When Be Your Own Pet broke up last summer, details were scant about what led to the breakup. Was it the fact that their label (Universal) treated them poorly by censoring "Becky?" Turns out, not so much.

A recent article in Nashville Scene titled "What happens when a label deal goes right and the band breaks up anyway? Answer: Be Your Own Pet" dissects the band's quick rise to fame as 16-year-olds and quick flame out as 19-year-olds. Jonas Stein, lead guitarist, says that the label was easy to deal with, and they didn't really have many hard feelings over "Becky" being censored.

"Whoever made the call has their perception of reality skewed," he says. "They're matching up our demographic with kids who listen to crazy vulgar rap—which I'm a fan of, by the way. I think it was because we were teenagers, and female-fronted, and they were like, no, you can't have a bunch of suburban teenage white girls listening to this shit because their parents have money and they can sue us if one of them kills themselves or something. But you can release vulgar rap records about killing and shooting people. I don't think they are as concerned about that culture. It kind of makes you think, is it sexist or racist undertones going on with that decision?"

 

Even so, he was impressed that Universal's general manager Andrew Kronfeld called him within five minutes of Stein sending him an email about the issue—a luxury Butterfly Boucher would likely envy. Kronfeld placed the blame on the label's legal team and said there was nothing that could be done. Universal gave them the option of re-recording the lyrics but the band refused...

 

"The people we worked with were great, but I think there's a lot of outdated morons at major labels spending too much money on young bands," he says. "And we were fortunate enough to be one of them."

Stein is pretty forthcoming about the band's label dealings, but he's still sort of evasive on why they broke up. He says they just needed to quit to slow their lives down.

"We just broke up," says Stein. "The label wasn't really on our minds. It was just time to do something else. We [would be] on the road for months at a time and come home for two weeks. Out six, in for two. Living that lifestyle for that long—it's fun and you'll have a blast, but you have to have the right dynamic of people to do it for a long time, but that's nearly impossible to find. We had a good dynamic, but we were just growing up and getting older, and it just got to us."

The story is an interesting read, especially the part about how the band still has most of its advance money. To read it, head here. [via Daily Swarm]