we now return to itchy & the nits

Be quiet, my show is on! Itchy & the Nits are back with a second season album featuring all the sun and fun of the Australian coast. A beach episode, if you will. Greetings From..., the new release from Total Punk and Anti Fade, finds the trio expanding their toolkit of garage goodies into longer songs and deeper grooves. But don’t go thinking the Nits have lost their mojo—this record is built from the same cloth as Thee Headcoatees, Josie and the Pussycats, and the Girls in the Garage series. 

A recap for those who haven’t previously tuned in: The band is made up of Eva on guitar, Bethany on drums, and Jacinta (Cin) on bass. Bethany and Cin are sisters. The band’s first iteration started in high school. Eva had saved up her dog walking money to buy a guitar and Beth had a drum kit at home from growing up with a musician father. Cin joined later on, and after a few years of playing around town, the band released their first EP in 2023. Now split across Sydney and Melbourne, the band still gets their kicks in by playing gigs and touring across the world.

Congrats on the new album.

Eva: It’s different from our last one, so I hope people still like it. 

Bethany: The songs are a little bit longer, like 30 seconds longer on average.

Eva: Yeah, nearly two minutes!

Cin: And we recorded the album over six different sessions over the last year and a half.

Bethany: We did two songs at a time—and more like two years, probably. Because “Nudie Beach,” which came out as a single, was recorded two years ago.

That was for the Total Punk Singles Club, right? 

Cin: Yeah. We had happened to have it already recorded, and then Richie asked us to put out a single. We were like: “We know just the thing.”

Eva: You must have known he was gonna ask. 

Cin: We were manifesting.

And were you already working on the new album at that time?

Eva: We had a lot of songs written, but we weren’t recording them for an album or anything. We were just writing and collecting them.

For the first one, some of the songs came from your EP, but with this one, they were entirely new. What was your approach to writing? 

Bethany: If I’m writing a song, I usually think of the lyrics first, and then Eva will think of a guitar bit.

Eva: Because at the time we were living far away, me and Beth would just get together and have a jam or come to each other with a song idea, like with “TV” or “Gimme a Break.” Beth had the song, and then we’d have a jam together and figure it out.

Bethany: And Eva would usually have some finished songs too. But then ‘cause I don’t play guitar or anything, if I have a song idea, I’ll be like: “Can you play ‘dah dah dah’” or whatever. 

Eva: But it’s good. Beth’s so good at thinking of guitar things ‘cause I only ever play chords that are on a dot for some reason. It just feels like I shouldn't go away from the dot. And then Beth will be like, maybe you could do something that’s thinking outside of the dots.

When did you know that it was time to record the album?

Eva: I think it just came together. It wasn’t like we started writing the songs, being like the album is gonna be like this or anything. It just happened. We started recording because Dave [Forcier] was like, “We can just record some things and see what happens.” And then we just kept doing it. 

Bethany: After a few songs, “He’s like yeah, you could just do a few more songs and have an album.”

Eva: We were like, “Whoa, we have enough songs for an album?” I feel like some of them are so old that I forgot about them and thought we weren’t able to use them. And I guess that’s maybe why some of them are a bit different from each other.

How did “Smelly Boys” come about, and what made you decide to release it as the first single?

Eva: “Smelly Boys” was just us messing around one day, and we were like, this is such a silly song. And then didn’t think of actually recording it. But then after a while, we were like, I guess it’s alright. 

Bethany: Yeah, we needed some new material. 

Cin: And then it came out as the single.

Beth: A day before the single came out, we were like, “Why did we choose ‘Smelly Boys?’ Is everyone gonna think that we’re just silly?”

Eva: But I guess the two singles are like two different kinds of songs that are on the album. Because otherwise, some of them are a bit more like power poppy and stuff. 

The music video for the other single, “Secrets,” is awesome. Can you tell me more about it? 

Eva: I made puppets, and then Beth made a set and a backdrop. Actually, Cin’s [puppet] is here. Oh my God, it’s falling apart. They turned out to be really big, though. Like the pattern was meant to be small, but then I didn’t think about them being in 3D, so they’re like huge.

Bethany: Yeah, they’re as tall as me. 

Eva: But we just spent a few days and just filmed it ourselves. We just filmed random stuff with them. It’s good—crazy looking, but I think that’s the style anyway. 

Cin: Yeah, they were really heavy. We were all puppeteering our puppets, and we're like ughhhh.

Eva: The heads are so high up that it uses such a weird muscle in your arm. Because there’s a stick that makes them play the instruments. To do that in time and then make them sing the words in time is like impossible. 

It’s like a Sesame Street Ernie-style puppet. 

Eva: Yeah, I actually copied the pattern from the Muppets. It’s so funny just having them now. I don’t wanna get rid of them, but they’re just like such huge things that exist in our house now.

Cin: They’re your housemates. You definitely have to keep them.

Something that does tie the two albums together is that they both have a theme song. Why did you decide to write a new one?

Eva: I think for some reason, we just said that the new album should have one as well. And it’s fun to write a theme song, too. It’s easy to remember the words.

Cin: That one says “welcome” in it as well. So it’s hello, everyone. And then the other ones goodbye. 

Eva: We usually open with the new theme song and then end with the old one. Because we used to just open with the old one and end with the old one. So now we don't have to do it twice.

Cin: After the second one, everyone knows that we're done and to get the hell out... I’m just kidding.

Bethany: Sometimes people are like, encore encore. But then it's awkward because we've already played the theme song. So it feels wrong to have any more songs afterwards.

Cin: And then usually even during the encore, we'll play the theme song to be like, okay, that's it for real.

So you've played it three times, sometimes. 

Bethany: Yeah. Like maybe on one or two occasions.

Cin: Just if we need. 

Would you say when you play live, you play faster?

Eva: I feel like the more nervous we are, the faster we play. Or if we're really drunk, sometimes we play really slowly.

Bethany: Heaps of the recordings on the album are a lot slower than we play them live because a lot of them we recorded before we played them live, and now they've sped up so much. 

Eva: And then I listen to the recording, and I think it's in slow motion. You can just listen to it on double time if it’s too slow.

Do people dance at your shows?

Bethany: Maybe when we're in Melbourne. I guess people there are more into moshing.

Eva: Sometimes. Our music is almost a bit too fast to dance to. Like, I don’t know how you’d work out how fast to go. In America, people were doing the thing where they, what is it? Two-stepping. And they go all the way across the stage.

Cin: That was a culture shock. 

Eva: I thought they wanted to see which side of the amps was louder.

How was your last bit of touring in Europe?

Bethany: It was so awesome. It was crazy, though, because we don’t really play that much in Australia, so when we were there, we were playing like pretty much every day for three weeks, and we were all really tired by the end of it.

Eva: It was so crazy and so much every day. But then I was so bored when I got home after that. 

Cin: Yeah, I got used to it.

Eva: Everyone in Europe was so lovely, like the bookers and stuff, just had us stay and I couldn’t believe it.

Cin: And they made us awesome dinner and breakfast, and everyone’s beds are so comfy. 

Eva: Yeah, we were spoiled. 

What about Japan? Had you been there before?

Bethany: Me and Cin went to Japan the year before for Back from the Grave, it was so awesome. And then we hadn’t played there before, but I messaged Toyozo Toyoshima, who helps book some of the bands for it, and we asked him if we could play, and he said yeah!

Eva: Yeah. I love Japan. And all the bands that we played with, like Toyozo’s band Falling Sugar. I’m so obsessed with them now.

 Something that you can tell in both albums is how much you love all TV and cartoons. What were some of your favorites growing up?

Eva: I just really liked the Looney Tunes when I was little. Whenever anyone like tells me a story or describes something, especially Beth ‘cause of her mannerisms, if she like explains something at work, I always imagine it as Looney Tunes in my head.

Cin: Me and Beth used to watch Roger Rabbit a lot of times.

Bethany: And definitely SpongeBob and H.R. Pufnstuf.

I was scared of H.R. Pufnstuf!

Beth: A lot of people say that.

Cin: I guess he is a bit of a weirdo, but we love that too. Beth has a tattoo!

Bethany: One time, I emailed ABC to ask if they could play the H.R. Pufnstuf movie, and they said no.

Eva: Why not?

Bethany: They said they couldn’t play it ‘cause they played it recently. And that was actually why I emailed, because I missed it.

Eva: That’s crazy. You could have just looked it up on YouTube.

Who drew the album art?

Eva: Beth! It’s awesome. And the t-shirts.

Bethany: Yeah, everything. For the last album cover, we came up with the idea for a postcard, and then we didn’t end up using it. We were gonna do it for the “Nudie Beach” single and then forgot about that. And then when we were doing the album, we were like looking at comics and stuff, and we thought that would look cool.

Eva: Oh yeah, Betty and Veronica! It turned out awesome.

What’s up in the scenes around Sydney and Melbourne at the moment? What am I missing?

Bethany: I guess since it’s been Christmas and New Year’s and stuff, there haven’t been heaps happening at the moment.

Eva: But there’s some shows coming up that will be fun. Like we’re playing with Love Banana, and I’m keen for that.

Eva: We did just play in Northern New South Wales with Cupid and the Stupids and a bunch of other bands, and they were one of the best bands I’ve ever seen in my life.

Cin: The singer was also tap dancing, and the drummer was going crazy with the percussion as well, which is so awesome. We were bedazzled.

Eva: And I was just down the coast, but everyone’s too scared to swim because there’s sharks everywhere right now. It’s been so many. 

Cin: Yeah, and there are heaps of jellyfish in Melbourne right now. So everyone’s been scared, I feel like I’d be more scared of a shark, although I don’t know how big the jellyfish are. Apparently, they’re really big. And they’re red. I don’t know. I think they’re deadly

Bethany: That actually sounds even scarier than sharks. 

Eva: Can you fight one off? 

Cin: I don’t know, and they have really long tentacles. Can be meters.

I tell all my friends to visit Australia, but they all go, “Oh, we’re scared, they have big animals there.” And I’m like, “It’s a city, you don’t see the animals.”

Eva: At least it’s in the water, and I’ve never seen one before. I’m more scared of things in America, like bears.

Cin: I agree. Because there’s nothing you can do if you saw a bear. If you saw a jellyfish, you could just not swim in the water. But if you saw a bear, I feel like you’d just be a goner.

Eva: You can’t just not be on the land anymore. 

Yeah, my boss lives in the woods, and he sends me videos of the bears in his yard. 

Eva: Oh my God. But I also love to see them. When we were in Yosemite, I got up really early ‘cause apparently it was bear time and I was walking around trying to see one. I was looking around, really scared, but I was also like I have to see one while I’m here.

What’s next for Itchy & the Nits? Is it time to sit back and enjoy the album, or are you getting right back to the studio?

Bethany: I guess ‘cause we wrote all these songs a while ago. Probably start writing some more stuff.

Eva: I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I feel like we’ll always have jams. Just messing around and writing silly stuff. So I guess we’ll just keep doing that and see what happens. Maybe another album will just happen before our eyes.

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