Melbourne's deep funk hammond organ trio Cookin' On 3 Burners are the perfect example of the Melbourne scene's huge national and international reach.
Cookin’ On 3 Burners rocketed to global stardom after a remixed version of their track ‘My Girl’ – featuring the one-and-only Kylie Auldist on vocals – topped charts and racked up over a billion streams. Since those dizzying highs, the pandemic stuttered all momentum, but now Cookin On 3 Burners are bringing back the funk and soul vibes at September’s Wanderer Festival.
With the inaugural Wanderer Festival due to bloom as winter transitions to spring, a lineup consisting predominantly of Australian musicians gear up for a fruitful gathering of community. Cookin’ On 3 Burners’ maiden release entered the world around 20 years ago, but the trio’s hammond organ specialist Jake Mason outlines the sense of yearning for live performance and group studio sessions has never been more significant. Fed by the lockdowns experienced in Melbourne, he’s excited to be back recording and performing live.
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“We were yearning to play live,” says Jake. “I definitely think we as performers have had to take a break from it and we yearn even more for it, but we’ve done a whole bunch of gigs now and we are working in the studio, so we feel like we have reconnected from a musical perspective. We feel pretty much business as usual for our show now.”
According to Jake the yearning for a live music experience isn’t exclusive to the artists themselves. Rather, it lives within the audiences and members of the public deprived of such recently.
“The audiences [are yearning for live shows too]. But I think that as a whole, there is kind of an excitement about getting to festivals. Which is healthy.”
He does admit that the industry isn’t quite what it was pre-pandemic though. With a hesitancy affecting certain members of the community, alongside the continual concern that an event may need to be cancelled or postponed at any stage.
“I don’t think all the audiences, or all the demographics are comfortable being back yet and the whole industry has been pretty non-existent,” says Jake.
“I still think the promoters and the guys that run the festivals and all the different sections of where gigs get put on, realise it’s still early days and it’s kind of coming back, but it doesn’t feel 100% yet. So, we’re in a bit of a transition phase.”
Despite noting that the industry’s operating at a lower frequency than it has in the past, Jake has a wealth of confidence in Wanderer being able to go ahead and achieve all that the organisers and promoters have set out to do.
“I think those guys [Wanderer] – if anyone is going to be able to set the scene – will make it warming for that environment. You can’t trick the community, the community is only going to be what it’s going to be. You can only give the community that opportunity and that’s what it’s going to be, and I think that the festival is going to do that, it’s going to be very inclusive.”
“There are going to be lots of options for all demographics. Being pretty regional, there is not going to be many festivals like that since the pandemic. I’m pretty confident it is going to be a really healthy turnout. The demand has already been really strong, so I think it’s going to be huge.”
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Cookin’ On 3 Burners embody the ethos that Wanderer are injecting into their new festival. They maintain an openness to the expansion of community, and welcoming celebration as a means of doing so.
“Regarding the festival, when I looked at the bill, I was looking forward to catching up with these guys,” Jake says. “I feel like there is a really good music scene here in Melbourne and Victoria that goes out to the rest of Australia.
“Bringing the wider Australian community into a festival and forging new relationships has always been a big part of Cookin’ On 3 Burners. We are a collaborative band, so this is a way to have a chat with someone and maybe 12 or so months down the track you’re in the studio with them.”
Cookin’ On 3 Burners are currently working on new material in the studio that they intend to showcase in a live setting. With the release of new tracks, a likely prospect for the second half of 2022.
“At the moment our new songs are directed at being played in the studio, For the next month, month, and a half we will be focusing on that, but then once we’ve done that, we will flip them into the live set. As a bit of a different aesthetic from the production perspective.”
Wanderer Festival runs from September 23-25, tickets available here. Keep track of Cookin’ On 3 Burners other tour dates here.
