Coastal rockers Bones and Jones to release sophomore album

When high school ends and teenagers are propelled into reality, friendships built across pencilled lunches most weeks of the year become harder to maintain.

For coastal garage rockers Bones and Jones, those coveted bonds continue to grow inside the studio rather than the schoolyard.

Last Friday saw the band release their latest song “Bees” from their coming sophomore album of the same name.

Frontman Jasper Jolley said he wrote the track in high school and forgot it existed before rediscovering it in time for recording.

“It’s (the album) been a while in the pipes. ‘Bees’ is actually one of the older songs that we play. We had the album recorded about a year ago at Secret Locations Studios in Melbourne.

“We took the tracks from there and did some recording by ourselves and in Point Lonsdale with Nick Huggins where we added all the strings and horns.”

With each of the band’s six local members – Bailey Bates, Conor Bromley, Finn Chappell, Jasper Jolley, Thomas Maschio and George Wilson – influenced by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Creedence, Jasper said it’s “actually ridiculous” that their musical tastes are so aligned.

But it’s the mateship within the group that makes collaborating, recording and playing together something of a dream.

“We’re pretty lucky that we’re all best mates. We’re all really comfortable around each other… playing music is like the only time we get to hang out these days,” Jasper said.

“No one’s shy to share ideas. If it’s a song I’ve got, I’ll take it to the boys as a pretty loose arrangement and everyone else kind of fills in during a practice.

“We’ve been jamming together for a while, but we started recording about two-three years ago.”

Bones and Jones’ 2018 debut album Living Green saw the boys play their first festival stages at New Year’s Evie 2018/19 and Grampians Music Festival 2019.

They were also selected to showcase at the inaugural Changes Music Summit in 2018 by Music Victoria, supporting Twin Peaks (USA) that same year and The Nude Party (USA) in 2019.

“We’ve all progressed as players (since Living Green) and learnt to play with each other so much more since that first record. That first record was a pretty quick, DIY approach.”

Keen to take Bees on the road, Jasper said the band was proud to finally play it live.

“We’re pretty excited to get it out there and to get going on the next thing.

“It’s been a really fun process, and it saw us be part of a new record label Bonsai Records who are based out of Wallington.

“We’ve also been working with Willem Kingma who does a lot of our album cover art and music videos.

“We’ve got some shows in the pipes over March, and we’ve pretty much got a new record of stuff ready to go, but it’s still pretty fresh. We really want to go overseas, so for now we’re chipping away at that block.”

Bees is available on January 27. Listeners can pre-order a copy of the 10-song album, with $4 from every sale being forwarded to fire relief for First Nations communities.

Bones and Jones are set to launch the record at John Curtin Hotel, Carlton on February 1.

For more information, head to linktr.ee/bonsai.records.

To keep up to date with the band, follow @bonesandjones on Facebook and Instagram.