INTRODUCING…BROTHERS AND BONES
Crafting a blend of progressive, folk, blues and African drumming, the band Brother and Bones play with a passion and intensity in each song that most bands don’t put into an entire set. Each from different backgrounds and musical tastes, the band member’s work together to create a sound that never dulls or strays into the common. 247 Magazine’s Albert Testani sat down for a few minutes with the band to talk about their history and where their sound is going.
Take me though how you guys started making music together…
Rich: I’ve been writing songs for quite a while, doing bits and pieces as a singer/song writer and doing stuff on my own couple of different bands. Robin and I have been playing music for five or six years together.
[The Band] kind of started with a couple of EPs of throwing out some different idea. We did an EP with a string quartet too. I went travelling and when I came back I really wanted to make an album and get started on a project that I had in my head. I wrote a couple of songs and got together with some mates and we put this album together.
So it originally started out as one album, almost like a side project for all of you and built up?
Rich: Yea exactly, it was kind of cart before the horse, in that we made this album without really doing any gigs, it was something I really wanted do.
It’s refreshing to hear that because you actually took the time to create and craft your sound, but at the same time randomly coming together.
Rich: It’s a different approach I suppose, just kind of how it happened. We’ve all known each other through other projects. I go introduced to Si through a mutual friend of ours that used to play guitar and James has been in rock bands over the past few year
Does that give you guys a unique element in that you sample from a lot of different background, like your rhythm section which is just so heavy and has African influence?
James: Yeah, a pretty heavy rhythm section (laughing). Like Rich was saying we somehow got together. I was in a rock band and Yiannis was doing other stuff and when it all came together this was the sound that we needed to be move forward.
Si: It’s one of those things where everyone brings their character and personality to the band and that’s what makes it what it is. And because everyone has so much character and personality and musicality.
What are your biggest influences? The type of band that makes you think I want to do that.
Rich: I’ve grown up with music, we’ve all always been around it, James’ Dad is a drummer, Si plays every instrument under the sun. It’s kind of natural.
James – I knew that I wanted to play music full time in primary school playing all these old songs and just loved it and it’s just been in the family.
Si – We have different tastes but all love the same music. There have been different points in time when we’ve all been at the same gig years ago and not known it, but we were all there living off these sounds.
What are your plans for the next few months?
Rich – We’re recording another EP that we have five songs for, so we’ll be putting that out in October. It’s been hard trying to squeeze in preproduction and recording because we’ve been touring so much at the moment, we really love what we’re doing. October is going to be a big month for us and we’ll be recording the album with any free time we have after this EP comes out so we can release it next year.
More information on Brothers and Bones at www.myspace.com/brotherandbones
Photo: Albert Testani
