Interview: Bondax
Surpassing their years and peers, UK duo Bondax spoke to us about their upcoming releases and European misadventures, ahead of their Australian visit.
There's no better story to tell of hard-work equating success as one of UK duo's, BONDAX. The electronic act comprising of Adam Kaye and George Townsend first began back in 2012 and has since snowballed and catapulted the then-teenagers into a now global fanbase.
Growing up in the rural English town of Lancaster, the two were brought together by a mutual found respect and admiration for music - with Townsend on the production side whilst Kaye bringing experience as an instrumentalist. Seeing this as a career to pursue, Townsend dropped out of his final exams to set the groundwork whilst Kaye sat his.
With the books finally set aside, they focused solely on their musical endeavours, which has cultivated into the age-defying sound that BONDAX represents today. Ahead of their Listen Out appearances, we spoke to the guys about upcoming releases and party-times galore.
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How did Bondax all begin?
George: It started with school first. We were just mates in school, we were doing quite different things with different people and I guess we just gravitated together through music and the way we valued life I guess without getting too deep. We kind of stumbled into each other; I was producing music on my own, Adam was playing in bands at the time and singing and it just seemed like a natural move to make for both of us so we teamed up and made tunes together then kind of went from there.
Many different things have kept you guys busy from pushing your own full- length debut album. Is there a name and release date for it yet?
George: Basically we have a compilation coming out, towards the end of September, which has new music from us and from our friends and stuff, so that’s kind of the thing we’re concentrating on at the moment. We’re probably looking at early next year to release our album. It’s been lots of different reasons…we lost loads and loads of new music, we lost a laptop in Bulgaria, which had a large proportion of our album on it. It’s taken time for different reasons, which is a bit disappointing but I mean that’s the brutal reality of our situation at the moment. We probably got about 30 tunes worthy [of the album], it’s just whittling it down now to ten or 12.
Genre’s always the topic of discussion when it comes to Bondax, so let’s steer away from that. If you could describe your debut album as a tasty meal, what would it be and why?
George: Tasty meal…
Adam: Maybe a steak? Yeah it doesn’t really work; it’s going to be a failure [laughs]. Too many different things!
What about a drink then?
Adam: Probably sounds like and tastes like one of them one pound drinks you get at the cinemas that get really icy and have no real flavour, all half ice and straw [laughs] - I’d describe it as an exotic, fruit smoothie. I was taking the piss out of the first one, but yeah probably a nice, fresh fruit smoothie!
Fresh fruit smoothie, healthy and tasty.
Adam: Exactly.
You guys are coming down to Australia in October for the Listen Out Festival. What can we expect from your set?
Adam: So it’s our live set, so it’s me and George. It’s us two; George is on keys and vocoder, I’m on guitar and bass and we both play the xylophone. We have this midi xylophone that we both jam on and love. We have a drummer and we have two live singers, so it’s like a band thing.
Which one do you enjoy doing more, your DJ set or the live set?
George: They’re both completely different. ‘Caus live it’s all your own songs and big stages with like 300 people. If we want to party then DJ sets definitely, but on a massive festival stage then live is good for that.
Now your visit here is actually happening before your ‘Bondax and Friends’ tour. Are there going to be any sideshows for your Australian fans?
Adam: There’s going to be some Bondax sideshows but I’m not sure if they’re ‘Bondax and Friends’ sideshows.
George: I think we’re actually DJ-ing when we do them.
Adam: There’ll be an announcement pretty soon of all the dates; it’ll all be clear [then] but not sure.
George, it’s fair to say the decision you made to not sit your final exams has turned out pretty damn well. What’s one important lesson you’ve both discovered out in the real world, that you would’ve never learnt in class?
George: This is going to be such a long-winded answer, but you know like experiencing different cultures has helped us as a person. Just because, you realise that you don’t have to live the way you’re told by the society you’re living within at that point in time. I think it’s important to get out, if you can, obviously this is a very western person thing to say, but if it’s possible to experience more cultures then you should always go for that - I could say a million other things but that’s the thing that I really respect most about what we do and what we’ve been given the chance to go and do. It’s just the interaction with all the different people we meet every week.
Apart from life lessons, have there been any crazy antics yet on the road?
Adam: Crazy antics ha, there’s definitely been bits and bobs. It’s very had to think of them specifically, especially when the antics happen when you’re pretty hammered, so it’s hard to remember [laughs].
Have you guys woken up somewhere then that’s a bit weird and you don’t know how you got there?
George: We ended up at a mad place in Barcelona, quite recently. That was mad like. We don’t know how we ended up there, we were out in…where were we?
Adam: We were in like Sitges.
George: Yeah we were out at like this million pound house, we’d just made [some friends] outside. It was very weird and we don’t know how it ended up happening, but suddenly we spent however many days with these guys and we ended up making really good mates with them.
Adam: Yeah it happens a lot when you meet like-minded people and you go off and shit happens.
George: We won’t get too into what we got up to, but yeah a lot of shit.
Adam: A lot of hazy mornings and getting no sleep and feeling very sorry for yourself in the morning.
But surely there’s no regrets?
Adam: No regrets! You know that feeling. When you go to bed at nine and you have to get up at ten, you don’t ever feel like ‘I shouldn’t have had that bottle of Jack Daniels and an hour’s sleep’. But you don’t feel on top form, I’ll say that.
So the Australian people should watch out when you guys are here!
Adam: We’ll have our full band with as well so we’ll definitely be having quite a lot fun.
Words by Alean Penaflor
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