From New Zealand to busking on the streets of Melbourne, Bonjah has come a long way as a band.
The group are currently in the middle of their national tour promoting their latest album, ‘Beautiful Wild’. Band member David Morgan says the group is having a great time on tour. “It’s a shit load of fun, but it is exhausting,” he says.
“However, we do old-men touring these days where we shoot away for a long weekend and then come back to Melbourne to be with our ladies because otherwise we would be divorced and single. Heaps of people keep turning up to the shows which is good. We’ve had a few shows sell out. It’s just fun to play this album live, it’s a bit more upbeat.”
David says ‘Beautiful Wild’ definitely differs to their past albums, as the process of writing and recording has all varied. “We always try to push ourselves and do something different. We don’t really want to repeat ourselves. It has definitely been a natural progression.“There’s definitely a theme of ups and downs of being in love, as cheesy and cliché as that may be. It’s definitely something that shines through in the album. How you can have worries and doubts and thoughts about long-term relationships and getting through those and any hardships. [Then] finding that you work through those problems and at the end of it you come out with a great result and it all works out in the end. That’s great songwriting material right there.”
Having travelled to Melbourne from New Zealand in 2006 as young musicians armed with nothing but guitars and backpacks, the group struggled to book a gig, and took to busking on the streets. Now the band has sold tens of thousands of records and are selling out shows. “We have developed so much, it’s crazy. We were just children when we started out. When we first moved over, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We were young and naïve and very green and didn’t understand how it all worked. We’ve just worked our arses off over the years and kept striving to achieve bigger and better things and write better songs.
“When we first came over, we didn’t really know what style of music we were playing or wanted to play. It was an amalgamation of a bunch of different styles. There was a bit of funk, reggae, a bit of rock and now we’ve steered well away from that and we find it a bit more comfortable to be heading in the direction of rock & roll and bluesy rock. That’s definitely a development that has happened over the years.”
David believes the Australian music scene is absolutely thriving at the moment, with many great artists achieving success. “There’s so much going on and so much happening. I think Australian music is forming a strong international presence that may have been lacking before.
Bonjah at BIGSOUND“Ever since INXS, no one really has filled their shoes. I think with the likes of Gotye, Courtney Barnett, Chet Faker, there’s just a lot going on for Australian bands and a lot of international markets are taking notice and realising there’s some great music coming out of Australia.
“It’s just a matter of connecting it to the rest of the world and it’s getting much easier to do that these days because of the internet and all the online outlets. [The] Australian music market is absolutely booming at the moment.”
The band is keeping busy for the rest of the year and are already planning for the future, with studio time already book and plans to travel and tour overseas in the works. “We’ll finish up this tour, then we have a few summer dates lined up that we’ll be announcing at some stage, and a couple of festivals as well.
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“We are quite keen to start working on some music. We have a bit of studio time booked in before Christmas as we are keen to get cracking on some new music. We are planning an international tour next year as well. It will be an interesting 12 months.
“We would love to get back to the Northern Hemisphere. We definitely want to head overseas a bit more. I think it’s pretty important. Even though there is a lot of technology and online ways to create hype and buzz, there’s still nothing better than playing some [live] shows.”
Bonjah Tour Dates
3rd Oct – Torquay Hotel (Torquay)4th Oct – Hi Fi Bar (Melbourne)
5th Oct – Follow The Sun Festival (Glenelg)
10th Oct – The Zoo (Brisbane)
11th Oct – Racehorse Hotel (Ipswitch)
12th Oct – Surfers Beer Garden (Surfers Paradise)
24th Oct – Byron Bay Surf Fest (Byron Bay)
25th Oct – Solbar (Maroochydore)
