Superjesus

Lead singer and main song-writer Sarah McLeod formed the band in late 1994 with guitarist Chris Tennent, drummer Paul Berryman and bass player Stuart Rudd. Tennent was McLeod's guitar teacher at the time and a veteran of the Adelaide music scene having played in various bands since the 1980s [1] The band was originally called Hell's Kitchen before changing their name to The Superjesus on the eve of the 1994 Big Day Out in Adelaide. Says Paul Berryman of the name: "It was basically just a piss-take on commonly used words in the 90s. Like The Jesus and Mary Chain, 'Jesus Built My Hot Rod', The Jesus Lizard, Jesus Jones; there's just heaps of Jesus' out there in the music world so we thought we would have that and super was kind of like a 90s catch word." The group's debut EP, Eight Step Rail, was released in 1996. It spent a couple of months on top of the Australian Independent charts and won a couple of ARIA Awards. All had not always been well with the band internally and in 1997 Chris Tennent temporarily left. Aaron Tokona from Wellington, New Zealand band Weta filled in, though chose to turn down the band's offer to become a permanent member. They released their debut album, Sumo, through Warner Music in 1998 and its success in Australia led to a US release. The band has released two subsequent albums, Jet Age, in 2001, and Rock Music, in 2003. All albums charted well in Australia with the exception of Rock Music, which suffered from declining public interest in the band. The band never recovered. Chris Tennent left the Superjesus permanently in 1999 and was replaced by Tim Henwood (who subsequently left in 2002 to concentrate on his work with The Androids and Rogue Traders). Jason Slack has since been playing guitars with the band. In June 2004, the Superjesus split with Warner Music Australia and indicated they would take time off while individual members pursued other projects. McLeod worked on a solo album of material not suited to the band. Her solo single released in 2005 was entitled "Let's Get Together", while her album, released in the same year, was called Beauty Was a Tiger. Recently there has been much controversy over whether the band has split: a number of articles describe McLeod and Berryman as "former" members. The band itself has so far remained silent on this issue, and its website has disappeared.