fourths of the band: vocalist/rhythm guitarist Bianca Davino, drummer Dean Fernance and lead guitarist Max Jacobson — who, alongside bassist Lukas Sikes-Gerogiannis, make up Grenade Jumper — to find out the things that they think suck. The band might be named after one of Fall Out Boy’s best tracks, but as Bianca told Junkee, her love of Jonas Brothers came first.
Junkee: A mistake that turned into an opportunity?
Bianca: When I was 11, I ran a Jonas Brothers fan Twitter account. If you’ve ever witnessed a pre-teen stan on the internet, I’m sure you can conjure up the kind of content I had going on there. I didn’t realise this account was public and had my name on it until about five years later when my friends found it, and started retweeting literally everything for everyone to see.
Twitter was very big in my high school, so inevitably everyone saw it and taunted me about it for months. My friends printed out the tweets and scanned them onto a birthday card for one of my birthdays, and got everyone in my grade to sign it. Lolll. At the time it was sooooo embarrassing, but now it’s a hilarious little tidbit to bring up and show people to break the ice.
Cringe quote you used to live by?
Bianca: Okay, it’s not so much a quote, but when I was in high school, I was obsessed with the show Girls. Much like every internet girlie, I still adore the show to this day. However, I didn’t quite understand the irony and satire in it at 14. At the time, I truly thought I could live by everything Jemima Kirke’s character Jessa said — I thought that I, a suburban high schooler who played double bass in the orchestra, had the poise and confidence to pull off reciting her iconic lines, as if they were my own.
Max: Schoolboy Q was my favourite artist when I was in year 11, and he has a lyric, “them grades don’t get me paid” in his song ‘Yay Yay’, which genuinely caused me to stop caring about school for about six months.
Worst advice you got and blindly followed?
Bianca: When I was 8, I read in some tabloid magazine that if you brushed your lips with an electric toothbrush every night, they would “plump up like Angelina Jolie’s”. I probably did this for about three years straight.
The worst failure you’re up for sharing, and what you learned from it?
Bianca: I still haven’t learnt from it, unfortunately.
Max: I filled in on guitar for my friend’s band when we were 15, I thought their set started at 8pm, when it actually started at 7pm. So they just stood on stage for an hour waiting for me to rock up. I felt pretty bad about that one.
Dean: For me it would have to be a parent teacher night at school where we were meant to perform a song live for all the parents. I forgot how the intro went and missed the start of the song entirely. It definitely didn’t help that everyone turned around and stared at me. I guess it’s hard not to notice the drums missing in ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’. From that, I learned what stage fright was.
Anything you used to be wrong about?
Bianca: So, in 2017, Max and I went to Splendour In The Grass. It was phenomenal — we saw Father John Misty, HAIM, Schoolboy Q, Lil Yachty and sooooo many more of our favourite artists. The headliner was LCD Soundsystem — we didn’t watch their set because my silly little 19-year-old self had never really listened to them and thought they were some old-head band whose set would be boring.
Obviously, I was entirely and utterly wrong. Fast forward to the beginning of 2020, I read the book Meet Me In The Bathroom, which tells the story of how the early ’00s New York Indie-rock scene came to be. A huge part of the book is recounting James Murphy’s story. So naturally, I decided to delve into their discography while reading because, my oh my, the book paints Mr Murphy out to be one colourful creature. I was immediately captured by how emotive, idiosyncratic, and self-aware the music was. Their music has become a soundtrack to so many moments in my life since then. This Is Happening is now one of my favourite records of all time, and I will forever regret missing that Splendour set.
Max: Growing up as a guitarist I didn’t pay much attention to lyrics until I really started to understand the “true” meaning of songwriting. Before that, I never gave artists like Bob Dylan or Patti Smith the time of day because they weren’t guitar-driven enough for my teenage brain. Getting into lyrics is also what got me into poetry, which I never paid much attention to before either.
Dean: I fell in love with metal during school. More so the heavier sub-genres like doom, stoner, and grind-core, and for the longest time I didn’t let myself enjoy other types of music. It wasn’t until I got out of high school and started to meet new people and make new friends, that I realised how much I’d truly missed out on. I still feel like I’m playing catch up today on everything I missed, and I really wish I’d just let myself enjoy the things I do now, earlier.
Embarrassing internet habit?
Dean: Anyone who’s spent any time on TikTok knows the power of the Subway Surfer beneath AI text to speech videos. I can watch and listen to them FOREVER. They just scratch an itch in my brain so perfectly.
Bianca: Recently I’ve been on a bit of a journey rewatching clips from the classic seasons of America’s Next Top Model. God, that show was toxic! I was OBSESSED with it as a child, and I cannot believe my brain was submitted to it at such a young age. I’m addicted to rewatching it because it’s like watching a train wreck happen in real time, you just can’t look away…
Max: I’ll sometimes go out of my way to watch videos, or read tweets, from people whose takes I know I disagree with, just to see how much I disagree with them. It’s like I know they’re going to piss me off, but it gives me some sort of thrill.
Ideal morning routine versus actual morning routine?
Bianca: The gorgy TikTok lifestyle girlies would cry with absolute pity for me if they saw my morning routine, or lack thereof! I literally cannot get a solid morning routine down for the life of me, but I guess that comes with the territory of being an artist and needing to be up late quite often. I am very, very aware that my brain is addicted to social media dopamine, so I can’t get out of bed until I’ve watched at least seven ridiculous Succession character edits on TikTok and five Joe Alwyn/Taylor break-up theories.
My ideal morning routine would probably involve strolling by the ocean, and then having a stunning breakfast (that’s not the Chobani Fit 15g Protein yoghurt I have every day) while Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd plays in the background.
What do you waste money on?
Bianca: Getting my nails done literally every week… playing guitar means that they chip off so easily, but I do it anyway. The two days they look really good are worth it.
Max: I’d probably have to say books. I’m a real completist for my favourite writers. Like, I need to own everything Kerouac or P.K. Dick, every short story, poem etc. Maybe that’s also some ADHD compulsion.
Dean: Starbucks. It’s such a guilty habit, and the drinks are so big. I’m never able to finish my iced matcha latte. I’ll always sneak out to grab one when I’m craving something other than a coffee.
Worst procrastination habit?
Bianca: Re-reading the dream journal I kept in 2016.
Max: I’m not sure if this counts but if I arrive somewhere and the song I’m listening to hasn’t finished, I’ll sit in my car, wait for the entire song to finish, and then get out of my car. I’m not leaving my car mid-song, it seems completely psychotic to me.
Grenade Jumper are heading on tour with Between You & Me and Besties in September and October, playing shows in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney. You can grab tickets here.
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Illustration credit: Matt Lauricella, @pigeonboyart