Track x Track: Bones and Jones - Love You

Victorian five-piece take us through their charming new album of alt-country-folk-rock sounds track by track

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Image credit: Kyle Dobie

After releasing singles Make You Smile and Castlemaine (that we premiered the music video for here), Geelong’s Bones and Jones have readied their third full-length album, Love You.

Packed with memorable melodies and storytelling songwriting, Love You sees the band beautifully hone their mix of folk, country and rock, all through an alternative lens, where synths sit alongside pedal steel guitar in perfect harmony.

Speaking on the creation of Love You, Jasper from the band explains “‘Love you’ came about at the tail end of 2022, we set up at the farm over a few scattered sessions and tracked most of the record, producing and engineering it ourselves. We tracked everything live and over the following months finished it off in makeshift setups in front rooms and bedrooms across everyone's houses in Melbourne/Naarm.”

With Love You out today, the band were kind enough to take us through it, track by track - have a listen and get to know!

Oh Day

This song was written really last minute, we really wanted something to slow it down and I kept saying I had a song idea when I really didn’t. I just let the lyrics stream out without really thinking about much, I paired it with some chords and pedal steel and everyone was happy with it! I don’t think it's about much but maybe after a little time it’ll find some meaning.

Castlemaine

Castlemaine is one of the first character songs I’ve really written. There was this really big road at primary school and whenever it rained all the kids would race leaves down the gutter, I don’t know how I dug up that memory but I liked the idea of writing a song around it. There's no super direct link to castlemaine apart from that we all love going there, I always thought it was hard to work in Australian township names in to songs like Americans can (Jackson by Johnny Cash, Memphis Tennessee by Chuck berry etc), Castlemaine seemed like it would sound the best so it stuck.

Be The Best Man at My Wedding (but i’m not gonna get wedded at all)

“Be the Best Man" came from a demo of Tom and Finns, it hit its strides pretty quickly in our live set, the lyrics were penned really quickly to make a gig that we wanted to have it for. There's a few mouthfuls with not much room for breathing in the verses, we have gotten better at timing our breaths to make the phrases.

Make You Smile

FINN: Make You Smile was mainly written about a disability support client I (Finn) had a few years ago that was going through a really difficult time with drug addiction and mental health issues. I saw a side of life I hadn’t really been exposed to before and it left a big impact on me. It made me much more aware of how fortunate I am to be in my position with such loving family and friends that are there to support me through life, there’s a lot of people out there that don’t have that love and support.

All I Wanted

All I Wanted is about living in share houses, working a job you don't like for not much money and trying to get buy while the prices for everything skyrockets. I found it really funny during Covid lockdowns, everyone got into 4wds and camping, you couldn't really do either but it was the idea of escaping and being capable out of your comfort zone that I think people were really attracted to.

My Friend

My Friend is about people moving onwards and feeling like you're left behind, the urge to grow yourself without it being forced. My friend was the first of all the recordings for this album, I'd just gotten myself a pedal steel and some new recording gear so we were super stoked with how it was sounding. It really set the tone for how the record was going to sound.

Jump Rope

This song is pretty silly. We recorded it a couple of times in the past but never quite got the energy we wanted.

Ain't It Hard

Ain’t it Hard is another whiny song about how fucked up the world is. It's a privileged perspective but It feels better out than in.

I've Got a Voice

I’ve got a voice initially that was meant to be for our project with Folk Bitch Trio, it was the first song that we jammed together but then it got replaced by a song we had written with that project in mind. It's always been a really fun one to play live, we had heaps of fun stacking up georges lap steel solo as an ode to george harrison slide tone.

- Bones and Jones, June 2023