How A Mushroom Trip & Christian Pamphlets Inspired The Darkest LP Title Ever

If there's one thing we learn from punk-ass American gals Bleached, it's that life is shit, so you'd better figure out a way to enjoy it. As killer as that motto sounds, it's been a hard lesson to learn for Jennifer Clavin who, along with sister Jessie and bassist Micayla Grace, is heading Down Under for the first time at the end of September.

It's been a torrid time for the musicians during the writing of their second album Welcome The Worms, whose apocalyptic title couldn't have been a better fit for the harsh realty Clavin is coming to terms with.

"I was drinking a lot, partying a lot, not taking care of myself; kind of like being masochistic I guess, is a word that would describe it."

"I was drinking a lot, partying a lot, not taking care of myself; kind of like being masochistic I guess, is a word that would describe it," she confides. "Putting myself in really unhealthy relationships - one in particular, the last one I was in was just so unhealthy but I just kept allowing myself to be in it. At times I'd have moments of clarity... but then I'd come back to LA and I'd self-medicate by drinking and taking drugs again and it wasn't until after writing the full record that I finally have a grasp on my life... I really let myself go down a dark hole, but I think it was all a lesson," she says with a smile. "Feeling [trapped in a relationship], it's crazy. It just becomes such a big part of who you are, the relationship and the unhealthy part of it, and you kind of crave that pain in a way because it's something that you're feeling, so you get used to that feeling."

The album is flooded with dark themes juxtaposing vibrant pop-punk colouring, dirty heat broken up by jagged rock edges and mixed in with an air of sarcasm and defiance. Clavin poured her heart into the lyrics with brutal honesty, and the title had to be perfect. "Nothing was hitting me... It was 9am in the morning and my friends and I had been doing [mushrooms] all night, like, we kept taking more. Then... this freaky religious couple was handing out a homemade booklet and it was a bunch of cut and pasted words, and one of them said 'welcome the worms'. When I saw that I was like 'oh my god, this sums up the album to me so much'," she gushes.

"Because I felt like so many of the lyrics were dark but also trying to see the light side of life or the beautiful side of life and how it's kinda a package, the good and the bad. If it was all good, we'd be super bored. And I felt like Welcome The Worms was saying that - bring it on, bring on the dark side of life because we can take it... I feel like I'm in a position where I have a voice to say something, so I want to use it, you know? And I feel like lyric writing is a perfect opportunity to say something important."