Born to a lineage of punk-rock musicians who rode the coattails of the British Punk Movement all the way into their musical careers of the 80’s and 90’s, Jazmin Bean has become the true successor to the family crown of counterculture. The non-binary English singer/songwriter gained international recognition for their “extreme” makeup looks that meld a kawaii color palette with nightmarish faces. Much like their music, Bean’s signature style counterbalances whimsy with surrealism and shock factor. But what’s more gripping and extreme than their “Burtonesque” look, is their origin story. Jazmin’s debut album, “Traumatic Livelihood”, released under Interscope & Island Records, chronicles the life of an out-of-the-box individual surviving childhood grooming, social isolation, and raging addiction all before the age of twenty.
Bean opened the Nashville night of their tour at Eastside Bowl with “Piggie”, a raw and scathing garage punk track where Bean takes a combative position against her abuser. Jazmin reclaims their power by calling all pedophiles pigs and drawing attention to the disgusting age range and age-play dynamics in Hollywood. This opening track sonically bridges the gap between her EP “WorldWide Torture” and her newest full album release. Growing from the harsh punk guitar and screaming vocals from their debut EP, Traumatic Livelihood is filled with slashing lyrics but favors more floating, freeing, and softer electric guitar melodies. There is a defined shift in their sound representing a period of self reflection, healing, and rehabilitation between the two projects. Bean’s quoted saying their childhood drug use was a direct coping mechanism for the abuse they suffered. Rehab gave them the time and bandwidth to cope with their traumatic experiences through the creation of this record. The title track “Traumatic Livelihood” received literal howls of excitement from the Nashville crowd, where Jazmin took time to personally thank the audience members at the stage’s barricade. This somber alt pop song starts out as a candid expression of feeling displaced and out of the ordinary and climactically surges into a fantastical and eerie tale of a skittish dog morphing into a monstrous and bloodthirsty beast, who found the power to devour what once threatened them. This track struck a clear chord with the Nashville crowd and posed a compelling question: Does embracing what’s animalistic make us more or less human?
Young but definitively not naive to trauma, Jazmin Bean’s cultivated brand of gritty, unnerving, pastel-punk has made them a figurehead for the figures of modern counter culture. By explicitly integrating their personal damage into their musical identity, leaving nothing to the imagination, Jazmin Bean has created a true safe space for the social outcasts, trauma survivors, and people ostracized for pushing the envelope of societal norms. Jazmin’s cult-like followers, whose ages at the Nashville show spanned from pre-teen to fifty, deserve to have a safe space to heal and celebrate the people they’ve become despite the effects of a traumatic livelihood.
- Isabella Ellis
Photos Courtesy of Ashlee Riggins (For Bell Music Magazine)
