Album Notes

Ripping Stories For Boys is the 11-track debut of Brisbane artist Jacob Diefenbach.

Little over a year ago, you had a better chance of spotting Jacob dancing at “The Beat” than performing at “The Zoo” on the eve of the Valley Fiesta, but in that short time, Jacob has firmly established himself on the local music scene with his prodigious piano skills and instantly memorable vocal sound.

Jacob’s own story has led him to a place where he is uniquely positioned to comment on what it means to be male in today’s society.

Diefenbach grew up in Central Queensland, surrounded by unyielding pressures to fit a mould of masculinity that simply wasn’t right for him.

In a world where young boys were expected to play rugby, not the piano, Jacob struggled to tread the line between what he was told was right for him, and what he knew was right for him.

Ripping Stories For Boys is told from “the other side of the pride”, as Jacob puts it.

“For me, being a ‘man’ was something dark and incomprehensible and inescapable. Everything I wanted for myself drew me further and further away from the pride.”

Jacob’s music spans a wide range of styles and influences, from the sharply whimsical ode to the male obsession with cars (Drive to Kill) to painful and elegiac explorations of the different ways deny their true selves (Casanova, Shepherds Sleeping).

A recurring theme is the pressure of expectation. Aryan Boy is a thumping, almost spiteful anthem to the gay club scene.

“Aryan Boy was a revelation for me. When I ‘came out’, it was a sensory explosion. I traded my piano in for a skin-tight shirt and didn’t look back. Eventually, it caught up with me and I saw that my “liberation” was disfiguring me and turning me into something sinister – almost inhuman.”

The keystone on Ripping Stories For Boys is Favourite Son, which tells the achingly personal story of a son growing up striving to match his father’s image of the ideal son. The song traverses guilt, disappointment, hatred and, ultimately, love, survival and understanding. This one story captures Jacob’s promise as an artist; it is honest and beautiful and confronting and universal.

Jacob is the rare kind of artist who arrives “fully formed”. Jacob’s next project is well underway but “top secret” for the time being.

“It would wrong if I stayed in this place… but these are the stories that needed telling first.”