Bands like Regurgitator, Magic Dirt and Silverchair were dipping into a melting pot of influences, particularly American grunge and punk, and forming a uniquely Australian sound - big melodies, bigger riffs and lyrics that spoke to Aussie teenagers.

At the centre of this fertile period, spurned by high rotation on Triple J radio, was Perth pop-rock band Jebediah.

Singer-songwriter Kevin Mitchell's distinctive nasal voice made the quartet's songs unmistakable.

Their anthemic melodies made them unforgettable.

Radio singles Jerks of Attention, Leaving Home, Harpoon, Teflon and Military Strongmen ensured their classic debut record, 1997's Slightly Odway, would go double-platinum in Australia.

Now Jebediah's four members, guitarist and lead singer Mitchell, guitarist Chris Daymond, bassist Vanessa Thornton and drummer, and older brother to Kevin, Brett Mitchell, are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the band's formation.

Their current tour is a special two-set retrospective - the first half full of fan favourites and the second act a performance of Slightly Odway from start to finish.

Kevin Mitchell is on the phone from his man cave, a studio set up in the garage of his Bellarine Peninsula home on Victoria's south-west coast, and says Jebediah's anniversary shows so far have been overwhelming.

"These shows feel different to any other shows we've done before," he says.

"We did a 10th anniversary tour in 2005, but this is on a completely different level to that.

"These last couple of months for the band have been some of the best we've ever had in 20 years, in terms of how much fun we're having, how well the shows are going - it's just been an absolute highlight.

"We're pinching ourselves a little bit."

The singer and songwriter, who also releases folk-based pop music under the moniker Bob Evans, admits that the audience's sense of nostalgia likely outweighs his own.

"There is definitely an element of nostalgia about what we're doing at the moment," Mitchell says.

"We've put out what is essentially a 'best of' album [Twenty], although we've tried to make it not like that, and then with the tour and playing our first album.

"What we were hoping to achieve from this is to give our audience something we thought they would love, as far as an overall package, to say thank you and to make sure the tour was a great celebration.

"It's nostalgic, but [for the band] it's more a celebration of how lucky we are to still be doing this after so many years and for it to be successful."

Slightly Odway was written during Mitchell's late teenage years and its lyrics were a mix of heart-on-sleeve sentimentality and wry self-deprecation.

The record's immediate, in-your-face choruses struck a chord with youth around Australia, ensuring its place as a soundtrack during listeners' formative years.

"I just love playing Jebediah gigs and whether we're playing Slightly Odway songs or other songs, the feeling for me is the same," Mitchell explains.

"It's a feeling of joy, but for the audience it's probably more a trip back in time.

"Obviously that record, from what people have said and stories that I've read, it has a special place in people's memories.

"A lot of people talk about where they were in high school [when they heard it], or they were just leaving home when that song came out.

"Harpoon was a break-up song for them.

"So people all have very specific memories from that record, probably more so than me in a way."

Soon after its release, Mitchell felt uncomfortable about Slightly Odway's sound and sentiments, but now he embraces both its triumphs and imperfections.

"I cringe over it less now than I ever have before," he admits.

"Within about three years of making that record I couldn't listen to it, and I couldn't listen to it for a very long time.

"I was in a real hurry to move on from it, to progress and get better.

"I was my own worst critic on that record, but now that many years have gone by and there's so much distance there, I kind of like it again.

"I like its idiosyncrasies and the things that are kind of trashy about it because that was the sound of four teenagers just going for it without really knowing what they were doing.

"I think that's why people liked it at the time, I just didn't know that.

"I listened to it at the time and, compared to other records I was listening to, it just sounded so lo-fi.

"I thought it sounded trashy, but now I think that the fact it sounded different was what people were attracted to."

Odway is full of quirkly flourishes, perhaps best typified by Teflon's unusual guitar intro, but is essentially power pop tracks filtered through raw punk production.

"It was always about writing catchy songs, because I just wanted to write songs that sounded to me like the stuff I was getting into and it was the stuff that was getting played on the radio," Mitchell recalls.

"With every song I was trying to write a hit, even though I wasn't thinking in those exact terms.

"I was trying to write a catchy, poppy tune every time."

That love for pop never left Mitchell, who went on to be the principal songwriter on four more Jebediah records.

Singles like Animal, Fall Down, Nothing Last Forever and She's Like a Comet continued the 38-year-old's propensity to pen high-energy earworms.

"I love pop songs, I love melody - I always have," he says.

"It's a part of me and what I do and I'm not always conscious of it, especially when I'm in the process of writing.

"When I'm writing I think that if I can't remember the tune or the melody, then nobody else is going to.

"Sometimes I write a song or a tune and I won't have something to record it on, and I'll be really worried about it.

"But then I think if it's any good I'll still remember it, and that's often the test."

Jebediah fans are in for a rare treat when the band performs their debut record in sequential order, getting to hear a track that has never been played live.

"There was one song on Odway [Twilight = Dusk] that we'd never played live until this tour," Mitchell says.

"We've never once played it, we put it on the record at the time because I guess we were attempting to broaden the musical palette of the record a bit with this slow song.

"Then there's songs like Blame and Spoil the Show, which we haven't played in a really, really long time, which we had to relearn.

"But we've never stopped playing Leaving Home, Harpoon, Jerks of Attention or even Puckdefender, which we still play a lot."

Outside of Jebediah commitments, Mitchell is hard at work on his fifth Bob Evans record.

But will there be a sixth Jebediah album?

"With [fifth album] Kosciuzko, we opened ourselves up to experiment a little bit more," Mitchell says.

"Which was probably a little bit why we stopped making records after [fourth album] Braxton Hicks.

"It took a little bit of time for everyone to get back together and let anybody try anything, so there was a bit more free-wheeling, I suppose.

"If we do make another record, I don't know if we will but there's always a possibility, I think that will stretch even further.

"Just by nature of the fact that half the band lives in Victoria and the other half live in Western Australia, logistically to get together and write and record is going to be difficult.

"We're going to have to do some experiments to get new stuff together, so I think we'll just continue to be more experimental in our own little way."

Jebediah play the Cambridge Hotel on Friday, August 28.

Tickets are available through Bigtix.com.au.