Bonesio
Playing Chess in a Checker Scene
Exclusive Free the Youth Interview by Emma Speicher
Bonesio - From Left to Right: Michael Dadayan, Brett Grimm, and Luke Johnson
Genre: Jazz/Funk/R&B
On the corner of Pacific and Laurel in Santa Cruz looms a deteriorating 1970’s era sign for “Bonesio Liquors,” a remnant of one of the many businesses claimed to the pandemic. To many a passerby, Bonesio is a relic or a forgotten landmark, but to Brett Grimm, Michael Dadayan, and Luke Johnson, it is a source for inspiration.
Photo Provided by Bonesio
Pronounced beau-knee-see-oh, the band Bonesio is hard to miss: Brett Grimm - decked head to toe in vintage - hails from several bands like Ladders and De Brie, developing into a force to be reckoned with on keys. Michael Dadayan boasts the impressive talent of simultaneously providing drums and vocals for the band, all with a contagious smile. Luke Johnson - donning a reflective face shield at most shows, making faces at the unwitting audience - unifies the trio, contributing an array of complex bass riffs that compliment the arrangement as a whole.
“All of us are pretty integral, it wouldn't work without one of us. We're like an organism, like a cell. We have a musical symbiosis.”
FTY: How did you all get into music?
Michael: I started playing because my dad had this old Yamaha piano and it would light up the keys for what you learned to play and then I wanted to sing along to songs so I just kind of learned singing and playing at the same time from the very beginning. Then guitar was cooler, so I got an electric guitar because I thought it was badass, and it was. When we were playing, there was trouble finding a drummer, it was a drummer drought and I felt like it was a good solution to have me on drums.
Brett: It wasn't a super early thing for me, I started playing piano freshman year of high school. It was really a chance thing too, I just happened to be put in a beginner’s piano class in my high school because there was nothing else open. I ended up really liking it and all of a sudden all the jazz music that my dad had always been playing became pretty cool.
Luke: I started playing stand-up bass in middle school for orchestra, and then I switched to electric bass in high school because it's louder and easier to transport. Plus, it looked cooler.
Michael and Luke have been playing together since high school in a band known as Chevy Knoll back in Los Angeles, and connected with Brett during a surf party after discovering that he played jazz piano and had a 99% taste match score on Spotify blends. Now they are inseparable,
Together they are the triadic trio, Bonesio
Since 2023, Bonesio has performed shows in Santa Cruz, Oakland and Berkeley, collaborating with the likes of Rambler Magazine, the UCSC Trading Post, and the Slug Life Production Board, playing with local favorites Madrone, Sin Nombre, Plumskin, and Casino Youth. The band is diverse in its rotating cast of additional talent to their three-piece, featuring trumpet player Joaquin Jorgenson, bongo player Mauricio Bautista, and Trash Day saxophonist Liam Fahey.
While they are currently based out of a surf rock centered city, Santa Cruz, CA, they offer a unique sound, creating a chill and contemplative spin:
Bonesio: We once had someone compare our music to other people's music in the scene - most bands in the scene were sports teams and they said that we were the chess club. yeah that's actually really great. We kind of took it as like a slight at first, and then we thought, no actually, that's kind of cool. Our music is like a good morning stretch, it sounds like a cat stretching in the sunlight. Something you can drink a cup of tea to or something, the happy parts of UP, you know? Or a baby cow eating.
Bonesio collectively gathers their musical inspirations from R&B artists like Erykah Badu, jazz legends like Herbie Hancock, and funk bands like Hiatus Kaiyote. However, they noted that when they come together and play music, they bring their individual influences to create something unique. They believe in the importance of being surrounded by creative minds and finding inspiration around them to instigate musical innovation and creativity. Specifically, Bonesio affectionately described a cow field nearby their house (pictured below), where they frequent to write and play music - coexisting with the cows.
Photo provided by Bonesio
The pursuit of various art mediums in higher education inspire Michael, Luke, and Brett, who intertwine their art in conjunction with their music, generating motivation and thoughtfulness into their musical pieces. Both Michael and Luke study art in college, with Michael specializing in tattooing and painting and Luke focusing in film and ink illustrations. Brett studies music, elevating songwriting in Bonesio and other projects, with multifaceted music composition and intentional production from his higher education.
Photo provided by Bonesio
Bonesio currently has one song on Spotify, “Reason,” but are in the process of finalizing their upcoming EP, so keep your ears peeled. Here’s what Bonesio had to say about their collective songwriting process:
Michael: I feel like I come up with the melody first and phonetically what syllables would sound good in places, and then just word vomiting, making it fit into a narrative after the fact. Because the most important thing to me is the vocal melody, how it sounds how it sounds over everything.
Brett: We're constantly still writing all these songs. Yeah, they're too constant. We're adding stuff and making it tighter, it's always a work in progress.
Luke: Sometimes we're in the process of writing a song and then we make a part of it based on a song that we were listening to in a car. We’re inspired by a couple chords and we add on to it and see what we can do with it.
Photo provided by Bonesio
The popularity of the trio is on the rise. They’re consistently playing shows in the Bay Area, contributing a sound that’s exclusive to their band, exposing audiences to a possible new genre - chess playing music. Be on the lookout, they’ve got a bright future ahead.
Bonesio offers a piece of advice to new performers who are nervous about performing and putting themselves out there:
You go up there on stage for maybe 15 minutes. Literally 15 minutes of your life. you might as well enjoy the hell out of it. Don’t be so nervous. Enjoy the hell, it’s worth every second.
