Bonerama to bring its New Orleans brass funk rock to Jimmy's
What do you get when you have a band that features a handful of trombone players piecing together incendiary brass fueled New Orleans flavored jazzy funk rock? Bonerama, that’s what. A band that isn’t afraid to piece together original compositions to toss in the historic New Orleans musical cannon, nor to tackle one of the more revered bands in rock history (see their latest record “Bonerama Plays Zeppelin,” and put their own funky spin on it).
They’ll be at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club on Saturday, June 25 to do exactly as described—a bit of everything. Piecing together a soundtrack that is hard-pressed to keep you in your seat. Seacoastonline caught up with frontman Mark Mullins to discuss the history of the band, and what the aim was in starting a group that featured so many trombonists.
Seacoastonline: How’d Bonerama come to be? Why’d Bonerama come to be?
Mullins: My fellow trombone mate Craig Klein (we used to play in Harry Connick Jr.‘s band together and knew each other from New Orleans) once saw a band in New York fronted by multiple trombones and he thought it would be a cool to do a similar thing but with a New Orleans twist to it. He approached me about putting it together with him, this is 1998, we left the door pretty open on what style it could be what kind of music we could do but we knew it wanted to be rooted in New Orleans but also allowed to touch other styles and kinds of music as well. I think the very first show we did have a stage for the trombones, and we played music from New Orleans funk to jazz and even covered some rock songs. All of this through the voice of multiple trombones, we were kind of doing it for fun but from the first show we realized that response was pretty unique I guess because people just don’t usually hear multiple trombones playing together.
Seacoastonline: What led you to the trombone in the first place? What’re your earliest memories of working with the instrument? Who or what was instrumental in your development?
Mullins: For me it was an instrument my older brothers suggested I could get first chair on right away because no one and I mean no one was playing the trombone in the school band when I was going to school. They were right and I was the lonely trombone player for quite some years in school LOL. I remember just a few years after that I would wanna play along with records in my house even if they didn’t have trombones on them. I grabbed everything from a Bruce Springsteen record to a little Richard record to Louis Armstrong, I listened to a lot of New Orleans rooted jazz when I was a young trombonist and would transcribe the solos (as best as I could as a young player) so I could try to play at least a little something of what these guys I was hearing on the record were playing.
Seacoastonline: What do you enjoy about exploring the sonic possibilities of the instrument and when did you decide, “yeah, we need a few more trombonists in here to work on some harmonies?”
Mullins: The trombone is such a dynamic instrument with such a wide range that the options are wide open as far as what you can do as an arranger with multiple trombones. Many different emotions can be conveyed with the instrument and so it’s always fun to explore those possibilities when you have multiple trombones. If we have more trombones that gives you so many more options on making the chord voicings sound great and thick but at the same time multiple trombones playing full on unison is pretty serious as well, to me it’s kind of like driving a big Mack truck down the highway. And even though I’ve never really done that I think I know what it feels like now.
Seacoastonline: How does the songwriting process work? Is it collaborative or do you piece together charts given your working knowlSeacoastonline of the instrumentation (suite of trombonists) in the band?
Mullins: Every song can be different a lot of times One of us will come in with an idea sometimes it’s already completely arranged and written out other times there’s areas in the song that could be explored and developed. No matter though it doesn’t really take full shape until of the personalities in the band are playing it. We don’t really piece together charts but we do have areas within many songs that can become improvisation-based and take off into completely different areas. That’s where the fun is.
Seacoastonline: I know the last record you guys did was a batch of Zeppelin covers. What was your goal for that effort? What do dig out of putting a unique spin on well-known tunes?
Mullins: I love arranging existing songs for this type of band as no one expects what they’re about to hear. A lot of times it could be a totally fresh approach and you can just reinvent the groove, other times it makes sense to just play the song through your own voice. I guess our goal for the Zeppelin record was to show people what the Trombone could do well cover in a well-respected him historically significant catalog of music. This was the first record we did not put any original music on, so it was quite a departure for us, but it was a lot of fun, we did it in our own way and we’ve seen such a strong response to it.
Seacoastonline: Is there a record of fresh originals in the works? What’s cookin’?
Mullins: Always stuff in the pipeline always stuff on the brain, I think at the moment we’re all still trying to land on our feet from this crazy last couple of years so we’re most excited about getting out there to play for people again.
Seacoastonline: In general, why music? Why do you seek it? Why do you create it?
Mullins: It’s what we do. It’s a very rewarding job but can be a very demanding at times. Really when you think of it, our job is to make people happy and when you stand up there on the stage and you’ve got some great musicians standing around you and you’re playing music that maybe you wrote or that you arranged or that somebody else in the band might’ve written, regardless, you look out front and people are smiling, it’s like you made their day, maybe their week I don’t know…-that’s just such a great feeling. To be able to put a smile on someone’s face that might’ve had a tough day or whatever… it’s just the best job in the world.
Seacoastonline: What’s something you’ve learned over the years that you wish you’d had in your back pocket at the outset?
Mullins: I’ll tell you in 10 years.
Seacoastonline: You guys are heading up here to New Hampshire for a gig at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues club. What excites you about the gig? What do you appreciate about having the opportunity to get out in the road after a long, forced time away?
Mullins: The room looks fantastic. Then I looked at the calendar, pretty amazing company we’re honored to be performing there. I love rooms like this where people can really enjoy every nuance and note that’s being played by the musicians. We put so much work and effort into every single measure and these kinds of rooms like Jimmy’s give the audience a chance to soak it all in.
Seacoastonline: What’s the importance, for you, to keep traveling the world bringing the rich tradition and spirit of New Orleans to audiences near and afar? And, in taking on that responsibility, are you having any fun along the way?
Mullins: It’s what the musicians from New Orleans before us have always done, they bring New Orleans to the world. We look at it as an honor to be almost like ambassadors to bring this craft that we spend our lives developing to people outside of New Orleans, outside of Louisiana to show them our approach on music on life and how we can enrich our lives through music and maybe at least just for that moment make the world a better place. All that means fun on both sides of the stage and that’s what it’s all about.
Visit jimmysoncongress.com and boneramabrass.com for further details.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Bonerama to bring its New Orleans brass funk rock to Jimmy's
