Bonepony - Performance and Stylistic Features

Performance and Stylistic Features

Bonepony usually travels in a Ford van pulling a small trailer that is strategically packed with an impressive amount of cargo. At any given show, the band may arrive with three guitars, a Dobro, a banjo, a fiddle, a mandolin, a dulcimer, a full drum set, various auxiliary percussion instruments, boards and bass pedals. The band usually arrive a couple of hours prior to the concert. They set up their instruments and the merchandise table where they sell CDs and T-shirts - their main source of profit. During every show, Johnson will say over the microphone, “Bonepony is an independent band, so go buy a CD, or two, or three. You guys are our record label.” The words vary, but the message is always the same.

Like most musicians, the members of Bonepony put a great deal of thought into their image. As performers, it is necessary that they look the part. There is a fine line between the performer and the audience. In addition to the spatial division: the stage versus the seats or dance floor, the change of attire also marks the transition into the role of the performer. The band members will travel and set up their gear in comfortable clothes and then retire backstage to change into their stage clothes just before the show begins. The members of the band each have their own individual style. Johnson has the most casual look, which usually consists of a band T-shirt and jeans, while Nguyen often wears button up collared shirts in rich colors or subtle, textured, patterns. Wright tends to have the most unique sense of style as he consciously chooses pieces that are reminiscent of the 1970s. A typical outfit for Wright is a straw hat, a vintage concert T-shirt, tight flared leg jeans and pink Converse sneakers. All three band members have longer than average hair which is a classic rock and roll look.

The band usually plays for 2–3 hours, depending on the circumstances of the show. They typically open a set with a tune that is designed to hook a crowd. These songs are usually upbeat, rousing tunes like “Feast of Life” or “Cowboy Song.” However, if the crowd is thin and appears to be uninterested, Bonepony will open with “20 More People,” which acts as an implicit message to the audience. The chorus ironically exclaims, “Over there, over there, maybe twenty more people want to hear my song.”

In a typical performance, Bonepony will intersperse new material with classic, crowd favorites. They will usually wait until about halfway through the show before they will play their well known hit, "Jubilee." They almost always play what Johnson refers to as “our only angry song,” "Sugar On the Pill," and they always end the show with a light hearted, free spirited piece about coming of age and an unforgettable skinny dipping experience called "Heathers Wetter."

Unlike other musicians, Bonepony welcomes requests. Most of the time, in other musical settings, requests are looked down upon and even considered disrespectful and rude, but the members of Bonepony seem to find it incredibly amusing. For them, it is an interesting challenge when someone in the audience yells out a surprising request like "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. It is also a wonderful opportunity for them to demonstrate their versatility and virtuosity.

With Bonepony’s constant touring schedule, it is important that they do not perform the same show twice. Variation is important, especially for a band that has been touring for as long as Bonepony. It is imperative that they can always provide something new for their audience, so that they continue to come back. Bonepony not only promotes variation by constantly changing their set list, but also by reworking classic songs. They can take a two minute song and turn it into a ten minute extended jam session. They often add in intricate solos or change the instrumentation.

A Bonepony show is highly participatory. The band expects the crowd to get up and dance and takes personal offense when an apathetic or shy crowd remains in their seats. Johnson was born to be a front man. Nguyen states in his commentary on the Celebration Highway documentary, “He has an incredible command of the stage.” He’s outgoing, friendly and has a way with words. Throughout a show, Johnson encourages the crowd to get up on their feet, to put their hands in the air, to clap or sing. He simply wants the audience to let the music move them. He often excitedly instructs the crowd by saying things like, “Can I get an Amen,” “Put your hands up in the air” or “Ya’ll sitting in the back, come down front and dance with us.“

Johnson will follow these instructions with a catch phrase that pretty much sums up the Bonepony experience: “It‘ll make you feel good inside.” It appears on merchandise and is repeated countless times during a show by Johnson. The participatory nature of a Bonepony performance is an extension of a couple of the themes discussed earlier like the idea of putting in the same amount of energy that you expect to gain, as well as, the “carpe diem” way of life in which you seize every day, take every opportunity and do what makes you feel good inside. A wonderful example of this is how Johnson led into a song on the 2006 airing of KET‘s Jubilee: A Celebration of American Music with, “We’re going to sing a song for you about feeling good inside. About squeezing all the juice out of life.”

It is important for members of a band to work together. They are, after all, creating one end product. The members of Bonepony have incredible dynamics; you can tell that they are friends on and off the stage. They know each other well and thus, they know what the other person wants. Most of the time, the guys do not have to vocalize anything at all. At times, a smile or moment of eye contact is sufficient enough and other times, they simply know what to do, when, where and how to do it.

The key to Bonepony’s productive relationship is mutual respect. Each member of the band highly respects the other both as a musician and as a human being. They realize that Bonepony music would be nothing without each other and the respective talent that they each have to offer. As Johnson said during his commentary during the Celebration Highway documentary, “There’s a niche that a Bonepony song has and Nick and Kenny bring that.”

Bonepony is not only unique in the type of music that they play, but also how they play it. The music itself is a melodious hybrid of rock, folk, country, bluegrass and soul, driven home with foot-stomping, four-on-the-floor beats crowbarred into four minute musical masterpieces that make it impossible to enjoy while standing still. As one writer scribed, "If Bonepony doesn’t make you move you’re made of lead!" The live show is more of the same with the band tearing through their unscripted set with unconscious abandon; each band member seemingly playing a different instrument on every song and using every limb available to do so.

Their instrumental versatility and virtuosity is something that can’t be ignored. Each member of the band can play several different instruments, and will switch off repeatedly throughout a single show. Wright might play drums on one song and dulcimer on the next. For the song, “Mountainside,” Johnson will assume a position behind the drums and sing while he plays, throwing back to an older, less common tradition of the lead vocalist/drummer, like Levon Helm in the group, The Band. Nguyen is always surrounded by instruments. To his left is a home-made, PVC pipe, guitar rack that holds three acoustic guitars, an electric guitar, a Dobro and a banjo. Behind him is a mandolin and a fiddle and at his feet are the bass pedals. It is not unusual to see Nguyen play a phenomenal fiddle solo all the while playing the bass line with his sock feet. As Johnson testifies during his commentary on Jubilee: A Celebration of American Music, "Nick is something else. He played guitar when he first joined the band and I thought it was extraordinary that he played, he plays open tuned guitars. He plays open C, open D. They’re not tuned standard the way a guitar, if you went and bought a guitar from the music store its tuned in a standard tuning in 4ths primarily. He tunes it in 5ths. He also plays standard Dobro, banjo and then out of necessity, we had a player leave back in October, he decided to pick up the fiddle. And I was skeptical. Fiddles no, that’s not an easy instrument to play, you know. And within six months, he was playing the songs as good or better than I’ve heard them played before. And now he’s bought a cello, a viola, which he doesn’t bring on the road because we don’t have enough space for all of his instruments. But the bass pedals…he decided that we needed some bass and I was like well how are you going to do that? How are you going to play guitar and bass? He said I’m going to get some bass pedals. I’m going to try to learn them. And at first he just started off real slowly. Only doing what he could pull off. And it has progressed to where he just almost plays on every single song…he’s just a genius."