"Blessed be the ancients / blessed be the stars / blessed be the little people / fighting in the wars / they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see) // they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see)..."
The blistering surf beat rattled inside out indie rock of "Blessed Be" by Portland, Oregon indie rock outfit Bonus Room, and from their upcoming debut EP "Bunk", asks forever questions, ancient and future ones while staring at the sky, sometimes fearfully or with deep longing. First listen, had me air drumming, second listen had me singing along (the non-lexical parts) and third listen had me seeing Roy Neary (played by a 29 year old Richard Dreyfuss) staring at the massive Alien spaceship in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" with that mesmerizing droning synth-sonic message A-B-G-lower octave G and D. Speaking of synths, I am really digging Derrin Brice's trippy synth runs against the sharp guitar / bass downbeats and Ben Dorothy's vibrant surfy drum beat. Also love the lead vox by guitarist Chis Lee backed up with shouty background vocals.
"Blessed be the ancients / blessed be the stars / blessed be the little people / fighting in the wars / they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see) // they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see)..."
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed): Reveal the back story of "Blessed Be"
[The trippy, spooky rocker Blessed Be taps onto Brice’s dark side — and his upbringing. “I grew up in an environment where half my family were fundamentalist Christians and then the other half were very much atheists,” he says. Creeping in on Dick Dale guitars and stabbing synths, the track — named for a bumper sticker on Brice’s family car — is both an incantation and solid-gold bop that sounds like a dance party in a haunted church. “I just have always found it interesting that essentially both sides were saying the same thing while also just condemning the other side,” Brice adds.]
MORE LINER NOTES:
[Bonus Room formed during the pandemic — a collision of influences wrangled into a band that includes primary songwriters Chris Lee (vocals, guitar, keys, percussion) and Alaskan guitarist/singer/keyboard player Derrin Brice (the moon to Lee’s sun). Guitarist and engineer Wes Phillips and bassist Erik Brownfield also hail from Alaska, while drummer Ben Dorothy is an Oregon native. “We had a bunch of influences when we first started hanging out and playing music, so it seemed like the project could go a bunch of different ways,” Brice says. Together, though, they channel everyone from Gorillaz to the Talking Heads, creating musical alchemy in the band’s basement studio, dubbed the Starlight Underground — it even says so in gold paint on the stairs. Bunk, then, is the culmination of all those diverse influences and band member backgrounds. Each song also will feature in-the-studio videos produced by Lee and Brice.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
"Blessed be the ancients / blessed be the stars / blessed be the little people / fighting in the wars / they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see) // they look up // (see the faces that they wanna' see)..."
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed): Reveal the back story of "Blessed Be"
[The trippy, spooky rocker Blessed Be taps onto Brice’s dark side — and his upbringing. “I grew up in an environment where half my family were fundamentalist Christians and then the other half were very much atheists,” he says. Creeping in on Dick Dale guitars and stabbing synths, the track — named for a bumper sticker on Brice’s family car — is both an incantation and solid-gold bop that sounds like a dance party in a haunted church. “I just have always found it interesting that essentially both sides were saying the same thing while also just condemning the other side,” Brice adds.]
MORE LINER NOTES:
[Bonus Room formed during the pandemic — a collision of influences wrangled into a band that includes primary songwriters Chris Lee (vocals, guitar, keys, percussion) and Alaskan guitarist/singer/keyboard player Derrin Brice (the moon to Lee’s sun). Guitarist and engineer Wes Phillips and bassist Erik Brownfield also hail from Alaska, while drummer Ben Dorothy is an Oregon native. “We had a bunch of influences when we first started hanging out and playing music, so it seemed like the project could go a bunch of different ways,” Brice says. Together, though, they channel everyone from Gorillaz to the Talking Heads, creating musical alchemy in the band’s basement studio, dubbed the Starlight Underground — it even says so in gold paint on the stairs. Bunk, then, is the culmination of all those diverse influences and band member backgrounds. Each song also will feature in-the-studio videos produced by Lee and Brice.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/bonusroom_band
https://bonusroomband.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/bonusroomband
If you want to know what kind of band Bonus Room is, you just have to hear the guys tell you the story of how they named their debut EP, Bunk. What started out as a rumination on childhood sleepovers in that titular Bonus Room led to a round of word association around the phrase “bunk bed,” which then led to the story of an epic filibuster in Lee’s hometown of Buncombe County, North Carolina. Somehow, a grandstanding politician coined the insult “bunk,” and history was made.
While this very true story might sound fanciful, what’s undeniable is that this Portland band is beyond bonkers-creative, melding post-punk, psych-rock, and a heavy dose of dancey doom on Bunk, which drops this fall.
Bonus Room formed during the pandemic — a collision of influences wrangled into a band that includes primary songwriters Chris Lee (vocals, guitar, keys, percussion) and Alaskan guitarist/singer/keyboard player Derrin Brice (the moon to Lee’s sun). Guitarist and engineer Wes Phillips and bassist Erik Brownfield also hail from Alaska, while drummer Ben Dorothy is an Oregon native. “We had a bunch of influences when we first started hanging out and playing music, so it seemed like the project could go a bunch of different ways,” Brice says. Together, though, they channel everyone from Gorillaz to the Talking Heads, creating musical alchemy in the band’s basement studio, dubbed the Starlight Underground — it even says so in gold paint on the stairs. Bunk, then, is the culmination of all those diverse influences and band member backgrounds. Each song also will feature in-the-studio videos produced by Lee and Brice.
Life is about evolution and so is music — and if the first offering from Bonus Room is any indication, they’re just getting started. Weird and wonderfully scrappy, it’s only a matter of time before the boys emerge from the basement and take the big stage.
Bonus Room, Portland Oregon, Songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Derrin Brice, indie rock, angular rock, funk punk, art punk, 80's new wave, post punk, hybrid indie rock, "Blessed Be" (Official Video), debut EP "Bunk",
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