There will be plenty of fresh, local produce at The Gap Farmers’ Markets when Ben Ely’s new group Burning Circuits play the Sunlit Sounds Festival.
After moving back to Brisbane from Melbourne, Ben reconnected with his hometown as well as two old friends, Tim Rix and Cameron Ricketts. “Tim's a really old friend from school and he was like 'are you keen to play some guitar and teach me some stuff?'” Ben explains.
“I didn’t want to teach, but he would come over for a jam at my house and he came up with some really interesting riffs on the bass.
“With Regurgitator I always played bass and I guess I’ve always sort of fantasised about being a guitarist. So with Tim, he was coming up with these great basslines and I was just playing guitar, then these songs started to form and we got really excited about it.” Coming together with Cameron on drums, Ben says Burning Circuits feels more like catching up with mates than playing in a band and brings him almost full-circle to his early days of live music. “It’s really quite funny,” he laughs.
“I lived away, then I came back and reconnected with old, school friends. It was quite a nice feeling to get back together with old friends and make this stuff; it seemed like the band just came out of nowhere, but it's really fun. So it was really organic.”
Ben says the music he and Burning Circuits have been working on harks back to some of his key musical influences. “I’ve always loved bands like Joy Division,” he says. “I think my favourite era of music is the post-punk thing. Punk exploded in this raw, ‘50s rock & roll, overdrive vibe, then the art school kids took over. I think I love that period of music.
“So we emulate that a little, that early Talking Heads or Joy Division, a bit dark and repetitive. It's got that kind of sound. We used to play in punk bands in high school, so it’s punky but a little more art school maybe.”
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When Burning Circuits play Sunlit Sounds they’ll be joining a tidy line-up of bands including We All Want To, Mick Medew & The Mesmerisers, Yuuca and Port Royal, along with all the market stalls, food truck and other festivities. As for Regurgitator, Ben says they currently have a backlog of projects which they hope to complete in addition to his other commitments as an artist and solo musician.
“We have an album ready to record so we’re going to try and do that,” he says. “I got a gig DJing at the opening of the GOMA Marvel exhibition and I’ve written a song about ‘The Avengers’ because I’m a Marvel comic book fan. So I want to record a 45 of that and hopefully put it out before as a fan tribute.
“We've also written a naughty, kids’ punk rock record we want to put out. We have a few things we want to do and hopefully we'll get to do everything but we'll see how we go with that.”
Burning Circuits play Sunlit Sounds Festival at The Gap Farmers’ Markets (Hilder Road State School) 25 June.
