I don’t want Pissed Jeans to become successful.

I don’t mean this in a hipster “I don’t want these guys to sell out and become mainstream” kinda way. If they sold more records, there’s a better chance they’d tour Australia, after all.

No, it’s because it’s hard to imagine the band’s unique template working if they were wildly successful. There are so many bands who write compelling early records with a fresh, working-class perspective before hitting the big time. Then suddenly their next album is full of songs about touring, or “love songs” about groupies, or lofty ballads about healing the world. The relatability of the lyrics disappears.

You have to be a bit wrong in the head to relate too closely to the misanthropic anger that defines Pissed Jeans’ music, but successful pop singers don’t record sludgy, abrasive tracks like “Teenage Adult” about locking yourself away with “an alphabetized shelf of all the games you play” or “Cafeteria Food,” where the singer fantasizes about his project manager dropping dead. This sort of music comes from someone who has a day job as an insurance adjuster (singer Matt Korvette), not from a popular rock star – and thank god for that.