Episode 14: BoWser: Melding Hard Riffs with Alterna Rock for Some Ear Friendly Sounds
Today on the podcast we are featuring the Australian group boWsER. This Gold Coast trio melds hard riffs with alterna rock melodies for some ear-friendly sounds. Learn more about them and listen to their song “Wicker Man.”
Show Notes and Full Show Transcript
Just popping in to give you guys a heads up. This podcast contains paid promotional content. That means we were compensated for the feature. All opinions are our own and we only choose to represent music that we truly dig.
Hey everyone welcome to the podcast! Today I’m talking about the Australian Group boWsER.
So when I was introduce to this group the first thing that came to my mind was the Super Mario Brothers. I grew up in the 90’s and that was a big part of my childhood. Playing Nintendo and a little bit of Super Nintendo. Bowser was that guy who was like the bad turtley thing.
And he was keeping the princess captive so that was running through my mind the whole time I was listening to this band. Looking into them. I did some background research but I couldn’t really find any kind of information on origin of their name.
But I would like to think that they were Super Mario Brothers fans as well. And maybe that had some kind of bearing on the name of their band.
And if anybody knows more about this I would love to know if that was the something influenced. Or where the origin had come from.
The other thing that I found was interesting is there is another band from Milkwaikee who had, was also called bowser. I don’t know if they’re still making music. I was checking out their facebook page and you know they had some posts on there on the page but it looks like uhm that htey are are making music.
I’m kind of intrigued now about this other bowser band. Because you know I haven’t. I didn’t know. When I was first looking at the original band I didnt know about this bowser band. This band is called The Bowser Band. The Milkwaikee band so they’re slighty different name. Their website was not working. It went kind of like. The link was dead but I thought it was interesting that there was two bands with almost the similar. Pretty much similar. The same name. Now, I think later I’m gonna have to check out The Bowser Band to see what their music is like because I’m actually intrigued about that.
But actually on this podcast I’m talking about boWsER not The Bowser Band. As I stated in the intro boWsER is from Australia. Specifically, the Gold Coast.
I feel like Australia is a hot bed for music. I remember there was a showcase that they used to have at CMJ. This festival. it’s a music festival in NYC where there’s a lot of emerging talent and a lot of like. I feel like a lot of record labels and things would go to look for new artists. But it was a week long event in NYC and I remember they always had an Australia showcase and I remember I would always be very excited for that. The music for the Australia showcase was really good.
So I was excited to hear boWsER.
So when digging into the background on boWsER. I found that the group is made up of 3 friends: Nathan Williams, Otto Mitter Jr, and Brad Weynton.
From what it said in their biography it seemed like the three of them complimented each other really well. Kind of pulled them in new directions. Kind of creating music that was original and ingenious and it felt like the 3 of them together helped kind of evolve their musical sound.
From what I read the guys were a staple on the local scene from the mid to late 2000’s. They also were pretty well known and they even got the attention of a EMI and signed a publishing deal with them whrere they release their first EP called Modus Operandi.
And that was met with rave reviews. They were also picked to open for Eagles of Death Metal on their Australian tour.
At some point after that time it seems that they went into a musical hiatus because the rest of their bio just talks about how in 2019 was when they emerged from this creative hiatus they were taking.
2019 saw the release of a new track and this was kind of the forthcoming of their new album that they were working on. The sophomore release was called Whispers From The Wickerman.
And that song that they first released in 2019 was called “People in the TV” and then they had followed that up with the song “Supersonic” drops on 4th December 2020.
So they released these tracks as a teaser to their upcoming album which was slated for March 12 and if you’re listening to this after that it is out now. So as well. But I did think the songs on there were pretty great. I didn’t listen to “People for the TV’ song but I did listen to “Supersonic.”
But I did choose a different song to feature cause I felt that a lot of people may already heard “Supersonic” so I kind of wanted to feature a new song and that’s why I’m gonna feature later “Wicker Man” but I would really say that you know pretty much any song on the album has someting to offer the listener.
And It is kind of exciting how you know like you can listen to everything and you’re like “OK I like this song and I like this song” and it’s it’s got that hard hitting rock but it’s also you know the songs are different and they offer something different.
I read something that said uh, was comparing them to Papa Roach. After I listening to it I was like “yeah, yeah, I definately agree with that sentiment. I also felt like there was a bit of a Foo Fighters vibe in their music.
For anyone who is a fan of the Foo Fighters, Papa Roach, a lot you know even a little bit of Linkin Park. They don’t do the rap/rock but they do have elements of like different types of sonic sounds within their music. Anyone who is a fan those early 2000 bands or even just you know hard rock bands not really like metal hard rock but rock you know and alternative rock. A mix of hard rock and alternative rock. This is something you would probably resonate with and you would like.
Listening to the track of “Wicker Man” I was trying to pay a little bit more attention to the lyrics since normally I listen more to the music.
Though I couldn’t find the lyrics specifcally typed up online somewhere listening to them it seemed like you know it was talking about this wicker man and this rising up and it had kind of a dark connotation to it. Where it seemed like either you know there was some kind of theme around death or maybe something dark because it talked about going to the otherside. And you know a ride and a lot of themes of death and darkness and I dont know if this is right but this is just what I read into the song.
And I did a little digging online to see more about wicker man and I actually found there was an Iron Maden song by the same name and looking through those lyrics the song had a dark connotation.
So then I was like what exactly is a wicker man? It was actually. So it’s a large wicker statue that was used by the ancient Druids who were priests of Celtic paganism for sacrifice by burning it in effigy.
There was also some information talking about how there was possible human sacrifice at these burnings but they were saying there wasn’t actual proof that this was happening.
Another mention of the wicker man was actually in a British horror movie by the named called The Wicker Man. And it was talking about there was this cult going on and they were sacrificing children. So everything around wicker man and burning there is this dark presence. This dark force.
But the thing that is neat about this song is that even though the lyrics are kind of dark. There’s like a dichotomy with like the hard hitting music and upbeat feel of this riveting song.
The third time I listened to this track I was getting vibes of sounds kind of similar to like the band 311. Especially like the opening. The guitar, like the (imitate guitar riffs).
Then when the chorus hit I was like oh “I’m really digging this” and I love the kind of dark lyrics but upbeat vocals. There is something about this track that just very engages the listener.
But hearing is believing so with that I’m going to play the track “Wicker Man” for you.
Play song
There you have “Wicker Man” by boWsER. We would love to know what you think about the band and this track.
Feel free to leave a comment on our page or you can even record an audio comment at the link in the show notes.
For more information on boWsER, you can check out their official website at www.bowsertheband.com. You can follow them on Facebook and Instagram at the handle bowsertheband.
Hope you enjoyed today’s show. We would love to know what you think. Please feel free to leave us a review and rating.
For more new music, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you can get alerts about new episodes.
Thanks and see you in the next episode
Outro music
More Podcast Episodes
If you’re interested in finding new music please check out our other podcast episodes.