It started as a dare and with one simple photo. 

“Sitting at my computer one day, I looked down at my chest and thought ‘my boobs look great in this top,’” says Sharon King.  “I was wearing a Juke Kartel pink tank top and I’m not a shy person by any means, so I took a photo of my chest and sent it to my friends (who) dared me to upload it to my myspace page.”

Lana Dennis was one on the receiving end of the creative picture and it was decided between the two that the idea of exposing your ‘jugs’ to promote Melbourne band Juke Kartel was too great a concept to ignore.

They encouraged more women to “put on some sort of Juke Kartel apparel and take a headless shot of themselves and use it as their myspace picture” to start promoting the band to a surprising success.

The bands leading man Toby Rand came third in the Rockstar Supernova reality series, which almost saw him front an American band alongside Tommy Lee. Third place was a good as first as he used his new found fame to make a name for his Melbourne band Juke Kartel.

Sharon and Lana joined the bands street team – a group of people who work on a ground level to promote a band they admire – and formed a strong friendship with many of the girls on the team who lived all across Australia.

At first it was a fun idea to help get more fans for the band. Then the man inspiring many women to bare their skin, Toby Rand, left a comment on the newly formed Jugs For Juke myspace stating “If only I had that kind of support for my breast cancer campaign”. “So all of a sudden we were it!” says Lana.

Before Paris Sidiropoulos and Anita McAllister joined the Jugs For Juke official team, Sharon and Lana went along to a Noiseworks gig in Melbourne, in which Juke Kartel where the support band, wearing the very first Jugs For Juke tops.

But the fun didn’t stop there. “Toby came over to say hello and noticed the top. He stopped mid hug and said ‘that’s awesome!’” Lana recalls. “I had a topless Toby standing in front of me, holding out his t-shirt, saying ‘I wanna wear it’.”

The view for Sharon was amusing and she too joined in, swapping hers with band bassist Tommy Kende. She remembers “standing there in my bra and jeans and laughing like a lunatic, I handed him my top and he gave me his blue tee. I couldn’t believe what was happening.  Everyone was laughing and those boys looked way too good in those tops.”

These encounters are memorable ones but the job at hand is never out of the picture. “Our main campaign is getting young women to have regular breast checks because breast cancer isn’t just a disease for women over forty anymore and working with a rock band, we can appeal to that market,” says Lana.

The money raised through t-shirt sales and anything they are given to auction, such as a meet and greet with the band and Toby’s pink signed surfing rachie sold for $1,725, is now donated to The Breast Cancer Network Australia, where the money goes direct to families affected.

“We get zip, zilcho, nada money. Same with the band. Knowing we are helping out his way is gift enough,” adds Sharon.

She lives in Perth and Anita is in Brisbane, but the two Melbourne girls have been able to flaunt the Jugs For Juke brand and get their picture taken with a few celebrities, including Dave Hughes, Ben Lee and Jo Stanley. “It’s now a precondition – if I go to a concert, bring a jugs top!” says Lana. “I guess you can call me a ‘star stalker’. I’m always thinking of where I can go and who I can meet to get Jugs For Juke out there.

“I scored tickets to the band room on Rove and we got about two seconds of screen time. After waiting out the front for ages, Paris and I got to meet Hamish and Andy and Rove himself, which was a huge honour given the sensitive nature.”
 
Sharon continues to run the myspace page and arranges Jugs For Juke days where women (and the occasional man to flaunt his ‘man cans’) continue to decorate their breasts and upload pictures according to different themes.

Anita was the first ever winner for the Halloween theme. “After much fussing to get the blood just right in my picture, I put in my entry. A couple of days later, I checked on the street team forum to find out that I had won with my angel of Tommy and Toby as the Devil.

“Toby had judged this one and I could not stop smiling for a week. My mum was horrified that I had done it until she saw how happy I was that Toby had actually taken the time to check them all out,” she says.

Anita is the newest member and was welcomed on board after creating the letter of thanks sent out to people who purchased t-shirts, which she did for the simple reason of wanting to help.

“Paris is the pusher,” says Lana. “She really got us moving in the beginning and deals with the merchandise sales, and handles the money.”

Although they live in three different states they continue to communicate efficiently and build a stronger friendship. They work together for a band and cause they all feel strongly about and affirm when Juke Kartel hits it big, they will be by their sides “supporting them all the way and turning the world pink”.