Acre Presents: Bonny Doon

Thanks for coming on Acre Presents, can you introduce yourselves?
Hey, this is Jake, Bill, and Bobby, and we’re Bonny Doon.

How and when was the band formed? How long did that take to come to fruition?
The band was officially formed in 2014, so ten years ago. Bill and Bobby had been workshopping some stuff together for a bit before that, searching for kind of a different sound from the music we were all used to playing, and I (Jake) stepped in to help round things out after we all bonded over similar tastes. We played our first show in April of that year, booked a few DIY tours soon after that, and the project has been steadily rolling forward ever since.

Between the core members, who would you say are some of your biggest influences?
We love all the usual stuff like Neil Young and the Grateful Dead, and we just spent a couple weeks in Australia and since the early days have always had that Melbourne sound in mind- bands like Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Dick Diver, and more contemporary bands like Dag and our friends in Good Morning. I threw a lot of that stuff on this playlist, we’ve been finding a lot of inspiration in that scene lately. We each have our own individual tastes that runs from techno and house to jazz to ambient, but we also find inspiration in trying to translate other aspects of what we like into a musical form, be it clothing or food or anything else. It’s all of a piece of knowing what you like and what moves you and drawing on that and trying to translate it in a unique way.

You’re out touring quite a bit, could you explain what your road system looks like today compared to when you first started?
The longer you do the road thing the more intentional you need to be about it. It’s pretty easy when you’re a young band to just jump in the van and take it from there, but I think in terms of making it more feasible in the long term you need to approach it with a bit more practicality. We all know ourselves better these days and know what we need to maintain this kind of lifestyle, just in terms of diet or rest or whatever. There’s a lot of freedom to be found in touring though and that sense of taking things one day at a time has always been a motivating factor. We also love shops and restaurants and sights and all that so we try to find the balance of vacation and work that keeps it interesting and fun. It’s a really unique experience to get to do this and I feel it’s all about just making it count.

Favorite regional fast food chains?
The most simple and classic answer is In-n-Out because it just can’t be beat really. Loosening up the term “regional,” a couple of us just had Nando’s for the first time in Sydney and loved it. And it’s certainly not fast food but big shouts to Buddy’s Pizza in Detroit, give it a search if you don’t know about it- the best of the best.

Top 3 bucket list venues to play?
There are loads, and not to sound too earnest or whatever but honestly just wherever folks are excited to have us and where the energy is really right. We’ve had the great fortune to play some incredible places both in this band and other projects but let’s go the Dylan worship route and say Royal Albert Hall, Budokan, and the Beacon.

Over the years, are there any road stories that stand out as the most wild?
This will classify as “wild” to only a select few but we played at Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael in 2019, the club that Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead owned and operated. We were on our first tour with our dear friend Katie, opening and also backing her as the Waxahatchee band. That whole run was just so special and unbelievable and we were really riding high when we got there, and we soon noticed that Phil was actually there, hanging around. Alex Bleeker was playing bass with us at the time and met him in the parking lot, and found out that Phil was sitting in with a band in the small room at the same time our set was supposed to start. The venue pushed our show a few so we could catch a bit, and watching him play China > Rider on this tiny stage from like five feet away was completely surreal. He just moved with so much grace and magic. Our set started while they were still playing and I could just feel this current running through me the whole time because we were one room over from where the bassist in the Dead was, playing simultaneously, and it felt like some cosmic blessing or something. A real “on the path” moment. After the show they loaded all this insane Dead gear into the big room for a show the next night, a bunch of old Dead cases and Brent’s organ and what not. It’s pretty basic on paper but for a ravenous Dead freak, I was just completely in awe that a band I play in got to be in the midst of that for a night.