Getting Candid with Bones and Jones [INTERVIEW]
We’re reporting from South By Southwest Music Fest in Austin, Texas. We sat down for an interview with Bones and Jones, along with 2 other performing artists: Chloe Tang and Lulú. You can listen to interviews with all of these artists on Name 3 Songs podcast and see the full transcribed interview with Bones and Jones below.
Bones and Jones are a five-piece band that live together in an apple orchard just outside of Melbourne, Australia. Their music blends elements of country and rock in a fresh light that’s landed them touring spots with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Twin Peaks and more. We talk to Jasper, Finn and Bailey from Bones and Jones about their unique songwriting process that allows them to trade off singing parts, and what drew them to bring country elements into their songwriting.
Name 3 Songs: It’s the last day of South by Southwest. We’ve made it through the week, you guys. How are you guys feeling?
Jasper: Super tired. Exhausted. Full of grief. Yeah.
Can you guys go down the line and say your name, say what you play in the band?
Jasper: Jasper, guitar, vocals. Yeah.
Bailey: I’m Bailey. I play guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and sing a little bit. Yeah.
Finn: Finn, play a bit of guitar and sing a bit, play a bit of harmonica. A little bit of everything. A bit of bass too.
I’ve seen you play this tambourine before too.
Bailey: He’s a genius. An absolute genius.
South by Southwest as a festival has been around for around 30 years. It’s brought hundreds of bands from all over the world and to the city of Austin, Texas, which is also known as the live music capital of the world.
Jasper: Ah, that would be Melbourne.
Arguable, but sure… It’s also a place where a lot of up and coming acts are able to be seen by a large number of people. So what drew you guys to South by Southwest in wanting to take part in this?
Jasper: We did a showcase in Brisbane, and we just got hit up by the festival programmer of South By to come to town and do the showcase. I don’t know, it’s always a big goal for Australian bands to branch out and leave the country and do things like South By and The Great Escape and everything. Yeah. So we got the opportunity and took it and ran pretty much.
Bailey: It’s a pretty big deal. It’s pretty isolated back home, I guess, from the rest of the world and it costs a lot of money to get over here. Yeah. Makes you tired. All that kind of stuff. Takes a toll, but that’s why it’s so exciting.
You’re maybe just now adjusting to the time zone now that you have to fly back.
Jasper: Yeah, we’ve also been completely thrown off because, the first couple of days we were hanging out, like ‘we’ll get coffees, we’ll go outside and have a really healthy week’ because we were going to be so busy, but it’s just completely switched over to…
Party, party, party.
Jasper: I think we’re kind of back in Melbourne time. It’s like, we go out pretty late, wake up pretty late and then like down to a show and eat fried food in between. It’s exactly what we didn’t want to do, but I think it happens.
Bailey: Lots of Mexican [food].
Jasper: Heaps of tacos.
You guys got into Austin a little bit early. You’ve gotten to experience a lot of stuff in Texas as well. What was your impression of Austin before you got here versus now that you’ve seen some of it. Or did you have any idea?
Finn: Not really. Not from, just from movies…
Jasper: We just did not expect much. We [grew] up in Australia watching so many American movies and TV and then we landed in LA and we got American currency for the first time. It’s all green and paper.
Bailey: Yeah. This isn’t really answering your question, but if we just quickly talk about money, Australia wins in terms of money. But the physical material, I don’t know what it is.
Jenna: You guys have like a $2 coin, don’t you?
Bailey: Yeah. Yeah.
Jenna: Well you guys also don’t have change, like cents. You just have whole dollars.
Jasper: We got five, ten, twenty, fifty.
Jenna: Yeah dollar bills, but we have $1.99. And you only have $1 or $2.
Bailey / Jasper: Yeah, we’ve rounded up. Yeah, everything has rounded up.
Jenna: So it’ll be like the total is like $4.13. And then pennies are useless.
Sara: Why are we talking about this?
Bailey: Sorry, I took this interview. [NPR voice:] They’re not just musicians.
Sara: Welcome to NPR… I mean I’ve never been to Texas either so I arrived and the person walking in front of me at the airport had a cowboy hat on like the outfit and I was like ‘is this for real right now?’ And it’s so real.
Jasper: We went to a bar and met a bloke who ended up taking us on his ranch in Texas riding horses. You kind of start to get used to that whole thing like southern hospitality and everything.
That sounds like a murder plot.
Jasper: It was Travis from Thunder Horse Outfits. It was the best time, but then we all realized, ‘oh my god, we’re like two hours in Texas right now.’
That’s crazy. There’s also just a big cultural exchange happening at South By because there’s so many artists from all over the world. And no matter how big somebody is in their home country, it feels like a level playing field. Everyone seems to be really keen on connecting. What has your experience been seeing bands, meeting people, and getting to connect with them from all over the world?
Jasper: It’s intimidating, but you know everyone’s really open just chatting and hanging out. There’s no stigma, everyone’s just into whatever everyone’s doing. It can get exhausting, you play a couple shows a day and then you end up chatting and hanging out with someone and then it’s 1 a.m. But it’s cool, everyone’s so lovely, it’s definitely cool.
Finn: I’ve seen such a wide range of music around the world, which isn’t something you get to experience really. It’s pretty cool just going to a bar and seeing like three different countries’ bands in one night.
Jasper: For a band to come and tour Australia they have to have a certain amount of notoriety or have a certain profile to be able to afford to make the trip and make it a realistic tour. So we’ve been able to come over here and discover so many bands, meet so many people in bands, and hang out with people from England. Last week, it was cool because we met so many people from Texas and Austin. But our whole past week has just been hanging out with people from Europe and all across America. And also a lot of people from Australia.
Yeah, that’s awesome. So we talked a bit before about your music – honestly it reminds me a lot of 60s, 70s rock and Bob Dylan, but there’s an element of country and folk. And you said that in Australia people would consider you a country band, but here you’re definitely not a country band. So what have people’s reactions been to seeing you play this week?
Jasper: It’s been cool, we definitely do a couple of the more country, two-step sort of songs. People in Austin seem to really like that sort of stuff. We’re kind of always just branching out, we never try to have a certain specific sound that we’re tailing towards. It’s really a bit of a melting pot. In Australia it’s easy to say we’re alternative country because we’ve got harmonica and an acoustic guitar. But we go to a honky tonk bar here and talk to…
Bailey: It’s probably insulting.
Jasper: Yeah… all the players who are like proper honky tonk musicians. We’re not going to say we’re Australi-ana [like Americana], but that’s kind of just like a nothing word.
I am curious about all the influences you bring into your music. Because the way you guys play together feels almost communal, and really enjoy making music together. But how did you land on your sound?
Bailey: I guess because there’s a lot of us… five of us. We also have a lot of different influences. Everyone has their thing. The other day, I was watching a documentary about the making of Pet Sounds. And I just realized my whole bass style, I’ve just pretty much copied Carol Kaye. That’s where I got that idea from.
Finn: Yeah, lots of different stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of Radiohead and stuff like that lately. Kind of 90s rock and bringing in those synth vibes. Yeah, just changing up the vibe a bit. I feel like some of our newer songs probably have a bit of a Radiohead sort of feel to it, which has been fun trying to experiment with that.
Jasper: Yeah, sort of like musical experimentation I guess. I don’t know, I kind of get bored of playing the same sort of music. Everyone brings in different instruments and wants to learn something new. We’ve got a pretty chill work environment at home as far as music creation so we just get to hang out and experiment with different textures and stuff, which is cool. I think everyone’s influences are changing by the month. You get pretty keen on a record. I used to be obsessed with bands like The Velvet Underground and everything and I still love records like Loaded, but… I just feel like I’m like 17.
Maybe that helps that you all play multiple instruments and just experiment in that way too.
Bailey: Yeah, like Jasper said, we also have a studio where we live so it’s a lot easier for us to sort of just walk next door and jump into the studio and just muck around with different things.
So all three of you sing, and I said that you guys are a boy band. Compliment. It’s a compliment.
[Everyone laughing.]
Bailey: I love that.
It’s more versatile and interesting. We’re in this era of music where there’s less stigma around going things like that. And I think it’s fun because, as a fan, you get to experience something different. How did you decide you were going to switch off singing and collaborate in that regard?
Bailey: It’s genuinely never been a discussion. It’s just always happened. You know, we all write songs together. So do Connor and Tom.
Finn: We don’t really have any solo projects or anything. When any of us write a song, it’s usually for the band. We’ll bring it to the band and try to figure out a way we can all play it together.
Bailey: I think it sort of feeds back into your other question about how we sound. We all write different songs. It just brings all those different influences.
Jasper: It’s good when we’re playing live. You get to sing a few songs and then you get to sit back and listen to a song that you didn’t write that you really like, you know?
When you play for new audiences and people come up to you afterwards, what has the reaction been to the fact that it’s kind of like trading off instruments, trading off singing, having that kind of vibe on stage? Because if you do see something like this, it’s just people having more than one singer, but you guys also are like, ‘oh, I can play 27 instruments.’
Bailey: That’s not true. [laughs]
Jasper: Yeah, I don’t know. People like the music and they kind of joke about the swapping sometimes like, ‘why do you have to swap acoustic guitar and bass?’ Because we wanted to, man.
Yeah, I love it. So country and folk are very much known for the specific style of storytelling in lyricism. Does some of that seep its way into your music as well? How do you approach storytelling in your lyricism?
Bailey: I was talking to someone about this the other day. We were talking about journaling, like writing a diary, and I don’t do that. I’ve always wanted to journal, but then I realized that writing music is just my form of [journaling.] That sort of feeds into the storytelling aspect.
Jasper: Yeah, I think we all write songs differently. I like to write really, really fast, just in the flow of things. There might be an intent of some sort of narrative or some personal battle, but the song just ends up telling its own story. I don’t know if that’s insanely vague but I kind of feel like the songs I write are super vague. What do you do Finn?
Finn: I take a really long time to write. I think that doesn’t come naturally to me so much yet. I tend to sometimes labor on it too much and it can take me quite a while to finish songs.
Bailey: You are very critical of yourself though. You’re a great songwriter.
Jasper: We’re all just complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Which is cool, you know, three different ways to work.
Do you guys have fans back home who’ve figured out what songs are written by who? Do you think people pay attention to that?
Finn: Usually one of us is singing. That’s the song by who wrote it. I don’t know if people know that or not.
Bailey: Whenever I’m playing live and I’m singing one of my songs, I just close my eyes because I’m too scared to look at people. So I don’t know if people are watching me or…
Maybe we’ll get some two step dancing. You have one more show in Texas. We’ll make it happen.
Bailey: We need some lessons.
Jasper: We’ll bring it home with us. Yeah, yeah.
So, Australia has a really strong music scene. You guys are based near there and there’s a lot of punk music, psych music. What has your experience been with the music community, both in Melbourne, but also across Australia?
Jasper: It’s cool. It’s super vibrant. All your friends are from bands or they’re all just musicians. There’s an endless amount of really good music coming out of such a small population, especially cities like Melbourne and Perth and Brisbane and Sydney. There’s really great country acts, really great punk/hardcore. It’s a melting pot. A lot of Australian musicians owe it to really influential bands like The Saints or songwriters like Paul Kelly and Broderick Smith and bands like The Dingoes and Spectrum who are all pretty, AUS-centric bands.
All of our friends that are here [at SXSW] are from Australia. We’re kind of a rock and roll band. We’ve got friends Girl and Girl – they’re really cool, sort of like alternative punk, they’re a little bit 90s, but still like Talking Heads as well. And our friends Folk Bitch Trio, they’re just a really beautiful three-part harmony group.
You can constantly get inspired by everyone making music around you, which I think is really similar to Austin. I suppose places like Nashville and New Orleans have a really strong stylistic backbone. Austin and Nashville seem to have a really strong country basis, but then you scratch beneath the surface and it’s like 13th floor elevators.
What has been your experience when you go to other cities? You’ve done a tour around Australia, and everything is very separated. But are you able to play those other cities and have fans come out and make those connections as well?
Finn: Yeah, we were really lucky to get put on a label called Jet Black Cat in Brisbane and the owner has taken us up for a few tours up around northern New South Wales and Brisbane. It’s a really cool music scene up there. So many nice people and we love going up there.
Bailey: It’s kind of interesting, it could go either way in terms of bands being competitive, because it’s so small and trying to get out, but I feel like everyone is really supportive of each other, all trying to have fun and help each other out. It’s cool, it’s really nice.
That’s awesome. America and Europe feel so far away from Australia, and getting there as a band is very hard to do. Is expanding outside of Australia something that you want to focus on?
Jasper: Yeah, it’s definitely, it’s the dream to travel as much as we can and play music all the time. That’s definitely our end goal. I feel like we’ve got a sound that works well in the States. Yeah, [we] don’t want to spread [ourselves] too thin and try to make both work all the time, but we definitely want to come and tour America as much as we can. We want to get in a car and have the good times and have the bad times and all that stuff.
Driving for hours, just like at home.
Yeah, you can go to more cities here. Driving 12 hours [in Australia] gets you to Sydney.
As a little wrap up question, how do you feel like your music journey has evolved since you started playing music together?
Bailey: I think when we first started as a band I still couldn’t even play a chord on the guitar. I was just playing single notes.
Jasper: What, since we were 14 or something?
Bailey: Yeah. Probably. We first started jamming.
You’ve been playing together for like 10 years? More than that? Oh wow.
Bailey: Yeah. We’ve all been like best friends since we were super young. We didn’t start a band together to be like… “Let’s start a band and become huge.” We were just having fun with what we were doing.
Finn: So yeah, we’ve all learned how to play music together as a band. Like personally, I’ve never had lessons or anything. So learning music has all been from each other.
Bailey: And Marty Schwartz on YouTube.
Jasper: Yeah. I think we’ve definitely dropped any intention to sound like our influences. Especially when you’re like 17, 18, you’re pretty obsessed with bands from nuggets and like 60s bands. It’s like you try to recreate that sort of music but I think the past few years we’ve stopped really caring about that and it’s just trying to make our own sort of sound.
And also using that as the starting point when you are young, and learning how to replicate. Then by time you grow as a musician, you’re able to pull in what you like and make it different in your own way.
All: Yeah, exactly.
Well Bones and Jones, thank you guys for talking with us today.
Bailey: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
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