The Superjesus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Superjesus is a rock band from Adelaide, Australia.

1 History
2 Band members (Past & Present)
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
- 3.2 EPs and Singles
4 External links

[edit] History

Lead singer and main song-writer Sarah McLeod formed the band in late 1994 with guitarist (and her guitar teacher at the time) Chris Tennent, drummer Paul Berryman and bass player Stuart Rudd. They were originally called Hell's Kitchen before changing their name to The Superjesus on the eve of the 1994 Big Day Out in Adelaide.

Says Paul Berryman of the name: "It was basically just a piss-take on commonly used words in the 90's. Like The Jesus and Mary Chain, 'Jesus Built My Hot Rod', The Jesus Lizard, Jesus Jones; there's just heaps of Jesus' out there in the music world so we thought we would have that and super was kind of like a 90s catch word."

The group's debut EP, "Eight Step Rail", was released on the Birth of Christ and spent a couple of months on top of the Australian Independent charts and won a couple of ASIA Awards.

All has not always well with the band internally and in 1997 Chris Tennent temporarily left the band. Aaron Tokona from Wellington, New Zealand band Weta filled in, though chose to turn down the band's offer to become a permanent member.

They released their debut album, Sumo, through Warner Music in 1998 and its success in Australia led to a US release. The band has released two subsequent albums, Jet Age, in 2001, and Rock Music, in 2003. All albums charted well in Australia with the exception of Rock music which suffered from copy protection which made the CD unplayable on many systems and useless as an mp3. The band never recovered.

Chris Tennant left the band permanently in 1999 and was replaced by Tim Henwood (who has since himself left to concentrate on his work with The Androids). Jason Slack (an unofficial member) has since been playing guitars with the band.

In June, 2004, the band split with Warner Music Australia and indicated they would take time off while individual members pursued other projects. McLeod worked on a solo album of material not suited to the band. Her solo single released in 2005 was entitled "Let's Get Together", while her album, released in the same year, was called Beauty Was A Tiger.

Recently there has been much controversy over whether the band has split: a number of articles describe McLeod and Berryman as "former" members. Fans continue to speculate over online message boards, some reasoning that the writers of such articles jump to conclusions after seeing each member doing his/her own thing. The band has so far remained silent on this issue, although the band's website has disappeared.