My name is Malo Jones and my band, the Jonestown Band, has just released our first rock music video, Yo, Billy Got a Knife.
I'm a "South" boy, born and raised in Esperance. I live in Tucson, pursuing a doctoral degree in school psychology at the University of Arizona.
My adolescence was defined in Esperance. My neighbours, two hard rock Indians, introduced me to rock n' roll. They sat me down to experience For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica for the first time. Mind blown.
Pres (Presentation College) was the best...school on the planet and my home away from home. Pres was where I first picked up an instrument, and started nurturing the musician/singer/songwriter thing.
My mother was/is a devout Catholic (and) even though I am severely lapsed, more of an agnostic, I have accepted Catholicism as a huge part of myself. Suzy, the female protagonist in Yo, Billy Got a Knife, says "a decade of the rosary with each and every rising sun." My mother lived those words. The Bible has enough melodrama, angst, and intrigue to inform 100 songs.
I have close friends who are religious, and prayer seems to give them strength during times of trouble. (But) it is arrogant to believe God would attend to the financial or personal problems of praying middle-class individuals while people half a world away suffer from the moment they are born.
An afterlife, as a concept seems too romantic, too Hollywood. It is highly likely we concocted the 'afterlife' to avoid dealing with the possibility that we aren't as special as we think we are. I think there is an afterlife for the precious few. Fellas like Lennon, McCartney, Marley will live forever.
Graduate school is stressful, and I have struggled mightily over the past three years. My dog, Scruff, doesn't give a...about any of that. Watching his building excitement as he recognises the pre-walk ritual just about makes my day, every day. I strap on my iPod and we hit the road. For that 30 minutes to an hour, nothing else matters.
There have been transformative albums in my life, U2's Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Pearl Jam's Ten. Almost anything by Marley or the Beatles or the Doors. The John Mayer Trio played a set during Mayer's Continuum tour (that) showed me how incendiary the blues could be, and inspired me to form a power trio. How could I almost forget the Police?!
I listened to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album driving back from the Grand Canyon in the dark. I never knew music could be so chilling.
Back in the day, everyone in Trinidad with (rock) musical aspirations wanted to be in Touchdown. Gary Hector and Oddfellows Local tore that...up with Arrest Arrest. Youths had a new hero, a man singing and writing his own songs. If any local rock band ever "makes it," they owe GH a huge debt.
I wrote Billy on vacation In Trinidad. I was rehearsing solo on the bass, and the riff came to me. I can't remember exactly how the first line came about. I wanted something urgent, immediate, told through the eyes of someone witnessing Billy's meltdown.
I've been playing with drummer Maggie Rickard and guitar player Bill Sacks for about two years. Both are far more experienced musicians than I, and have an almost punk rock approach that has pushed my writing into a new direction.
The video was the vision of the director and my friend, Carl Miller. The glow paint Predator meets Tron meets Mad Max meets El Dia de Los Muertos idea is almost entirely Maggie's vision. (But) J'Ouvert was a huge inspiration. I showed her pics of blue devils.
The best thing about writing Billy was it was a great moment for the band, our first professional recording together. The difficult thing was the glow painting took hours, outdoors, and it was chilly.
I'm very driven and somewhat of a perfectionist. So that practically guarantees a steady diet of disappointment.
Many people associate Trinidadian-ness with the Carnival aspect of our culture, but most of that stuff bores me. Maybe it's age, maybe I am too stuck up. As a kid I loved listening to Stalin and Shadow, looking on as Minshall worked his magic. Now? You couldn't pay me to attend Dimanche Gras.
Trinidadian-ness, for me, is tied up in our language. It is a beautiful thing, and mutates so rapidly. Playful, endlessly inventive, inappropriate, non-PC, and encapsulates all we are, the good and the bad.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com