Detroit trio Bonny Doon make their ANTI- debut today with the release of Let There Be Music. The album follows the band’s run touring and recording with Waxahatchee, on which guitarist/vocalist Bobby Columbo says “The experience raised the ceiling on our imagination.” Read our review here, and listen to the album below.

Celebrating the release of Let There Be Music, Bobby and fellow guitarist/vocalist Bill Lennox shared with us some of the people, places, and music that influenced the LP– including Alice Waters’ famed restaurant Chez Panisse, Etel Adnan, Ernie Graham, French pop, Katie Crutchfield, and more. Read on for the list…

BONNY DOON – INFLUENCES BEHIND ‘LET THERE BE MUSIC’

Marin County

Bill and I did a residency in West Marin in Northern California at the end of 2017 and I couldn’t shake how beautiful the experience was so I ended up moving there a year later. It was the first time I had lived outside of Detroit. It was a real change of pace. West Marin is very rural and has been able to stay a wild and special place because it has really strict laws against development. I lived in a 10 by 10 hut in the woods and my place didn’t even have a key. Most of the record was written out there. -Bobby

Chez Panisse

Refined simplicity and timeless elegance. Alice Waters’ philosophy on food and her approach to everything at Chez Panisse is so inspiring. It’s all so intentional yet understated. Bobby and I went there while we were having a writing session for this album in 2019. We were dining with our friend who worked there at the time so she gave us a tour of the whole compound. I’ll never forget it. -Bill

Katie Crutchfield

We’ve spent the past 4 years in one way or another with Katie. We started playing as her backing band in early 2019 and then went on to record on her album St. Cloud which we then toured extensively for. It’s been inspiring working with her in so many ways. She’s been a guiding light and guardian angel to us. -Bill

The piano

We leaned into keys a lot on this record but it wasn’t by design, it just happened. We would try guitar parts and they wouldn’t feel right so we would try piano or electric piano and we were more drawn to what we were hearing. We all play piano but not that well, so the songs feature a mix of our primitive, beginner’s mind approach and a few serious players. It was fun to commit to a non-primary instrument more, and also to help arrange for really talented people interpreting our music, something we had done very little of before. I was really inspired by Laraaji’s piano records, Nicky Hopkins, and Joe Bonner. -Bobby

French pop

I got really into Brigitte Fontaine, and then began to revisit people like Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy, and then went deeper and found myself mostly listening to French music for a while. French is sexy and beautiful obviously, but I think lyrics are almost always perfect in another language. The cadence or delivery really has to be off to take you out of the mood. Our song “Naturally” was originally all in English but we weren’t satisfied with the second verse so we came up with something in French and it instantly sounded better. -Bobby

Etel Adnan

Etel Adnan was an Arab American poet and writer who, late in life, became known doubly for her painting. She wasn’t trained as a painter but her paintings have a vibrant essence that’s instantly recognizable. She called the Bay Area home for many years and obsessively painted abstract landscapes of Mt. Tamalpais, the mountain that overlooks the Pacific along Highway 1 in Marin County. I was living in the shadows of Mt. Tam when we were making this record. It’s a mythical and potently spiritual place. She called the mountain her best friend. I related to her deep relationship with it. But I think what’s most inspiring about Adnan’s paintings is how they show that expertise, technique, virtuosity, etc – the things we’re told are necessary to make great art – are dispensable. What matters is your ability to connect to something larger than yourself and be a medium for it. And anyone can do that. -Bobby

Raffi

Raffi is basically synonymous with children’s music, a genre that is widely ignored or denigrated by most adults, even those with young kids. This is in contrast to children’s literature, which is celebrated and treasured, passed down from generation to generation, with new classics being written all the time. But I would challenge anyone to listen to a song like “Thanks A Lot,” and hear the almost Phil Elverum-esque pathos. A lot of elementary school teachers have written us to say that they play Longwave in their classrooms. That got us thinking in new ways about audience. When we were making it, we were thinking of “Let There Be Music” as something like a children’s song that could resonate with adults too. My highest dream for it is that Raffi would cover it. I’m sure he could do it more justice than us. -Bobby

Stan Grof

Stan Grof is a psychiatrist and pioneer in the fields of psychedelic therapy and breathwork. He writes a lot about the various levels of consciousness, informed by his experiences working with people in non-ordinary states. He has a Jungian view of consciousness- that there’s a sort of collective unconscious that we all share, populated with ancient archetypes. In other words, we’re all kind of subconsciously acting out mythology but we’re not aware of it, and it would be tremendously helpful to us to bring awareness to our own
mythology somehow. Spirituality and the metaphysical can be tough to write about head-on in song without being insufferable. “Crooked Creek” is our attempt at exploring it in a playful way. -Bobby

Ernie Graham

Ernie Graham was a British musician who put out one eponymous solo record in 1971. I listened to it compulsively for a few years while we were writing this record. The songs are great and the playing is masterful. -Bobby

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Bonny Doon are on tour this summer, including runs with Anna St Louis, John Andrews & The Yawns, and Neu Blume. The run with John Andrews & The Yawns hits NYC’s Bowery Ballroom on June 20 with Bloomsday also on the bill. All dates are listed below.

Bonny Doon – 2023 Tour Dates
6/16 – Detroit, MI @ MOCAD *
6/17 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern *
6/18 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA ^
6/20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom ^
6/21 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s ^
6/22 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong ^
6/23 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle ^
6/24 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 ^
6/26 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall ~
6/27 – Austin, TX @ Empire ~
6/28 – Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves ~
6/30 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress ~
7/1 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar ~
7/2 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah ~
7/5 – Los Angeles, CA @ Highland Park Ebell Club ~
7/6 – San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall ~
7/7 – Arcata, CA @ The Miniplex ~
7/8 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir ~
7/9 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza ~
7/10 – Missoula, MT @ Zootown Art ~
7/13 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry ~
7/14 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall ~
10/17 – Rotterdam, NL @ V11
10/19 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
10/20 – Glasgow, UK @ The Hug and Pint
10/21 – Manchester, UK @ YES
10/22 – Cardiff, UK @ Swn Fest
10/23 – Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
10/24 – London, UK @ The Lexington
10/27 – Paris, FR @ L’international
10/28 – Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling

* w/ Neu Blume
^ w/ John Andrews & The Yawns
~ w/ Anna St. Louis