Jun 15 2026, 9.34am / Features
Dear Joey and Brooke, What a wild ride! I just wanted to write to express …
“Girls don’t need to make excuses and if you want to be a powerful woman there’s nothing stopping you.”
“One of the first songs I’d ever written was about being accepted and being judged. When I was 13, I was such a confused kid. I didn’t know who I was, but it wasn’t unusual.” Jenna is comfortable with looking into the past to find her emotional genesis.
“I just floated around trying to fit in with this group. They were into rap music and hip hop, but we had nothing in common. I just remember them saying, ‘You’re not like us,’ and it was shattering. I wrote a song about not being accepted, that I felt ignored and I guess that’s something that’s existed in my life since then. Being afraid to be judged.”
It’s said that novelists write the same book over again, in different ways. The themes of criticism and eventual empowerment have been with Jenna from the start of her career, even if it wasn’t apparent at first.
“That’s what I sing about, though. I sing about empowering yourself and not being afraid of other people’s judgements and not letting it control your decisions and happiness. I’ve never drawn that parallel before … I never thought about this connection before. I just realised I’ve been writing about the same thing since I was 12!” she laughs.
In the early ’90s, the ‘riot grrl’ movement—led by banshees such as Courtney Love, Babes In Toyland and The Donnas—revived the standard that Patti Smith and Joan Jett had set for women in music; as strong militants in a room full of men. Since then, the focus on gender has dissipated, but there’s still the issue of being ‘female fronted’.
“I get asked if women in rock are going to save the world. Do we have something that men don’t have? I don’t consider myself a part of it, even when people have to call you a female-fronted band. Why is that necessary? Why do we have to draw attention to gender in music?”
“I think it’s time to stop paying attention to it,” Jenna continues. For all her patience and gentle quality, there is frustration in her voice. “When Tonight Alive was a young band, there were definitely times that I felt the need to keep up with the boys. There were only boys to look up to, especially in our local scene. The front men that I thought were really cool were the front men of metal bands. They were powerful and self-assured and they made these speeches on stage that were like, ‘Fuck these people if they don’t like you.’ That’s what I appropriated into my live show. Girls don’t need to make excuses and if you want to be a powerful woman there’s nothing stopping you. There aren’t enough of us.”
