TJAKA are more than ready to celebrate Elevate, the band’s energy-pulsing debut EP, at their upcoming headline tour.
The self-produced EP sees the band – made up of two Fabila brothers, Geoff and Jake, plus their cousin Luke, and close friend Felix Fogarty – put their music into recorded form after years of gigs and festivals.
Though, in reality, they’ve been performing for much longer than that.
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“Jake and I have been on stage since we were 9 or 10 years old whenever Dad, who is also a musician, was performing. We would jump up with whoever in high school, then do shows with friends,” Geoff Fabila (didjeribone and vocals) says, adding that they’d also join Luke’s shows from time to time. This all developed their love for the live music scene, leading to their decision to form their own band and take the stage more often.
“We got sick of jumping up for one song and then off again,” Fabila says, “We went, ‘Let’s do our own thing.’”
Fabila, a proud descendant of the Jabirr Jabirr tribe in the Western Australian Kimberley, says they chose their band name to reflect their cultural roots: it’s short for Tjakamarra, derived from their kinship naming system.
“Our dad, all our uncles, and all the men in that generation are called Tjupurru. Me, Jake, Luke, and all our male cousins – all Tjakamarra,” he says.
After four years together as a band, they’ve aimed to capture the energetic essence and sound of their genre-diverse shows with Elevate. It was their second go at the project, with production being an entirely new ball game for the performance-experienced band.
Jake took the reins as the main producer, with support from musical peers like beatboxer Tom Thum and “legend” producer Magoo. Founded in hip-hop, their sound expands throughout the EP from boom bap to rock with some grungy inspiration taken from Limp Bizkit.
“It’s exciting that we can say our first ever piece of work has been done fully by us,” Fabila shares. “But that’s also been the challenging part. It was a new experience for all of us… This EP is a showpiece of what we can do.”
And they do a lot: the band recently returned from their second time touring abroad, with a successful UK run marked with the milestone of playing at The Great Escape Festival.
“As an emerging band, there’s that sense that you’re confident in what you’ve been doing, but there’s also the unknown in how audiences are going to react,” he says, reflecting on the positive response they received in England, adding that having a Didjeribone as their primary instrument always feels unique to overseas crowds.
“We are all massive music fans and have loved going to gigs since we were young. We’ve learned that energy crosses borders and languages. We brought as much energy as we could.”
TJAKA returned down under, and after a short rest, powered through with another dynamic performance at Dark Mofo in Tasmania – a taste of what’s to come for their Australian tour.
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“It’s time to release and celebrate with people who want to listen,” Fabila says, seeing the tour as a celebration of their hard work over the past eight months of production.
“Hopefully the cold doesn’t scare people away, because I know that we’ll have a lot of fun down there,” Fabila says on concluding the two-week stint in Melbourne on 4 July.
Whether they’re streaming the EP or catching one of their upcoming shows, he hopes their music leaves listeners feeling uplifted in one way or another.
“The idea of Elevate isn’t new when you talk about people wanting to elevate themselves,” Fabila says, “To us, we’ve used this theme because it is our mindset to continuously improve.
“We’re hoping people feel that energy as well, and get that feeling whether they’re going to work hard at their job or their passion, or doing a test at school. We want them to continuously improve in whatever they choose.”
Tjaka are playing the Workers Club on 4 July. Grab tickets here.
