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Conceptual Worlds With LACHLAN BOON From SHU-NAGUA · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  So my name is Lacklan Boone. I'm the lead singer and one of the
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  guitarists for the band Chinagua, and we're doing a uh bot cruise gig with
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  Simos and sitting on the twenty fourth of September. That's the right date,
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  mate, Thanks for joining this evening. How are you going? Very roll?
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  Thanks mate. Now there's a reason why I asked you to introduce that,
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  because I've got haven't got a hope in hell of pronouncing the band names.
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  So what was it cha? Yeah? Yeah, you should bloody spell
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  out and so it's easy to say, yeah an a g u a the
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  ennerful man. Thanks for joining us this evening. Oh no problem, Thanks
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  for having me. Yeah, I really appreciate as you say. Chinagua will
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  be chasing it to season September twenty four. But the day Boo Voyage is
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  part of Maiden Voyage, which is essentially Sydney's first ever floating dive bar with
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  music like what could go wrong? Mate? Metal heads out at c It's
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  a recipe for disaster. Hey it sounds like a good time of me.
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  Hey, it's actually a really good concept, Like, how much do you
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  know about it? So? I know it's being it's being run by Cadman
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  Cruisers along with Grindhead Productions. So Tom from Grindhead reach out the first.
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  We're really really grateful and we just kind of setting this this concept up and
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  yeah, we were lucky enough to be put on the first line up for
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  this. This Simo's dive by the I think they're looking at doing a a
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  monthly about at the moment, you know, meeting people and then picking them
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  up and doing heavy music out around Didney Hubble doesn't get any It's a great
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  idea, man, like this very first one. You've got bands like yourself.
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  There's twelve Gage Rampage. All these band names are hard to sect,
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  hard to pronounce, or Manny Gone, gray Fell and Risksness and the metal
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  DJ Mate Like it's it's a pretty pretty diverse lineup made and it's gonna be
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  pretty crushing, Like do you know much about those bands? Yeah, so
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  I went being I so before like being put on the lineup? Are you
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  have twelve Gage Rampage and I heard of them before? And then so we're
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  probably the lightest like heavy wires on the line up. Those guys kill it,
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  like, oh and I've kind of looked at. I did a bit
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  of a deep dive into all the other bands, and it's just, yeah,
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  we're really really lucky to be playing with such a bunch of really talented
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  musicians. I'm super excited. Yeah. JM like being out on the water.
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  Like, if someone doesn't like your music, it's stiff ship. They
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  can't go anywhere. They got to sit there and learn to like it.
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  No, yeah, they kind of have to. I think they are only
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  choices. Really, go upstairs and listen to the DJ. They're still gonna
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  probably hear us from from downstairs, so you can't really escape as when you're
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  out in the water. You guys, have any sailing songs that you're going
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  to be playing, Yeah, we're gonna be. We're gonna be doing a
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  cover of our primus song John the Fisherman. We've we've kind of a few
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  things planned during that set. Maybe maybe a fight with an old foe.
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  Yeah, we've been getting some some some death threats sent us by a shark
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  man that lives around there, So we'll we'll see if he pops up.
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  So your blunderbuss when you just in case. So for those are unfamiliar with
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  tell us a little bit about the band musically and what people can expect from
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  your live show. Yeah, so Chinaga musically is is very diverse. It's
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  kind of the way it's been written, it's very it bends it Ben's genres
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  a lot. You know, we'll go from something that's really bluesy and jazzy
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  to something that kind of delves into more progue rock, metal, and everything
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  a little bit in between. Yeah, it's that's that's kind of where we
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  sit as we we have some of those heavier elements, but because of the
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  concepts, we tend to kind of shift the mood and genre to kind of
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  fit in with that that story, that overarching narrative, So it gives us
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  a lot to kind of explore. So, yeah, expect that's live where
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  we're kind of a mixed bag. That's never a thing you mentioned. The
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  concept may like I could try and explain it, but after reading through it
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  it it seemed like it's actually pretty pretty intense and pretty indefthimate. So the
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  songs are all based around the conceptually written narrative, so I can explain it
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  a bit greater detail what that is. Yeah, of course, so each
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  album that we have plan will follow like act as a chapter within the overarching
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  story. First starting with our main character or Pelley Wilt, and he is
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  preparing on his home planet to fet to fight the apocalypse when the Chinag will
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  return, and then it will kind of pick up from there. In the
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  first album, he realizes he comes to the realization he's a character within an
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  album and he's trying to escape. And so that's kind of where that's all
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  I will really give with the first album plot. But basically each album will
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  will kind of follow his story for the next arc. What was its conceptually
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  based? Bro, Like, you have to actually write the songs in chronological
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  order of what sacertine or can you sort of right over the whole story arc
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  and fall it back together later. So the way I've written the albums is
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  the way I write the album is so you can listen to the songs individually
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  it's just like as normal music and just kind of enjoy the songs for what
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  they are, or you can listen to them as a whole kind of experience
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  and start from start to finish and get kind of a rock opera explaining you
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  know, going, and you kind of get to dip into the narrative a
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  bit more so, that's that's the kind of the plan is like you don't
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  need to follow along with the narrative to enjoy the music, but it's an
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  extra fitting there for people to deep dive into if they if they want to
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  in future. How about when you play live, like you have to play
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  your songs in chronological order two or do they sort of they sound all right
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  just yeah we live, we just kind of play whatever in whatever order.
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  Yeah, they don't. The songs don't really need to be played like the
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  back to be able to enjoy them because they kind they kind of they do
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  stand on their own as as just and servers just normal songs. But yeah,
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  definitely to get that full experience when when we release as Yeah, definitely
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  the plan. We've also got a band mascot named Hinagua that joins you on
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  stage for live shows. Mate, So describe him and his partner. What's
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  what's he doing there? So the Chicago word that we have on stage,
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  he's he kind of just rocked up one day and so we took him in
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  then thought, hey, look we'll get a gimmick out of it. Doesn't
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  talk a whole lot, and yeah, we thought. The band and I
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  kind of talked about it. We're like, well, you know, we
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  can use this alien to kind of give us an edge, you know.
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  So we kept him around and we feed We feed him via merch sales.
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  So with all the money we earned from merch sales, we put into a
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  little like a piggy bank to get him, to get him a feed every
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  now and then. But yeah, he we you know the Chinago that is
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  in the in the in the narrative, and we've kind of learned a few
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  things about where he's come from. It's very different to the Chicago ware that
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  we have on stage with. He's a lot nicer, a lot less evil.
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  We've kind of come up with a theory that because he's so many dimensions
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  away from his home planet where the High Boulder core is, he's kind of
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  lost connection and he's he's gone back to acting like primitive and acts a bit
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  like a poppy, So he's a lot more friendly. Question, is Kenny
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  swim mate you're taking him out on the bi Uh. We haven't throwed him
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  in the water yet. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if
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  they do months form where they come back from. So uh, yeah,
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  we'll have to. Maybe we'll just like throw him over the door over floating
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  and see how we go like a big life like clacking out there with him
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  just in case. I was like, is everybody in the band on the
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  same page when it comes to exploring what this character driven landscape or do you
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  sort of but heads sometimes what directions should go? No, not we we
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  don't, we don't quite but heads, it's it's it so like narrative wise
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  and concept wise. All right, I wrote the first first album Narrative before
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  I actually had any band members, And so the guys are all really really
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  supportive and they love it. But I can't kind of told them that they
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  can either. They don't need to, Like they can kind of delve into
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  the concept side of things as much as they want, Like I don't mind
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  letting them mental help, right, but at the moment, like the concept
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  is predominantly written by me, I've I've got got a skeleton for the next
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  three to four albums worth. So the plot is basically all there. I
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  know where it's it's going and going to end up. Yeah, But the
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  guys are all really great about it and just super supportive, and you know,
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  making that that that narrative vision come true. And the good thing is
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  is like the concept is because of the way it is, it's it really
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  lends itself to the music and you can really kind of take it in whatever
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  direction that you want to like it. And that's I think that's why we
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  get to do all this genre of bending because like the emotion of these characters
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  come through not only in the lyrics, but in the music itself. So
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  I believe you've got you've got long term plans to turn into a multi media
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  project as well, mate, Like, how are you going to do that?
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  Yeah? So with the plan is with the first album, we are
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  going to release a tie and novella kind of focusing around one of the other
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  characters that is in the first story. Her name's Matilda Graves. So she's
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  she's one of the she's kind of like a warlock of the Chinagua. She's
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  a bit more of an evil character, is a bit more sinister story.
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  But yeah, we're we want we want to reach out. We've just like
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  the band being the nucleus and then planning on you know, having the lots
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  of stage theatrics. We we're planning on really working on our our stage performance
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  and you know, having that really fun, enjoyable stay like going out stage
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  experience, but then bringing it back when when they when people go back home,
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  they can delve into the concept and it's kind of got more of a
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  a serious tone. But yeah, we're going to kind of slowly reach out
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  and I have plans that I want to do things like like novels and comics,
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  animation and such as well in the future. Just yeah, experiment going
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  down that route. So you got any any other shows coming up the side
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  from mauston most Maiden Voyage. Yeah, we have a we have a show
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  supporting with the Witching Hour celebrating their one million streams on Spotify at La La
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  Las in Wollongong. So that's on October twenty one, the Saturday, October
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  twenty feet. And yeah, that's that's that's the other show that we have
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  at the moment. That's that's all we've kind of got lined up at so
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  far. Yeah, all right then, what and roll. Thanks very much
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  of your time. May It's been a pleasure speaker with him. Sounds like
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  a very interesting thing going on there, bro, but is playing. Yeah,
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  thank you so much. Oh rights man, you'll be playing on Simo's
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  Maiden Voyage on September twenty fourth, sailing along Sydney Harbor made those sounds like
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  a blast. If if I can't get down there or come down and sound
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  of the Seven Seas, yeah yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, it's
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  gonna be really really good, good days out, So I totally recommend coming along.