Record (Re)Collection: Matt Pickering-Copley of run, WALK! On Be Your Own Pet’s “Be Your Own Pet”

I remember picking up a copy of this album when I was 15. I ran to my best friend’s house and played it on his stereo. Thinking back at it now, those few minutes actually played a pinnacle role in shaping my musical taste. Both me and my friend, not having listened to anything more energetic than Bloc Party, sat down and listened in awe. Two songs in my friend decided it wasn’t for him. This eventually led to him going a different route musically, which meant our band at the time broke up, which consequentially led to run,WALK!

I absolutely fell in love, never before had I heard such energy. Jemima Pearl yelped ridiculous, meaningless lyrics into your ears. But who cared – she was hot right? Still that was all part of the charm of it.

They were a super-fun party band singing about pizza and getting high. I was lucky enough to see them play live twice. The first time Jemima got verbally abused so the band stopped playing after 10 minutes. The second was at Reading Festival 2008 and it was one of their last shows ever. They managed to play every song 3 times the recorded speed and as sloppy as anything but still oozing charisma and good times.

I will always be thankful to Be Your Own Pet for doing what they did, even though it was reasonably short lived. Everyone has a band that kick starts them into the music that they eventually end up liking and they were that band for me. It’s not very often that a band as special as Be Your Own Pet come around so it was sad to see them go.

Although they don’t directly influence my day-to-day writing for run,WALK! songs they will always have a place in my heart.

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You can buy run, WALK!’s Peekay EP on Bandcamp. Check out the song “Virus” below.

“Virus”

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