Bonjah
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Bonjah

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“Just as Jet became known in New Zealand, we did a bit of research and found that they were from Melbourne and they had been discoveredat a venuein Melbourne called The Espy. We were like, ‘Wow, that’s us! We’ve got to go to Melbourne and play some shows at The Espy and we’ll be famous like Jet.’ How young and naïve we were. Yeah, so we realised we were dealing with such a small market that it would be hard to do music as a full time gig here. We moved to Melbourne to give it a fair crack. Been doing that now for the past eight years.”

Though the move mightn’t have led to instant fame, the band has discovered there’s more important ways to make an impact. How many bands, for example, can say their music literally saved someone’s life? Definitely not everyone, but Bonjah can!

“It was when we played this show down in Rye at Baha Tacos. This girl came up after the show and spoke to Regan and myself and explained that a couple of years ago she had been struggling with some really bad things,” recalls Dave. “She had bad depression and was basically really close to ending her life. It was a touching moment. Her holding my hand and telling me music was a big part of why she didn’t and specifically our music from our last album. She got inspired and ended up booking some travel. It was a really amazing experience. We sort of shared that with the other guys and with Moz our singer, and it struck a chord. He penned a song about it.”

That song was Evolution; the single off the band’s third studio album Beautiful Wild, to be released on Friday April 18 and launched at the Corner Hotel on Friday May 9. Having chosen love as the theme, Bonjah then considered the many facets of the emotion. The good, bad and the ugly; the “beautiful” and the “wild”, hence the chosen album title and track title.

“We’ve all been through our fair share of short term/long term relationships. Our singer writes all the lyrics and he wrote the majority of the music as well. Love can be such a unique and captivating thing. It can be so good but then it can be so bad and such a struggle. It can be so easy or be something you really have to work for. Moz tried to encompass all that in the album and that’s reflective in the title, Beautiful Wild. It can be so beautiful, but so wild at the same time.”

Jet’s early influence on the band is still evident when listening to the album, as even before being told of Bonjah’s early respect for the group, I found myself reminded of them when playing tracks like Honey. At the same time, however, other tracks immediately had me thinking of R&B queen Macy Gray. It’s a really good gritty combination.

“Wow, that’s really interesting that you should mention that. Especially Macy Gray; that’s pretty cool,” Dave enthuses. “We draw a lot of influences from a lot of different places. Not necessarily just music. We all relate with Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, to be extremely cliché and all the rocky stuff like Jimmy Hendrix, with the guitar. That sort of thing. That’s what we were all into when we were younger. We definitely listen to a wide range of music these days. So yeah, we take a lot of influences from different things.”

BY HEIDI LEIGH AXTON