The union of art and business isn’t always pleasant. Some artists find the very notion of commerce confounding, and there’s no shortage of those who’ve had their creative enthusiasm damaged by inauspicious industry encounters. So perhaps, for the artists who are prepared to go there, the safest option is to handle the managerial matters internally.
This is the approach taken by Melbourne-based four-piece Bonjah. To be precise, the band is managed by bass player David Morgan and guitarist Regan Lethbridge. While Bonjah have always held a reasonable level of autonomy, the decision to take complete control basically came through necessity.
“We had a manager for a while but unfortunately it didn’t quite work out,” Morgan says. “So we took the reins back three years ago and figured that we were doing a good enough job on our own, so we just kept doing it. It seems to be working really well so far, so we’ll definitely keep it up.”
Indeed, things have been going quite well for Bonjah of late. As we speak, the band is halfway through a three-month national tour in support of third record Beautiful Wild. After attracting plenty of interest with the pre-release singles ‘Evolution’ and ‘Blue Tone Black Heart’, the album has enjoyed a particularly amorous response since its release this April.
“General feedback on the album is just that a lot of people really like it,” Morgan says. “Our fans seem to be really enjoying it. [But] there’s no doubt there’s some people out there saying, ‘Why don’t you play more reggae, like the old days?’”
Beautiful Wild’ssales performance suggests the percentage of fans making such complaints is miniscule. The album debuted at number 41 on the ARIA charts and it’s been popping in and out of the AIR (independent charts) Top Ten since release. The majority of gigs on their current tour have sold out in advance.
“Going around the country [on previous tours], we never really had the shows sell out, so we weren’t expecting too many to sell out,” Morgan says. “It’s just blown us away. We knew that the album was going to be a bit of a new sound, so it’s part and parcel that it would attract some new listeners. But we definitely weren’t really thinking about that when we were writing and recording the album.”
Beautiful Wild is the most straight-ahead rock album in Bonjah’s catalogue. It’s not bereft of dynamic scope – for instance, the title track and latest single is a mid-tempo slow-burner – but by and large, the songs are more upfront than anything the band has done previously.
“I think with this particular album we’ve actually finally found our sound,” Morgan says. “Our first album [Until Dawn] that we released, we didn’t really know what it was and it didn’t really have cohesion to it. We didn’t know exactly the style of music that we wanted to play. Our second album [Go Go Chaos], at the time we were happy with it and we’re still proud of what we created, but the sound as a whole wasn’t quite what we were after. [This time] we’ve found a direction that we really want to go that’s more cohesive.”
While Bonjah are at last comfortable in their own skin, this stylistic transition didn’t occur with a simple click of the fingers. Rather, following 2011’s Go Go Chaos, the band embarked on a lengthy songwriting process. After experimenting with some less satisfying options, Morgan says the move into this rock-heavy sound found unanimous support.
“I remember when we first jammed ‘Evolution’. We just jammed it in a rehearsal room and after it we all just started cracking up laughing. We were so stoked on jamming some rad rock song. We were just like, ‘Yeah, this is what we want to do. This is the road that we want to head down.’”
To properly capture the enhanced gusto on tape, Bonjah enlisted the services of local production wiz Jan Skubiszewski (AKA Way Of The Eagle). Morgan explains how integral Skubiszewski’s input was for fleshing out the record’s overarching vision.
“The good thing about working with a producer is that they bring to the table an outsider’s perspective. They’re outside of our little bubble that we’re in. It was great with Jan – he helped us a lot with steering it all in the right direction. He just had that fine balance of knowing when to fuck with a song and when to just let it be what it is.”
So, with Bonjah now inhabiting ideal stylistic surroundings, plus a successful album under their belt and ever-growing crowd numbers, it looks like Morgan and Lethbridge’s management is serving the band exceedingly well. However, it’s not always easy to cast aside managerial concerns and simply enjoy being a rock’n’roll animal.
“You get so involved in the operations and strategies and direction and, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’” says Morgan. “You do have to force yourself to switch all of that off and just go, ‘Look, we’re in the moment right now to play music, let’s just bloody enjoy it.’”
Despite this, he assures that the dual responsibilities aren’t going to stamp out his passion for the music. “I don’t think that would ever happen. We love playing in a band and love creating music. And we enjoy the management stuff as well. It’s not like it’s actual work. It’s fun.”
Beautiful Wild out now through Inertia. Catch Bonjah alongsideTimberwolf and Lester The Fierce atNewtown Social Club on Friday September 19, tickets here.Also appearing at the Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle on Saturday September 20.
