QLD's Bonka on their new single, a national tour and Jägerbombs
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QLD's Bonka on their new single, a national tour and Jägerbombs

Queensland’s Bonka are a dynamic duo made up of Lachlan and Connor, two flamingly excited DJ/Producers who have been known to tear down walls in clubs, upon the delivery of their slick main room and mash-up mixes on the frequent.
Notably one of Australia’s most sought-after lords of mash-up, they’ve now teamed up with international songtress Luciana for their new track ‘Be Alive’ ahead of their National Tour which kicks off June 9. To celebrate, we chat to the party-starters.
Hey guys how are you going?
We’re good… Really, really good! We’re pretty excited for the next couple of days with the release. It’s going to be a lot of fun!
With the release ‘Be Alive’, how was it working with Luciana?
She is an absolute delight to work with to be honest. She actually made the whole process phenomenally easy, easier than any record we’ve done so far really. She’s just so extremely talented. We were very fortunate to work with her and we’re privileged to work with someone of that stature within the industry so early in our career so to speak. So very happy with how it came together! Check the track below.


How was that one created, was it a face-to-face collab?
We actually met Luciana about a year ago when we had a residency at Club Metro and she was playing a show there, and we were playing after her so we had a pretty wild night with her, had a few Jägerbombs, had a good time and about a year later, we basically just sent her the track and she absolutely loved it! She said, ‘give me two weeks and I’ll get you back a top-line and we’ll go from there’. She sent back the vocals and they were absolutely perfect – exactly what we wanted and that’s how we came up with it!
Well every good story always starts with a Jägerbomb! Now just backing it up a little bit, how did you guys come to be Bonka?
We were known to each other so to speak. Connor used to run a houseparty business when we were in high school and he would organise DJs and the likes, and he actually hired me to play a show one night. We were starting to get a bit wild – as you do as kids – and then we started mucking around and throwing a few ideas around and it came up of ‘why don’t we do this together and do a duo’. I had nothing going on so was all for it and was like ‘why not man, let’s give it a crack’ and that’s where Bonka began. We started playing everything together and we’ve been inseparable ever since… every weekend for the past four or five years we’ve just been together, doing the same old thing, kicking about and having a good time.
Now, let’s chat about the upcoming tour, keen?
Yeah! So we are touring Australia and we are doing our first run in Europe for a couple of weeks and just seeing what that part of the world has to offer, or see what we have to offer them is actually a better way to put it.
And do you guys have a fan base over in Europe, or is that the purpose of this upcoming trip?
In terms of fan base, we already have a pretty strong fan base over there which is one of the reasons behind the tour. The tour itself will obviously help – well if we do a good job that is – to help build the fan base to a point where we could probably do it more than once a year, maybe try and get over there for a whole summer next year and get a tan! But that probably depends on how well we play I suppose and if they like us and our Australian charm…
In terms of Australia, is there anywhere that you’re looking forward to playing?
Every show in Australia really. Every weekend, we are playing shows from the biggest nightclubs in the city, like Adelaide, Brisbane, and Sydney but we also love just the little rural shows we’re playing. Every show always has something different to offer and it’s always exciting but the rural shows you really get to connect with the audience a bit more. But really, every show is always a pleasure to play at. We’ve got very different shows; the biggest nightclubs in Australia to some pubs and taverns in rural cities, but it will all be really cool!
Have you guys done a big tour like this before or is this the first one?
Well we’ve been touring Australia almost constantly for about two years and we’re only playing a few new venues on this run of shows.
You guys sound like you know how to have a fun time! Do the shows tend to get a bit crazy?
Not going to lie, the shows do get pretty wild. We always love getting to the show a couple of hours earlier and getting to meet the fans and the club owners and having a couple of Jägerbombs with them and then even after the show, we’ll have a few more Jägerbombs.
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Thanks so much for your time guys! To finish off, is there anyone you are wanting to work with in the future?
Well we’re spoiled for choice in that respect, but if we had to name artists who we would love to collaborate with obviously people. Within Australia, we’d love to collab with other DJ duos or producers like ourselves, like Mashd N Kutcher is never a bad option, Peking Duk… guys like that who have been killing the game for so long, we would be so fortunate to work with people such as that. At the moment, we’re just working really hard on making sure this release does as well as it can and looking forward to the future in terms of releasing more music.
On the road with a fully loaded tour schedule, the aficionados set fire to venues across the globe! From stages Australia wide to clubs and festivals across the deep, it’s safe to say the Bonka party travels on no sleep, but the drinks best be on ice and the party at the ready. Catch them at HQ Complex Adelaide on August 4.