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Bodyjar
 When the opportunity came up to interview Australian punk veterans Bodyjar, I jumped at the chance. A band which has mostly been independent over the years, they have managed to release seven full length records to this point, during which time they also achieved gold sales for 2000's 'How It Works' and had the album's first single Not The Same featured in a Pepsi campaign.
Despite such a commercial peak, Bodyjar still managed to remain credible among the punk crowds around the country, relentlessly continuing to tour even to this day. Having kicked their career off back in 1994, you can imagine my surprise upon reading the band's official (not to mention extremely vague) biography, stating the guys have been together for 'over ten years'...
"What, really? It says just that?" guitarist/vocalist Cam Baines seems surprised himself. "Nah you must be reading the old one," he assures me. Excuses follow on Baines' part, but soon we both agree that Bodyjar is around 13 or 14 years old at least. I offer that perhaps the bio attempts to appeal to a younger crowd, which Baines finds amusing, though he quickly reminds me that "You know as well as I do that we know we're fucking old. But we're still here, aren't we?" Touche.
"Bodyjar started at about the same time as the grunge explosion with Nirvana and so on. Everyone was saying they were into grunge and wearing their flannies but our heroes were bands like The Descendents. They still are. And the punk bands that were around back then leaned more towards The Ramones side of things. Bands like Exploding White Mice and The Meanies. When it came to playing, we really spread ourselves around and played any show we could get, whether it was a punk bill or a grunge bill, we didn't care, we just wanted to play," explains Baines.
While these days bands generally use brand new, air-conditioned Taragos when touring around the nation, Baines recalls how his band used to get around back in the 'old days'.
"Granto [Grant Relf] our bass player had an old Holden panel van which we kept on the road just so we could get around. But we couldn't all fit in that thing with our equipment, so accompanying the panel van was my old shitty Corolla. It was a lot of fun," Baines laughs, "Everyone smoked heaps of ciggies, drank a lot of beer." No doubt, witnessing this now would be worth a million dollars, I think to myself as Baines relives Bodyjar's past...
On the subject of their latest record, Baines confirms the rumour that 'Is It Alive' was actually being recorded during a concert to the band's complete oblivion.
"Yeah, this one was a total fluke, we didn't know it was being recorded at all until we went upstairs at the Annandale and saw that this guy had a whole multi-track studio set up. We had a listen to what he'd recorded and thought 'This sounds rad'. So we bought the tapes, got it all mixed and decided to release it. If we had known it was being recorded, we would have approached it in a different way."
This claim is easy to believe, considering the polished releases Bodyjar is known to have released to this point. The new record, on the other hand, holds nothing back. Each members' personality shines through brilliantly, especially bass player Relf's, who utters halfway through the show something along the lines of "You guys are a great bunch of cunts," in his inimitable Australian drawl.
I point out to Baines that is seems 'Is It Alive' also includes some really quite technical musical variations of certain songs when compared to their live recordings in the studio, which results in an obvious live 'feel'.
"Definitely," Baines agrees. "There are a couple of improvisational bits that we just added into the songs to keep them interesting for us to keep playing. Especially some new cool rhythmic drumming beats that are on it."
So how much input did the band's semi-new drummer, Shane Wakker, have exactly when it came down to putting his own touch on the old Bodyjar classics?
"Well, I think he wanted to put his own stamp on some of the older songs and we really like what he's done." Baines admits.
And we agree.
Bodyjar play at the Enigma Bar on Fri 23 and Sat 24 March with Trial Kennedy and Saving Savanah
'Is It Alive' is out now through Shock
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