Credited with directly inspiring his sojourn into music, the
garage punk band the
Oblivians' crude style motivated Jay Reatard to form his own one-man band, the Reatards, to record homemade demo tapes highly influenced by the Oblivians' distorted,
lo-fi garage sound. His earliest recordings, completed when Reatard was 15 years old, are extremely primitive; they were all completed on a
four-track tape with Reatard providing vocals, guitar, and "drumming" on a bucket. Reatard was so enamored with the Oblivians' music, he sent their guitarist
Eric Friedl some of his home recordings, impressing Friedl enough to arrange a
record deal on his independent label,
Goner Records. In 1997, Goner distributed the Reatards' debut
EP, titled
Get Real Stupid, which featured four brief tracks with a running time under seven minutes. Another Oblivians member, drummer
Greg Cartwright, was impressed by Reatard's recordings and joined him for his second EP, ''Fuck Elvis, Here's the Reatards
. The trio recorded and released their first studio album Teenage Hate'', an assortment of gritty and manic
punk fare, in the same year. Music critic Mark Deming described the album's sound as "teenage angst at its harshest", as well as "simple, but they're memorable, with actual hooks and bellow-along choruses to go with the heavyweight crash of the guitars, drums, and feral vocals". Along with band originals,
Teenage Hate includes
cover versions of
Fear,
the Dead Boys, and
Buddy Holly. In the same year, before committing fully to other bands, the Reatards toured the West coast and Europe. in 2018 When the Lost Sounds disbanded in 2005, Reatard reformed the Reatards to play live shows, and release the group's third and final studio album,
Not Fucked Enough, on Empty Records. However, the Reatards broke up for the last time a year later as Reatard embarked on a solo career. Reflecting on
Teenage Hate and Reatard's most recent albums, David Bevan of
Pitchfork said "All the energy one could hear in Reatard's better-known work is here in its rawest, most volatile form". == Band members ==