Today there's much to celebrate – it's Friday the 13th (spooky) and also release day for Teenage Joan's debut album The Rot That Grows Inside My Chest . To celebrate the release one-half of the two-piece Cahli Blakers gave us some sneaky insider fun facts from behind the scenes of making the album. Enjoy!
1. Sleeping With Sirens Inside Jokes
There's a little inside joke on the album, which you'll find on 'My Dentist Hates Me!!!'. Where I
think it came from is: our producer, Jarred Nettle, and Tahlia [Borg] just always say in an
American accent: “Where's the water, dude?”.
And I could be wrong, but I think it came from at the end of last year, we played Good Things Festival and Sleeping With Sirens were on that run, which was crazy for us, we loved them growing up. And I'm pretty sure Tahlia had a run in with Kellin [Quinn] where he was asking for some water. And he says (Cahli imitating Kellin): “Where's the water, dude?”.
So, we were saying that through the whole recording process and then we ended up sneaking it into a little chattery bit in My 'Dentist Hates Me!!!', which is pretty funny.
2. DIY Adam Sandler Reference
We also have another little inside joke on the album, because we just both love Adam Sandler so much. We actually tried to put a sound grab from Bedtime Stories in the track 'You’re Not The President', which is from the start of the movie where Adam Sandler's character is introducing the character Barry Nottingham, who's the hotel owner, and he's basically the main villain in this movie.
He does this thing over the loudspeaker where he goes: “When I say Barry, you say Nottingham”, and then we put that in - but it was just too tricky and just too crazy to get the licensing for it. So we were like: f*ck it, we're just going to re-record it. So, we did it ourselves and pitched the vocals. But yeah, it's a little Adam Sandler reference in there!
3. Eight Month Timeline
The recording process for this album took eight months. We started the demos at the end of
July, and then finished in April 2023. So - a pretty long process! But we just wanted to get it
perfect. We wanted everything to be exactly how we wanted it, we were tinkering away at the tiniest little things that probably most people won't even hear. But we wanted it to be one of those albums that just with every listen, you hear something new. And hopefully that resonates!
4. Cover Stories
The album cover was our idea, but I mean - there's only so much you can imagine before someone else brings it to life, and it was awesome working with Giulia [McGauran] who did the cover. Giulia really brought our idea to life, we had the concept of holding a bouquet of candy apples, that kind of thing where one side, it’s sweet, one side, it's rotten. And she just brought it to life and it looks amazing.
It was one of those things where you get it delivered to you in the studio, you can only know what's happening so much. But once we got it in our hands, we were just like: this is everything we could have dreamed of without knowing we were dreaming of it. It turned out so good.
I think a big inspiration for us, cover art-wise, was also the 5 Seconds Of Summer album Sounds Good Feels Good, and Weird! by YUNGBLUD; those covers have a lot going on, but they're still cohesive and still kind of polished. It really reflects that sort of polished but dirty rock and roll, punk sound, which I think just visually captures the chaoticness of the album.
Stream The Rot That Grows Inside My Chest here
Teenage Joans – The Rot That Grows Inside My Chest tracklisting:
1. Hospital Bed2. Honey (And Other Sweet Things)3. Superglue4. Yoke5. Candy Apple6. You’re Not The President7. Sweet Things Rot8. Ruby Doomsday9. The Dentist Hates Me10. Moneymoneymoney11. Tennis Skirt12. 5 Things I Can Taste13. Kaleidoscopes
