Santa Cruz Americana trio Bonny June and Bonfire have been together for about 12 years and they especially enjoy the spooky fall season. That's because this is the time of the year when they dress up as vampires and superheroes for their Halloween show. Bonny June and Bonfire came into the KAZU studio recently to talk and perform spooky songs. They began by performing a new song, "Juju Doll."
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Dylan Music: So, Bonny June and Bonfire. All right. Well, first of all, let's introduce yourselves.
Bonny June: I'm Bonny June.
DM: All right. Lead vocals.
BJ: Yes. And songwriter.
DM: And songwriter. Okay. And who's next?
Ken Kraft: On the guitar, it is the count. Count Craftula...Ken Craftula!
DM: Ken Craftula. All right,
KK: Dylan...Dylan, do you know the sound of Ken spelled backwards?
DM: It sounds like...neck!
All: Ooh!
KK: Dylan...Brilliant!
DM: And you are playing—what are you playing?
KK: Guitar.
Craig Owens: I'm Craig Owens, and I'll be playing the Batman.
DM: The Batman. All right. You're the Batman. And you're also on guitar, right?
CO: I'm on bass.
DM: Bass. Right. Okay. And the song is called "Juju Doll?"
BJ: "Juju Doll."
DM: And that's one of your newest songs, is that right?
BJ: It's a brand new song this year. Yeah.
DM: All right. And you wrote that?
BJ: Yes indeed.
DM: I like that. And you do an annual Halloween show.
BJ: That's right. This will be our seventh year.
DM: What can people expect in this Halloween version of the Bonny June and Bonfire show?
BJ: We Bonfire-ize all of our regular songs and turn them into Halloween songs. So we change the lyrics. We do a couple of classic tunes.
DM: There's a version of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" called "These Fangs were Made for Bitin'."
BJ: You'll walk into the Kuumbwa Auditorium...there will be candlelight everywhere. It will be dark. There will be a lot of decorations and there will be people in costume because we have a costume contest and it's very atmospheric and Gothic. And we put on a concert and it's all mostly original songs that were written, especially, for this spooky time of year.
DM: And you also have an album that's kind of Halloween-ish that came out a couple of years ago called "Monsters and Mystics." Does this (album) have something to do with the Halloween show a little bit?
BJ: Gosh, I grew up watching Monster Rally and Creature Feature with my dad, and I've always had a love of good old-fashioned monsters. And so the first (song) was "Wolverina," which is about a female werewolf. And then we had collected enough to make an album. And so we had a CD release with the "Monsters and Mystics."
DM: So, should we maybe do another song from the from the Halloween show?
BJ: This one is called "The Rattlin' Bones." It's about an Irish lass who's stolen by the fairy king.
Bonny June and Bonfire will be putting on their annual Halloween show Saturday, Oct. 26th, at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center from 7 to 10 p.m.