Although the band’s present incarnation has only been around for a relatively short time, the four members of Born Lion have all spent several years cutting their teeth in the Wollongong music scene. “As Born Lion, we’ve been doing it for about three years now,” says frontman John Bowker. “We started in Wollongong, the guitarist and I are from Wollongong. Born Lion I guess comes from another band that comes from Wollongong. We played in different bands that had known about each other for a while, and then we started playing in the same band as each other about seven years ago.”
Now based in Sydney, and with their debut album Final Words just released, Born Lion’s star is most certainly on the rise. Their earnest persistence is evident in both their music and work ethic, and the band’s efforts have been rewarded with performances at festivals such as Bigsound and a support slot on Yellowcard’s current national tour. While the boys from Born Lion aren’t completely unfamiliar with playing to audiences of this size, approaching these shows can be a little difficult.
“You have to rehearse a whole bunch, and I think it’s going to take a couple of shows to get the hang of those big venues,” Bowker says. “We’re a little more at home playing smaller venues, even playing on the floor. It takes a little while when you play the bigger venues to figure out how to use that space and how to perform, especially with the space between you and the audience. I’m used to moving myself out as close to the middle of the room as I can so I can be as close as possible to people, so the show becomes about the experience of the gig, and not about how precisely we’re playing.”
The band’s loaded gig schedule, together with the release of the album, has culminated in a particularly hectic time for Born Lion. The band members aren’t new to the recording process, but Final Words is the biggest project any of them has committed to, and it was a test of endurance.
“We worked with exactly the same person, and followed the same process we’ve done with every other recording,” says Bowker. “But I guess it was a bit more involved. I’d never recorded a full-length album before, and just the sheer amount of songs we recorded was kind of draining. It was good, it was still fun, but I was heading up to Sydney every day, so I was driving constantly for a few weeks there.”
To reiterate, at the end of the day, music is in essence a labour of love, and nobody knows that better than the people that labour over it. Fortunately for Bowker, he’s been steadily checking off achievements from his musical ‘things to do list’.
“I just wanted to have quality recordings and have songs that we’re proud of,” he says. “It’s difficult to get a bunch of people together and form a band that makes music of a reasonable quality. It’s a dream just to find good musicians to play with, as one goal, and then I guess to play to as many people as possible. I guess we’ve achieved some of those things I aspired to do when I was younger. Playing bigger venues and going on tour with good bands. That’s what I wanted to do when I was young, to go on the road on successful tours.”
BY KEATS MULLIGAN
