Be Your Own Pet Drop Off Warped Tour

Frenzied punk rockers Be Your Own Pet announced Tuesday on their Web site and MySpace that they would be pulling out of their slot on the Warped Tour.

"We regret to inform our fans that we will not be participating in this year's Warped tour," the band said in a post "We have been going nonstop for the past six months and didn't realize how much the intense schedule would take out of us. Something had to give, and sadly it's this tour."

The band had been scheduled to perform 17 Warped shows between July 9 and August 2.

The dropout comes only weeks after, in an interview with Pitchfork, singer Jemina Pearl openly criticized the Warped Tour and its attendees. "I just associate it with a certain look and a certain style and the kind of kids at school that I thought were — this is really bad, I'm sure — the kind of kids that were dumbasses wearing Rancid T-shirts who thought they knew what punk-rock was and threw things at people in the cafeteria," she said. "So it's like, 'OK, now we're going to be performing for these people.' Our label [Ecstatic Peace] is under the impression that we're going to play one date and then automatically sell 100,000 more records."

When she was asked to elaborate, Pearl insisted, "All those bands [on the Warped Tour] have this very specific look and sound and style. It's like the new hair metal or something. There are like 10 different rules about how you write a song, and what everything sounds like and looks like. I'd like to imagine that we're very much the opposite of that. It'll be interesting for us to go in there and just try to put on a really awesome live show, maybe turn some people on to our music that wouldn't have listened to us or liked us before."

Be Your Own Pet still have four tour dates scheduled in August. Their EP, Get Damaged – which includes three banned tracks deemed too violent by their label for inclusion on their March full-length, Get Awkward – was released physically via XL on Tuesday.

Be Your Own Pet tour dates:

8.7 - Brooklyn, NY @ McCarren Park Pool (with the Black Keys and Tapes N' Tapes)
8.9 - Norfolk, VA @ Norva Theater (with the Black Keys)
8.22 - Reading, England @ Reading Festival
8.23 - Leeds, England @ Leeds Festival

Catch all our nonstop Warped Tour coverage – including interviews, pics, videos and more – right here.

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Comments (6)

	ashuhhwhee: 06/26/2008 3:01 PM =/ boo
	ohmygoodness: 06/26/2008 6:28 PM i knew they were going to drop off warped tour... they're "too punk rock" for warped tour, yet they are signed to a major label. when i saw them live a few days back jemina was heckling the crowd namedropping all these bands we "probably never heard of" because the crowd was not punk rock. whatever, they're still rad and their new ep/cd are awesome and i never associated them with warped tour anyways.
	haycee: 06/26/2008 7:37 PM Huh. Just a little condescending...
	timbedinosaur: 06/28/2008 9:26 PM This isn't the first time they did this type of stuff. They think (or Jemina at least) that the whole world is out to get them, and the only way to fight back is to insult anyone and everyone. It's pretty stupid.
	xpaperxwingsx: 06/30/2008 2:38 PM This doesn't surprise me at all after what all they said about warped tour .... I really don't like these guys.
	reverieapparel: 07/09/2008 10:40 AM scene drama aside, this band brings it. Jemina is unlike any other frontwoman out there right now, and the band as a whole puts on a crazy energetic show. love them or hate them, at least they're spicing up the mix a bit.