“I always wanted to do it, so I just went ahead and did it,” Nic Oogjes, or Cong Josie as he’s more commonly known, tells me of bleaching his hair.
“Everyone said it’s bad for your roots, but I didn’t care. I think it looks good.”
Armed with a natural irreverence, slicked-back hair and painted blue fingernails, Oogjes truly looks and acts the part of a Melbourne rocker. There’s a good reason for that: he’s been doing it for a very long time. As he tells me, after catching the music bug as a teenager, Oogjes immediately became hooked.
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“Basically, we did a battle of the bands in Melbourne and happened to win that, so we got to play a festival in the late ’90s. Then we played the Espy and other bars. I later got into turntabling, then I learnt the drums and ended up in a band called Tik Tok Tokyo. I then founded a band called NO ZU.”
NO ZU, as it happened, was the band that ascended Josie’s career to even loftier heights. “We got to tour all over the world and play some of the biggest festivals in the late-night spots. Like Primavera and all over Europe.” The band eventually grew to eight permanent members.
While Oogjes looks back on these days fondly, he also believes the band got a “bit too big” and, as a result, took a slope. After taking some time off to pursue other things, Oogjes eventually re-emerged, this time as Cong Josie.
The unusual name, Oogjes tells me, came about due to the use of an anagram generator. “I didn’t want to go by my real name. It was the first one that came up when I typed it in. I liked it because ‘Cong’ is a fun word to say. Then ‘Josie’ has a feminine quality. I felt like I’m an equal part of both things, so it stuck.”
Equipped with a name, Oogjes then got to work with shaping the persona of Cong Josie.
“I delved deeper into the imagery of rock ‘n’ roll, then tried to find fun ways to subvert it. I knew I wasn’t going to entirely break new ground. We’re ultimately all a product of chewing up culture. I just thought if I’m slightly separate it all gets to be a lot more fun. I get to put on the cowboy hat and wear those tights.”
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With a name and persona in tow, Oogjes got to work creating the music. After releasing his debut album Cong in 2021, Oogjes began to feel the buzz of making music again. He also really noticed a change in the way people approached him. “After that point, people would approach me on the streets and call me Cong.”
When it came time to record his second album, however, Oogjes wanted to do something quite different to the first.
“Around the time I started recording Cong, I started to see a psychologist. Of course, psychology always goes back to your childhood. You often discuss the root of your issues.” This, as Oogjes tells me, eventually led to Moto Zone.
“My dad worked for Ford, and I didn’t feel at all connected to his world when I was a kid so I just wanted to re-explore this time of my life. I put pictures of motorbikes around the studio and started to look at biker imagery. The name Moto Zone just sort of fell out of that. It’s about people always being on the go and never able to relax.”
Oogjes built a world with Moto Zone, recording most of the album within a week. In retrospect, he now views Moto Zone as a time capsule of his childhood.
While this was a while ago, you can still see in Oogjes’ eyes a certain freshness – a drive to continue to make something better. It’s the same bug he caught when he was a teenager learning how to play.
“You hear people like Warren Ellis talk about the final mystery of music. We don’t really understand music and why it resonates so well. That’s why I love it. We just want to do this for as long as we can.”
With that, Oogjes must go pick up his six-year-old from school. While reality does bite, Oogjes will still be the coolest Dad on carpool.
Cong Josie is launching Moto Zone at The Tote on October 12. Grab your tickets here.
