South Africa’s music industry can be a cruel place, especially for an independent artist
who has no big money backing him.
So when I sat down for a few beers with Jay Bones, the front man of cult punk band Fuzigish and, more recently, acoustic-rock band Ramblin’ Bones, it dawned on me that here was an artist who had been at it for almost 15 years and still had not thrown in the towel.
What’s more, as we chatted for almost an hour sitting outside Johannesburg’s venerable live-music venue, the Bohemian, I realised that Bones is not even slightly jaded — he still talks about music with the enthusiasm of a young punk.
‘Music is like a gorgeous cheating girlfriend,” he says, smiling. ‘She really makes you angry, but she’s too gorgeous to let go.”
So Bones is saying that he is addicted to this
musical pursuit, regardless of whether it is good for him or not. Surely this South African music veteran has some noteworthy insights about the local industry after 14 years’ experience?
When I ask Bones what he thinks of the industry, a grin spreads across his face before he replies: ‘Well, it’s the Samas [South African Music Awards] tonight and I’m here at the Bohemian.”
‘Nough said.
We have met up for these beers to chat about his new album under the Ramblin’ Bones moniker, Ramblin’ Bones & His Bloody Agents (Cocktail Records), which is the second since he launched the project in 2009.
So what has changed between album number one, Live with Rusty From the Wendyhouse Vol 1, and the new one?
New friends, new sounds
First, Ramblin’ Bones is now a band — a three-piece, to be precise. Bones has been joined by his Bloody Agents, a reference to Julius Malema’s crazed outburst aimed at a BBC journalist last year.
They are Eric Charles Wright on bass and Baron Von Danger Powell on drums, and their set at last year’s Oppikoppi festival illustrated how the new band had transformed Bones’s songs.
A listen to the new album suggests that the live energy the band has developed has seeped into the recordings, creating a stellar collection of new material.
And Bones admits that he has spent much more time on the lyrics on this album — the part of song-writing he finds the most difficult and time-consuming.
Bearing this in mind, it is surprising that Bones began an interesting little side project last year under the name Citizen Bones, writing protest songs that were given away on online culture magazine Mahala.com.
The first was a number called Comrades with Fast Cars in which Bones commented on the hypocrisy of South African politicians living the high life while socialist rhetoric spouts from their mouths.
‘Are the lures of the luxury lifestyle interfering with your communist ideals?” asks Bones. ‘Would Karl Marx approve of that platinum credit card and all those Dubai shopping trips?”
Social issues
The second Citizen Bones track was called Corruption of the State and featured the exploits of alleged crime boss Glenn Agliotti and former chief of police Jackie Selebi.
‘Folk music is traditionally singing about social issues and your immediate surroundings,” says Bones, explaining the Citizen Bones detour.
‘Mahala editor Andy Davis was very keen so we released some tracks via the magazine.”
I ask him why this line of writing stopped after only two songs.
‘I did two songs and then I realised that I didn’t want to be seen as the white dude who phones into radio station 702 and complains about everything,” he says. ‘I didn’t want to be another whingeing white person.”
So the overtly political songs are out the window now, but that does not mean Bones has moved on to writing frivolous pop music.
Pop sensibility
But there is definitely a pop sensibility to his songs, which is something that can be identified even in his early punk work with Fuzigish.
When I ask him about this, he openly admits to growing up listening to his older brother and sister’s 1980s pop-music collections made up of bands like Duran Duran.
‘I like that kind of music,” he says. ‘I like the pop sensibility and it feeds into my music, even the punk stuff.”
It can most obviously be heard on power-pop tracks such as When I’m with You from his latest album: ‘When I’m with you, I’m feeling better/ When I’m with you, I quote Mandela,” states its chorus.
But the highlights are the harder-edged material such as I Saw Him, It All Comes Down to This and Since You Left Me.
Tracks such as Soon, St Louis and No Fun at All offer a gentler folk influence and give the album some welcome diversity, whereas Sing with Me has Bones nostalgically reflecting on his past as a South African punk pioneer, although his rebellious spirit is embedded deep inside the song. As Yoda would say: ‘The force is still strong with this one.”
As our conversation winds to a close because Bones is off to Pretoria for a gig, we chat about the imminent Fuzigish reunion tour.
The band, after taking a substantial break, has decided to reconvene and has put together a new compilation album titled Setlist (Red Ambulance).
Bones says that three of the band’s four albums are now out of print and that this is a way to make their favourite songs from their lengthy career available for the fans again.
Integrity and style
‘They are the songs we still play live,” says Bones, ‘and we recorded two new songs for the compilation too.”
The band also has a fantastic new four-gigabyte Fuzigish flash drive, which contains all four albums plus the new compilation. It retails at gigs for R250.
Fourteen years on, Bones is still showing the local music industry how to go about doing things with integrity and style, which says all that needs to be said about the man.