Their latest album Ginger Gold (Farm Singles) is out now.
Having just dropped their third LP ‘Ginger Gold: Farm Singles’, as well as announcing that they will be making an appearance at the final ever Boogie Festival AND an album launch tour, it seems things are finally running smoothly again for Bones and Jones – especially considering the show that kickstarted their 2021 proved to be much more turbulent than expected.
“We played a festival show in Newcastle. Literally, we had been in the State maybe four hours or so when someone checked their phone and saw they’d announced the hard border closure between Vic and NSW,” laughs the groups lead vocalist and guitarist Jasper Jolley.
“We had to get out of there pretty quickly but the next day was New Years Day so we couldn’t get a hire car and we would have been locked out of the State if we took home our original flight on the second
“So, we played and then Masch [Tom Maschio] and I got into the festival organisers van and drove about an hour to pull five grand out of a servo ATM at 11 o’clock on New Years Eve so that we could buy a van off a random guy, drive it back to the festival and then back to Vic at five the next morning; which was a bit grim but we got a good tale out of it,” he continues.
“At one point the only option was that Connor’s uncle was a pilot and he was trying to track down an aircraft so he could fly us back.”
“That was actually our most likely option at a point, which kind of shows how fucked we were.”
Luckily, it worked out well and now the group not only has a new album but also a pretty sweet van.
“Well I’ve got it now and I’m enjoying having a van,” laughs Jolley. “It’s an eight-seater so we are going to use it to get us around to gigs.
“Kind of like the old American model of buying a van and driving it round and playing shows.”
Having just announced a run of launch shows around Vic and NSW, it seems the bands new set of wheels will come in handy when they hit the road to premiere the groups new material, which was released month-by-month last year.
“It was kind of a Covid-y thing,” reflects Jolley.
“All of our gigs were getting canned, so we figured while we were in lockdown we’d just record heaps of songs and then release them every month.
“We were hoping that by the time all the songs had been released things would be going back to normal and we’d be able to have album launch shows and it kind of seems like it’s worked out perfectly with the timing of shows fully coming back.”
Having recorded and produced the new material by himself in the groups Wallington home studio (which is shared with a selection of the regions finest talent), Jolley touched on how this project ultimately took over whatever else the group had been previously working on.
“There were a few songs that never got done in the end.
“When we started the idea of actually working on another record or a single series or whatever, I’d already done a few demos. They were turned into some of the songs on the album during the first lockdown.
“We had our last session to record booked in on one of the last weekends before the second big lockdown got announced. It got announced during the week and we had two songs left to record and 12 hours until lockdown so all the boys dropped everything and came down and we pumped them out.
After the inclusion of George Wilson as an additional musician on ‘Bees’ (the groups second LP), Wilson has stepped up as a formal addition to the group, who are now proudly a six-piece.
“Georgie did some percussion on Bees but it was in between stages, where he had started playing shows with us but it was all pretty casual. But this new record there are a lot of different moments of saxophone and lap steel and things like that which George added.”
“He’s such a treat. He’s honestly so good at playing every instrument,” reflects Jolley, who first started playing with Wilson as teenagers in ‘The Tiny Giants.’
“It’s been so fun since he picked up the saxophone. It means we’ve been able to layer heaps of saxophone parts together so it sounds like.. I don’t know what a group of sax players would be called… a saxoesphagus or something, a horn section?”
With the new album in tow, Bones and Jones have already commenced their run of launch shows after playing the Apollo Bay Seafood Festival last month. Wrapping up the tour; which will include the group stopping by their favourite festival Boogie for a set, will be a hometown show at The Barwon Club, Geelong.
“I’m excited to play a show close to home. It’s going to be sick. The BC is one of the venues that have been doing it very well. Every weekend it’s booked and there are heaps of young bands playing, it’s sick.
“I think everyone is super keen to play and attend as many shows as we can because at this point; we are one of the only countries with shows happening.”
Ginger Gold (Farm Singles) is out now. Check it out here and catch them at The Barwon Club on Saturday, May 8. Tickets here.
