The Jezabels’ lead vocalist Hayley Mary has shared an update on the band’s future, saying fans should not be expecting new music anytime soon.

The band’s last album, ‘Synthia’, was released in 2016 and featured, as its title suggests, a far more synth-filled sound compared to their previous albums, ‘Prisoner’ and ‘The Brink’.

Speaking to NME Australia last week, Mary said the ‘Synthia’ album “came out of the blue” and no music from the band is currently in the works.


“The Jezabels haven’t really planned anything for a very long time,” she said. “If we happen to make a record it tends to be by accident because we’ve gotten together and we have a show to rehearse for and we have a bunch of songs and we’re like, ‘maybe we should record them’.”

The band were set to celebrate ‘Synthia’ with a national tour, but the dates were postponed when band member Heather Shannon publicly revealed she was being treated for cancer. The Jezabels’ momentum lulled afterwards.

“We kind of gave up the cycle of the career band when Heather got diagnosed with cancer,” Mary explained to NME Australia.

“We tried keeping it up for a while, but when you give up on the cycle – you’ve gotta do an album then you’ve gotta tour it, then you’ve gotta do another album, keep the momentum – once you give up on that idea, you also creatively don’t really mind what people expect from you either.

“You’re not trying to grow, you’re just doing what you want. ‘Synthia’ is an example of not really giving a shit of what people expected of us. We were just obsessed with synths at the time.”


Mary, however, also stressed that The Jezabels’ current lack of output does not mean the end of the band.

“We never really stopped, we just don’t really have anything happening at the moment,” she said.

Since ‘Synthia’, The Jezabels have only released one other track: 2017’s ‘The Others’.

Mary released her solo EP, ‘The Piss, The Perfume’, in January through I OH YOU. Mary’s solo work pivots more toward a classic Australian rock sound and away from The Jezabels’ alternative rock style.

Mary said the creative process is one major difference between her solo output and her work with The Jezabels.

“With the band… you can always come up with ideas, but you’re limited with the time you’ve got together to workshop those ideas. Whereas with [solo material], I can collect songs over the next year and then get a band together for a few weeks and we record it,” she said.

“I don’t need to get everyone’s input or approval on how the song goes.”

The five-track EP has included music videos for all tracks with the exception of ‘Holly’. The most recent clip, ‘Brat’, was premiered earlier this month and featured footage of Mary getting a tattoo for the first time in her life.

Following the EP’s release, Mary began recording the music for her forthcoming debut album, which currently has no release date. The news was shared earlier this month on Twitter by her partner, DMA’S guitarist Johnny Took, who is also working on the record.

Mary has also recently taken part in livestream music festivals ISOL-AID and Delivered, Live.