No Compromises

Southern Californian soul rockers The BellRays have held their own over three decades of music now, seeing genres flare up and ebb away while they continue to forge ahead on their own creative trip. There have been slight shifts and nuances that have informed the band's music, yet the general aesthetic has always remained the same. The four-piece have maintained a clear focus, fusing their love of vintage garage rock and the emotive nature of soul music to the point where they stand out in an age when bands shift in direction so willingly. Yet there has never been the impetus to “shift with the times”, a superfluous notion that The BellRays will never buy into.

“It has always been for the music, never to be rockstars, well the proof is in the pudding there for sure,” Lisa Kekaula laughs. “There is this thing now where everybody expects you to evolve into a completely different group than what they are, but at the same time when a record comes out they are expected to do multiples of the same songs, with similar sounds throughout the same record. To me it used to be you tried to be as expansive as you could within the context of an album or what it is you do in a show, which is like watching a child grow; there is this seamless, organic thing happening in front of you. Now [bands] just try to sell records. It's not about trying to cultivate something, it's about figuring out what is hot at the moment then cutting it into pieces and saying, 'This piece is country but it's still pop, this piece goes to pop but it's still country, this piece is soul but it is still pop'. It's the creation of a grid that everything has to fit in right now to please masses, not artistry.”

Kekaula takes pride in the music that The BellRays makes – it remains an art form of true expression first and foremost, and everything comes thereafter. Such an outlook feeds off a need to create and to perform; there is no other reason for the band to exist.

“Music is something that I have to do,” Kekaula states. “I don't know how other people feel or how they make music, and I don't really give a fuck what anybody else thinks, and that's how it should be. Maybe that alone means that what I do is artistry, that fearlessness of expression. It's personal. I'm doing it for my mind's eye, and if people happen to like it then that's cool. There is a level of honesty to myself that I have to abide by, so every time I sing a song that I like it has to be important to me. It's not like there will be a time where you will hear something and think that was weird that The BellRays did a song like that, and I should be offended, because people's tastes change, you [like] something differently. But if someone said to us, 'you know what, The BellRays should do this kind of song', I will walk away. If someone walked in and said 'you should do this and more people will like you', but it doesn't adhere to what you are already doing and believe in, there is no sense in doing that because it wouldn't be us.”

The BellRays have remained uncompromising in this regard, and their standing as a powerhouse rock outfit has never wavered. Yet the band has always been dogged with the misplaced notion that their fusion of '60s and '70s rock with soul is a unique standpoint. There is no doubting that The BellRays have their own distinct sound, but Kekaula is quick to dispute that what they essentially do is something that singles them out.

“It baffles me! People love to ask questions about it, and I always feel like I'm in the eye of the storm; you can't go and ask a tornado what it's doing, it's just doing it, you just gotta stand back and take note. If we were talking about this in the context of humanity, it just seems like the more technology moves forwards, the dumber people get. The more things are done for you, the less digging you are prepared to do to get to the meaning of things that will cultivate and heal you. And in the crux of all that, music has really suffered. At some point someone will say that rock'n'roll is just some dumbed down stuff, or that punk is dumbed down, and music has become this commodity instead of a form of expression that mean something. Music still has the power that if someone is just sitting there, it can make you cry or laugh, it can move you. Instead there is this focus on boiling everything down so you don't have to think anymore. People seem to forget how close punk, rock and soul really are. The stuff that moves you, that you cut your teeth on, you just go that's Iggy & The Stooges, that's The Beatles. There is no need for classification, it is what it is.”

Part of such a necessity to categorise The BellRays comes from the fact that Kekaula stands front and centre, a visceral force of nature. “People struggling with us because we have a black female singer out front of this sound,” Kekaula asserts. “There are things that are used to draw attention to as well as divert attention away from us. It used to be upsetting to me, but then I realised that it just wasn't my problem. I can't make people understand, I can't rock and save the world all at the same time; somebody else has to help with that.”

Such passion inevitably bleeds into The BellRays' music, something that hasn't dissipated over 30 years. Although the songs on Black Lightning are somewhat old (the album is only now garnering an Australian distribution release after coming out elsewhere in 2010), there is no doubting the gritty zeal that is infused throughout. Nevertheless, the entirety of the band's recorded oeuvre pales in comparison to the live experience, something that Kekaula couldn't agree more with.

“We've had a fair bit of time getting our records closer to what we are; our focal point has always been playing shows to an audience that could be moved by what we do. That's not something you do in a stadium either; it's something you do in a club. It's gotta be hands on, where people should feel like they have been part of something. And it's not for the masses; I don't want everybody to love The BellRays. Not that if you like it, you don't have a right to like it; I'm just not trying to please everybody. We didn't come out and think we were going to be mavericks. We were just made to look at what we liked to do, and cultivated that.”