WAM Festival Artist Profile: Rag N Bone

Answered by: Kiera Owen, vocals

Short description of your band and music: Formed by myself (Kiera), Sara, Axel and Jamie, all strong names, with shared interests in distortion, despair and decadence. Our finely honed and sharp sound, twisted and cracked to form through countless live shows has been described as spanning "a spectrum that ranges from breathtaking ballads to noise-heavy post-punk" (Rotunda Media), with references that vary from Savages, The Birthday Party and Ecstatic Truth.

Best WAM-related story? Receiving two nominations in the 2015 Song of The Year Category for Best Punk/Hardcore and Best Rock song. Then later winning the Punk/Hardcore category!

What do you think separates the WA music scene apart from the rest of the country? Even if there is a collective of niche scenes in Perth, they seem to cross-pollinate. Most musicians are aware of what is going on where, and who plays in each band due the the size of our city's population. Due to distance, touring is tough, so I think most bands spend time crafting their sound before making that leap, essentially adding to the quality of music coming out of Perth as a whole. Plus we have a pretty vast amount of land to move about and ponder in.

What WA bands are you vibing on right now and why? The Perth scene is not immune to plodding along at times, but there are always artists willing to defy current trends. Shit Narnia are raw, confronting, beautiful, passionate and one of the best bands to go see live and Kučka make clever and intricately crafted pop and experimental music paired with mesmerising video clips.

Why should people come and see you from amongst the many cool bands at WAM? People should come see us because our music has a mixture of passion, lyrical depth and total scunge that is unmatched by even the best music or the worst pornography. 

What's on the horizon for you? We play a few more killer gigs for the year including WAM Fest and the Beaufort St Festival before we start finalising and recording our next EP. We also have a weird and wonderful adventure awaiting us somewhere off the coast of Africa early next year, which I can't reveal too much about just yet!

WAM Festival performance: WAM Saturday Spectacular, Bloc Party, Saturday 8 Nov.