Jamaican Me Crazy

Calling from his favourite Maltese island, Gozo, Nicholas Caruana, known to most as Nicky Bomba, is “writing songs and gathering thoughts,” in preparation for several shows in the Mediterranean archipelago. But it's unlikely to be all rest and relaxation as Bomba prepares his new band, Bustamento, to tour their debut album, Intrepid Adventures To The Lost Riddim Islands around our currently much chillier island.

Having played music for over 40 years, Bomba has been on a wild array of musical adventures. He founded and fronted Bomba, plays drums for John Butler Trio, is a recipient of the Australia Council's Music Fellowship Award and, as a child, was part of a family band that he recalls were “the Maltese version of The Jackson 5”. Bustamento however, “captures the things I love. It's about the energy of the musicians,” Bomba says fondly.

Earlier in his career, at a musical conference in Essen, Germany, Bomba realised much of his attraction to reggae and roots music was the presence of “the same immediate happy and cheeky elements as Maltese music.” “I love reggae,” he says, “I've loved it all my life. But I wasn't particularly well versed in what it was or where it was from; my first experience with it was with bands like The Specials, so I didn't realise that this was the second wave, because in the '50s and '60s there was this massive amount of music made in Jamaica. When I discovered that, it resonated strongly with me… It was spontaneous, and that's a very big thing in the Maltese culture. I felt a connection.”

A recent pilgrimage to Jamaica solidified this connection, as Bomba recalls that he “became a part of a family there, and was catapulted deep into the culture.” The name of this latest musical offspring too, pays tribute to Jamaica – clearly a constant source of inspiration for Bomba and band. “We needed a name to kick it off and Barry (Deenick, double bass/vocals) mentioned Prince Buster, one of Jamaica's recording pioneers, and I had just read that he was named after Alexander Bustamente, the island's first prime minister,” he says. “It wasn't too long before one of us said Bustamento… It sounded good and, for added value, a 'bustament' in the Maltese language means 'a very big boat'. We love boats. There it was.”

Despite the mischievous and jovial nature of Bustamento's calypso sound, the lyrical content is deep. “When I write lyrics it's actually very cathartic,” says Bomba. “If you wanted to have an in-depth, you could read my life through the lyrics in my songs. It's like therapy for me. I'm sure I'm saving myself bucketloads of money on psychoanalysis!”

Issued as a brightly illustrated CD-lyric book, the album is about rediscovering the spontaneity and splendour of music often lost in the production phase. “It's a whole little journey of lyrics and the band coming together and discovering something. And the intrepid journey is about that constant search for the essence of what turns me on with music. And a lot of that is lost – in the way things are recorded, in the intention of writing a song or performing something. And there's ambition and frustration with that as well. So for me it was getting back the things that are lost.

“And when you see the connection that was established with the artist, it's just great. It's like Gilligan's Island meets Kramer!”

Amidst a tour that will take him from Fremantle to Mt Hotham and everywhere in between, Bomba modestly concludes by saying, “I love being a student of music. That's never-ending. I'll never be able to learn everything that you can in this lifetime, but just feeling like a little kid discovering everything… I really appreciate that.”