The Jester occupied a complex position in medieval monarchies. These nomadic performers and seasoned raconteurs were employed by royal courts to entertain guests of honour with music, ballads, acrobatics, magic and various forms of physical comedy. While regularly referred to as ‘buffoons’ and ‘licenced fools’, their ludicrous and nonsensical performances were often underpinned by scathing critiques of royal elitism and cultural ossification.

In Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It, the court Jester Touchstone wittingly and at times openly mocks the romanticised delusions of powerful individuals around him. Touchstone faces no consequences in the play as Jesters were protected by law through the ‘Jester’s Privilege’, which afforded them the freedom to jest without fear of punishment. This artificial imitation of power is symbolised in the Jester’s marotte, which is a crude bastardisation of the King’s royal sceptre, and their cap and bells that comedically resemble a drooping, flaccid crown.

South-Californian twins Wyatt and Fletcher Shears can be called contemporary punk-jesters. Since the formation of The Garden in 2011, they have regularly performed shows dressed as Jesters and have released multiple songs where they reflect (with some ambivalence) on their role as travelling entertainers. The Garden’s Jester-aesthetic appears an unescapable inevitability rather than an autonomous artistic choice: “What else could he be but a jester? Nothing that I claim to be, but then again, what else could I be?”, as they sing in ‘Puerta de Limosina’.

Mimicking the nomadic medieval Jesters that roamed hundreds of years before them, The Garden are known for touring relentlessly. Nonetheless, the Shears twins are transparent about the economic (rather than purely artistic or expressive) reasons for their intense touring schedule: “They sell poison so they can sell pills. I hit the road a lot so I can pay the bills” ('Hit Eject'). The archaic Jester attire, then, serves as a reminder of the feudal-like and monarchical music industry that forces artists to tour constantly just to meet basic material needs. The Garden are best understood as somewhat reluctant Jesters: “Making music for a bunch of people that don’t care. I feel empty with that pointless tired fanfare” (‘Please, fuck off’).

An acute self-awareness of their faux authority as the cynosure at centre stage is revealed through the duo's antiquated costumes and face paint. If you’ve ever seen The Garden live, you’ll know just how much raw energy these nomadic entertainers bring to each performance—with Fletcher often performing wild acrobatics in costume, jumping, diving, spinning and tumbling around the stage. Like all true punk gigs, there is a healthy level of hostility at The Garden’s shows, with some lyrics aimed directly at the audience in jest: “I’m now on my knees. You’re my King and you’re my Queen” (‘Jester’s Game’). The obedient Jester genuflects to the royal court, yet always with a hint of sardonicism.

The Garden’s use of the Jester archetype isn’t only to draw attention to their role as touring entertainers; the duo is also drawing similarities to the way they utilise their art and the limited freedom of the stage (the Jester’s Privilege) as a platform to mock what they believe is dishonest and unjust—whether that is the rampant exploitation in the music industry: ‘He saw I was a star, he said he could get me far. Then my hard work paid for his new car’ (‘Lurkin’), laziness and complacency: “Low-hanging fruit, we sit and watch you snatch it. Burn out like a sacrifice much quicker than a rabbit” (Banana Peel), or society’s destructive power structures: “Sick of politicians. Sick of carbon footprints. Sick of tradition. Sick of public submission” (Sneaky Devil). But the Garden’s shrewd critical eye isn’t only focused outwardly; their lyrics are deeply introspective and self-critical: “I still cringe at my reflection, as I push everyone away […] My word is dirt to them, nothing else I can say” (‘A Struggle’).

The Garden’s trickster tendencies are another reason why the Jester-aesthetic is a suitable choice for the band. Like the medieval archetype, the duo keeps the audience on their toes by shifting between genres and by injecting an element of surprise into their live performances, as seen with the giant Jester-puppet (featured in the ‘Orange Country Punk Rock Legend’ film clip) that eerily emerges from the shadows and traipses about the stage as wicked, evil laughter echoes through the mix. The Shears brothers, who are identical twins, contribute to this sinister trickster element with their natural uncanny mirroring. The audience can’t help but wonder if some strange magic trick or sleight of hand is being performed right before their eyes.

The Garden signifies the ‘carnivalisation’ of punk. I borrow this term from Russian philosopher, scholar and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), who argued that the innate desire for wild festivities and rituals is deeply rooted in the human psyche on both an individual and collective level. For Bakhtin, the ancient and enduring ‘carnival’, which is an event founded on the nexus of humour and chaos, has significant subversive potential as it dissolves (albeit temporarily) society’s rigid power structures. At medieval European carnivals, hierarchies were upended as peasants would be crowned Kings and Queens for the day. In this fluid space, previously unacceptable behaviour became acceptable; there was momentarily room for eccentricity, mesalliances, profanation and free interaction between individuals. Dualistic separations such as good/bad, heaven/hell, birth/death and man/woman were thawed and meaning was arrived at, not from a higher source or universal truth, but through the Socratic, dialogic and often alcohol-fuelled interaction between carnival participants. The carnival, therefore, challenges hegemony, dogma and elitism. Most importantly, the carnival is not a mere spectacle to be observed but a creative-subversive event where all must participate.

Bakhtin identified what he referred to as the ‘carnivalisation of literature’ in the work of French Renaissance author François Rabelais and, most prominently, in the polyphonic narratives of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Bakhtin compared Dostoevsky’s writing to the carnival due to the way in which it contains a polyphony of voices, a dialogic sense of meaning, a series of extraordinary situations, crude and unencumbered speech and the allusion to a multitude of truths existing beyond entrenched social conventions. In similar ways, punk music encapsulates the carnival spirit. It is a genre (or rather a creative-subversive event) that is explicitly hostile towards religious dogma, power, hierarchy, hegemony and universal truth. Through its emphasis on accessibility, autonomy and anti-elitism, punk has allowed a polyphony of voices to be heard.

The Garden emphasises the carnivalesque essence of punk, for the Jester is emblematic of the carnival spirit and its dissolution of rigid power structures. Of course, while the Shears twins regularly acknowledge the influence of punk (particularly 1980s hardcore) on their sound, they prefer to define their art as ‘Vada Vada'—a philosophy that Wyatt has described as “an idea that represents pure creative expression, that disregards all previously made genres and ideals.” Indeed, Vada Vada itself embodies the carnivalesque by negating definition and the restrictions of semantic categorisation. As Bakhtin argues, the carnival cannot be translated through language into a coherent concept but must be experienced through the body.

If you are ever lucky enough to witness The Garden live, you will find yourself a participant in this complex carnival space. As the Jester Twins take the stage, the pits will open like medieval dance circles, and you will be swept up in a chaos that signifies something much deeper and more subversive than nihilistic angst; you will become a participant in an ancient and enduring carnival tradition where hierarchies are collapsed and meaning is arrived at through the dialogic relationship between audience and performer.

The Garden’s new EP Six Desperate Ballads is out now.