Just last week we premiered Sad Summer’s Day, the brand new track from Melbourne solo artist Burning Bones. It’s dreamy and hypnotic, bearing wonderfully layered instrumentals and a fantastic vocal feature from Melbourne’s KAIA.
But as we also learned, despite the single’s bright veneer it comes from a particularly dark place. To find out more, we sat down with Burning Bones for a chat.
We sat down with Melbourne solo artist Burning Bones to chat Sad Summer’s Day, his bittersweet new single.
HAPPY: Hey mate how’s it going? What have you been up to lately?
BURNING BONES: Hey man, I’m doing great. The song’s finished and the feedback so far has been great.
HAPPY: We’re really loving Sad Summer’s Day… could you tell us a little about the track?
BURNING BONES: The track started out as an instrumental but it always felt like it was going to wind up having vocals on it. Anyway, during the Japan vs Brazil world cup game I got a call from back home that my Dad had passed away suddenly. A few days later I was on a plane back home to go bear the brunt of the bad news. When I got back home, England was going through a heatwave and everyone was out with their spouses and families enjoying themselves – it felt like I should be enjoying myself but given the circumstances it seemed impossible, and thats where I got the title Sad Summer’s Day.
The lyrics came from me just documenting what was going on around me and in my head during that time. To be honest, my thoughts were “why not document this point in my life”, so you could say the song is more of a journal entry than anything.
HAPPY: You’re a one-piece band. Could you walk us through how a track like this came together with only the one member?
BURNING BONES: The track came together like all my others. I generally just start with a riff and build layers around familiar structures. I like making my music sound like a full band without ever having to be one. I’ve been in bands most of my young life and although Curtis who recorded the track sessioned on it, Burning Bones had to be all me. That way, I don’t have to compromise my sound or energy.
HAPPY: How are you feeling about it now that it’s out?
BURNING BONES: I feel confident in it and Curtis at Studio Truth in Collingwood did an amazing job producing it. I didn’t know how it would be received with it being so personal. I kind of had to put myself out there for this one and so far I’ve had a lot of positive response from it.
HAPPY: We’re picking up a lot of different sounds in your music. Are there any particular artists to draw inspiration from?
BURNING BONES: The early inspiration for Burning Bones was bands like Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Caspian, Bibio and other bands and artists of that ilk. However, now I’m a bit more interested in creating a “band” sound more than anything, rather than trying to appear as a solo artist. With this track in particular I had a lot of fun playing with the lead guitar over the finger picked chords. I feel it created a new dynamic of two guitars working in unison.
HAPPY: We love the vocals in this track too, could you tell us who’s singing here and how she came to be involved with the project?
BURNING BONES: The vocals are done by another Melbourne artist called KAIAR. She’s sang on one of my tracks before and she’s always a gem in the studio so to have her back in for this was great. At first I warned her about it being a quite a personal track and that if she felt uncomfortable I would totally understand. She read through the lyrics and she was keen, so that set my mind at peace with not only having her on board but also how it might be received when it was released. I think I was scared of oversharing.
HAPPY: Do you have any plans on taking this project live? If so, how would the live setup look?
BURNING BONES: I’d really love to do Burning Bones live but I’ve had a rather hectic few months so I’ve not had the time to sit down and fully organise it. A few local artists have messaged me saying they’d be interested but other than that I haven’t planned much. I keep referring to a “band” sound so it’d be great to hear my own music being played by a band. If there are any artists in Melbourne reading this feel free to hit me up on Facebook or Instagram.
HAPPY: Any other exciting plans in the works? Can we expect any new music any time soon?
BURNING BONES: I always have music written but I would like to sing on my next track and maybe talk about how I feel after all this. I think that would be the logical next step, or maybe some other life experience will come and change things for me which will inspire a new theme – who knows!
HAPPY: Cheers for the chat!
Burning Bones’ new single Sad Summer’s Day is out now.
