The long arduous road of touring life doesn’t phase Glenn Mossop. His band Bonjah has done it many times over before and intends to do it again in support of their latest album Beautiful Wild. As he tells Philippe Perez, it’s all part of the territory.
The tour, which you’re in the middle of, is a long tour with dates running until October. How does the band approach such a large amount of performance around the country?
It looks quite long, but it’s actually quite spread out. It’s not too much pressure on us, in terms of travel. It’s actually not too bad. We’ve prepared ourselves and we always do a large tour at the end of each, so it’s normal for us to just get out on the road again.
So I assume you fly around as opposed to travelling in a car?
Yeah we normally we fly interstate and we’ll just hire the van and do all that stuff…
Do you have times where you like to chill and do the tourist thing?
Yeah, for instance we would have periods of time where we go over to Perth or up to Sydney for a week and then fly in or fly out, enjoy ourselves and then trudge on. It keeps you fresh. Being able to sleep in your own bed now and again between shows is a great thing! It would cost us a lot of money if we did it until October.
I believe you are playing in Darwin for the first time. Are you looking forward to playing there?
Yeah we are really looking forward to that there. We are really looking forward to that and doing the Darwin Fringe Festival. It’ll be amazing. I have been to Darwin before but not as a band, so it’ll be cool to play to some people who have a small scene happening there.
What is it like to go to those new places that you haven’t played before?
I think it’s exciting. We’ve been doing it long enough to believe in our music and what we are putting out there. If people like it, it’s amazing. If people are out there and not so much into what you do, that’s just the nature of things. It’s exciting to think about those reactions too.
It must be difficult to do this as a touring outfit, but do you ever get the chance to check out other bands that play in parts of Australia that you play in? What discoveries have you found?
We always try to get a local band as support in each city we play in. It’s always good to see new things that are out there. We don’t have time to check out other gigs when we are out on tour, but to have a band or artist that’s from the area on the line-up is something we like to do and just give a connection to that place too. And you meet new friends too!
You started as a band in New Zealand and you personally grew up in South Africa. You are in a unique position in the sense that you have initially been observing from the outside as a band. For the last decade that you have been here, what were your observations on how the Australian industry works compared to say, our friends across the ditch?
It’s as simple as there was a lot more opportunity here. That’s why we came over in the first place. We weren’t really gigging as a touring band in New Zealand. It pretty much was all about us playing at uni earning a bit of pocket money. Then we just decided that we wanted to take it a bit further. We heard brilliant things about Melbourne and the music scene over here.
It wasn’t a fact about knowing whether the scene in Melbourne was any better, but we were told it was a great city to get into a music scene. There are so many bands and so many different type of bands and artists doing various things. I think it was a bit of a no-brainer if we wanted to pursue it the way we did.
Do you occasionally go back to New Zealand to perform?
Yes. We go back there many times to do little tours here and there. We’ve always made the effort to go back there at least once a year.
How do the folks back home feel when you perform there? Do you get any interesting feedback about your band since you’ve made Australia your home?
Oh, they’re happy! We have friends and family that hope to have us come back more often to perform but they also understand the scene in Australia is vast. There is no sense that you have abandoned them at all. It’s more supportive than anything.
Tell me about working with Jan Skubiszewski. What did he bring to the table with Beautiful Wild?
He brought out a lot of new sounds and opened our eyes to looking at new ways to creating music. We never really worked with a producer such as Jan. It was a new experience for us, and I think for him as well. I think he never worked with a rock/blues act. He is a very positive guy though and a very excitable person too, so it was great to just work with him. With his own stuff he is a great creator of music and sound. He’s got the knowledge.
You say he was excitable. In what way?
He just got excited about anything, you know? For example, he created a unique creative process with his good energy in the room. It passed onto us as a band and there sprung up this positive vibe in the studio. The day can get quite long and draining. Despite us doing our album in a short time, we spent very long constant hours in the studio, so you really need that ball of energy there with you. He created that quite well for us.
“Honey”, as a song, sounds more unhinged than many of your other songs. Tell me more about that song?
From the last album to this album, it was such a big gap in time. I think all of us individually evolved with interesting music taste. Obviously, there is so much new music today with less technology to make it. I guess it was a natural progression to move in that more dirty way too.
I think because we are a little bit older too, we’re not as precious as to how things should sound like. A certain song there should be a ‘first kind of vibe’ to it. It’s everyone feeding off that really. You don’t want people changing it too much otherwise it will lose its essence. So I think that was a big thing for us as well – not trying to change the feel of the song so much, but instead just getting the parts solid and down pat.
Glenn, you filmed, directed, and did everything on your own to complete the film clip in the space of 24 hours. Why did you decide on the quick turnaround?
Oh, simply because we had to! We had a deadline for it and we hadn’t done anything for it. As you can see from the film clip, it was all stationary camera work on a tripod, so I was able to go down and set it up and do it that way without anyone but myself. I obviously felt more comfortable doing what I do because there was no-one else around. The actual creating process of it was something where it just had to be done, so it needed to be quick. I enjoyed it too. I’ve always been into videography and editing and make visual art on the side.
Tell more about your art. How much involvement do you have with painting and videography?
I’ve done it all my life pretty much and lived with it. I studied fine art school and did a lot of it in university too. It’s always been something I’ve done and loved to do. It’s a big passion of mine. I never was quite that academic at school, so I think the art side of things are something that led a path to creativity. Whether it be creating music or creating art, I love it all. I love the process of creating stuff. The spontaneity as well is a big thing for me.
It only comes a little bit hand in hand for me. I don’t think of it as one more than the other. It’s not about music before art or the other way around. It’s just something that I’ve always done because I enjoy it.
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Bonjah are touring around Australia with their next date in Darwin on July 26 at the Railway Club as part of the Darwin Fringe Festival. More dates can be found at http://www.bonjahmusic.com
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