Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / From SOUNDGARDEN to Shallow: ZAAC THOMPSON of NONBERK on Nature, Music, and The Band's Evolution

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From SOUNDGARDEN to Shallow: ZAAC THOMPSON of NONBERK on Nature, Music, and The Band's Evolution · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Zark Thompson from Non Burke. Non Burke are
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: alternative rock trio from Brisbane. We make music similar to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Sound Garden, Silver Chair, Alison Chains, a lot of nineties vibes.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just a short blurb about us. Wonderful.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And how did you guys all get started? Did you
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: guys all know each other obviously beforehand?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So Sam and I Sam the drummer and I went
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to UNI together, so we studied music at QT and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: then our friend Kevin was in a few other bands
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that used to play around Brisbane like darkmun Society and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Vesper Green, a lot of other heavy alternative rock bands
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: around the scene. And yeah, Kevin ended up joining us
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: just before we released our first single off the album
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and Circle.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: That was just after we like had a lineup change.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah nice.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: And when did you guys actually start Non Burk?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: We started on back back in twenty nineteen. That was
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: when we first formed as a band.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, so pre pandemic you guys had to work through
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: all of that as well. Did that have an impact
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: on you guys rehearsing and putting stuff out? I suppose?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Or yeah, well, I mean we kind of we all
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: kind of got really busy around the time of COVID.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Like I think.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Our old guitarists was studying law, so he had like
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff he was always doing, and our
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: drummer was studying science. I was just about to go
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: into my Masters of teaching, so like we kind of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and that was just after COVID happened, So it was
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a bit of I don't know, it was kind of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it worked in our favor because we were able to,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, dial down on shows and focus
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: more on writing songs and stuff like that. So yeah,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it was it was kind of it had its ups
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and downs, Like the Show's not Happening was its downs.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, yeah, And can you also tell us
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a little bit about the name non Burke and what
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: that means?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wanted to, Like, when I was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: coming up with a band name, it was really hard, hey,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: because like almost every single band name's already kicked, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I wanted something original, something that I could kind of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: know that it would absolutely not be a name that's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: already taken.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So I just like one day when.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I was on the train home from UNI, I think
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I just came up with, like I I wanted to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: because we did a lot of kind of proggy stuff
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: where we'd do some tricky time signatures and like just
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: some silly things musically, and we wanted to kind of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: like rep present that in our name somehow. So we
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: were just like, oh, we'll just call it non Burke,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: like non meaning o will non burke meaning a stupid person.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So we just kind of thought of like, oh, what
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: would Yeah.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well it works because that's exactly like it sounds
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: like a name that perfectly fits you guys as a band,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: as weird as that is, because I guess it is
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: a kind of is it a made up word then
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: or name?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I mean it's something that probably wouldn't be commonly used
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: as a word. And that's like what I like to
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: do for a lot of our song titles as well,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Like I like finding words that describe a kind of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: situation or topic that the song's about that are less
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: commonly used words, because I feel that kind of reflects
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the name of the band as well, So I want
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: to keep that consistent.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And how did your friends and family react
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to you going into the band? Did they know you
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: were always me inclined. I guess because you know you
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: said that you were studying teaching. Was that a big
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: shock to them.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Or not really, because I mean I've been playing in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: bands and doing shows since I was probably like fifteen
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in high high school. So like, actually, I think a
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: few of the songs off our first album are from
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: my old school band called the Aunties. A few songs
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I wrote in that band, so I kind of like
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: took them in and reshaped them and reworked them with
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: different musicians. So yeah, it's been a long time coming
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: to my family and friends, I guess.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to tell us a little bit
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: about Elements and how it's maybe different from your past projects?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So Elements is a bit more of a I feel like, Well,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it was the first release that we did with the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: lineup change, So I was previously on bass guitar, and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that's how I wrote most of the songs. So this
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: release I saw to guitar, and that already kind of
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: made the songs that I was writing a bit different
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to our last EP and album and stuff. And I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: feel like it was more of a like I wrote
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: some of these songs when I was out in nature,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: like I used to bring my acoustic guitar out and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: just kind of some of the softer songs on there.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Definitely I probably wrote on my acoustic guitar, and it
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was just a bit different because you can't really like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: take a bass you could, but you can't really. You
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: don't normally take a bass guitar outside and like of
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: writing a song, and it's normally with an acoustic guitar,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: So like I just brought it outside. It was around
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  Speaker 1: nature a lot more used I always go on walks
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: around nature and like singing, going to the beach, just
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: surrounding yourself with like all the sounds and just sitting
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: listening and taking everything in.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I guess.
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  Speaker 1: So a lot of the releases were to do with
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the elements around So.
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  Speaker 2: Some of the songs.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: More musically than lyrically, but overall this release was the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: first kind of release that we wanted to stick with
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the theme and elements was the theme We've got. Like
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: each of the singles kind of represent a few different
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: elements in certain ways.
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  Speaker 3: Guys, you go out and you find inspiration in, yeah,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: the nature and outside.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: World around you.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: That's that's pretty interesting. And you've got a new single, Shallow.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: You've spoken about it just then, I suppose, But are
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: the themes on Shallow, you know ll nature related?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So I guess, like I think that this one was
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: one that I did right when I was out on
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: like holiday and I had my guitar with me and stuff,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and like the musical parts of the song definitely, like
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the verses have kind of like a flowy feel of
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, just being surrounded by the beach,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: something slow, something a bit more relaxing, and lyrically, it's
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: kind of about I don't know, just just more more
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: complex topics like dealing with loss of people or just
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like existential questions about like what will happen when you're
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: no longer here and that kind of.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bit deep, which kind of goes with the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: theme of water, because I mean the ocean deep. And yeah, yeah,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: so I guess it kind of fits in.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I love that it's there's definitely different textural
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: layers to it all as well. And I got that
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: listening to your music that it was very emotional. You were,
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: you know, definitely talking about some hard hitting emotions that
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: people go through. So yeah, it was really cool. Who
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: are some of your musical inspirations personally?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I mean I've been I always go through different phases
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and listen to a bunch of different artists, but recently,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, some of my favorites would be Black Sabbath
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and like Tenacious D. And I've obviously like grown up
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  Speaker 1: listening to a lot of Sound Garden and Silver Chair
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  Speaker 1: and Pearl Jam and like all the nineties kind of
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: stuff just together. So yeah, that's what my main kind
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of music's been. But like I've been also trying to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: listen to a bunch of different stuff, so like R
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and B or like jazz and some classical stuff like
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: just to kind of pull in influence influences from different places,
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  Speaker 1: so it's not all just like, I don't know, listening
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to heaps of metal and then yeah, OK, and just
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: trying to stick with that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: That's good. And I think if you can always try
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and learn and pick up things from these other genres
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  Speaker 3: as well and maybe even incorporate them in your own music,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I think that's how you learn. And yeah, you just
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: your sound just gets so unique and refined by doing that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Did you get to see Tenacious when they were here.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: By the way, Uh no, we did not. Unfortunately I was.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think the also I missed my
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: chance on getting tickets, But then I also think that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff ended up happening and they didn't
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: end up playing in Brisbane.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, oh that's right, Yeah that would make sense.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Do you have any side jobs apart from being in
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: the band.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I do teach full time at a school around Ipswich,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: which is pretty good. I'm a music teacher there, so
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: it's fun just being able to teach something that I'm
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: passionate about. And yeah, so that's my job outside of
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the band. Yeah, yeah, awesome.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: And I guess do the other guys as well they
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: have other jobs outside the band?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean now our drama is also a instrumental
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: music teacher. He's he teaches at yeah school that we
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: actually played a show at a few weeks ago, so
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: that was pretty fun. And our bass player is a
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: audio producer, so he does like live sound and mixing
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and stuff. I mean he mixed and mustered our album
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: as well as the Drama. But yeah, it's it's lucky
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: having that kind of input with the band as well.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Lucky there, And are you guys all really close outside?
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Is this the only lineup that we've seen through non
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: burk or has there been a few people come and go?
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So this current line up that there's only been another
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: guitarist in the band, and we're still all really good friends,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and we we hang out regularly and do stuff, go
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to shows, go to gigs together, and yeah, it's good.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: It's good being in a band that you gel with
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: the other members, for sure.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's important. And Mistress of Lives with Zaid is awesome.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: And can you tell us a little bit more about
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that collaboration.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, sure. So we've I've been playing in bands
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: with the singer from Zaid since we were like sixteen
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: seventeen years old, and I actually played in Zaid for
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: quite a few years before I started working full time.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so we were always kind of around the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: same place, like playing shows just across the road from
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: each other, or at shows together, or I was playing
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: in her band for a few years.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: So we thought it was only.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Natural to kind of just get our first kind of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: first collaboration with a few artists on this album, her
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: being one of them, just because it fits so well yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. And I also saw on
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Instagram someone did a wicked cello solo to your song Breathe.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: You're like you tend to have quite a few people
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: loving your music and reinventing it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were super grateful to have Nick Nicholas Tam
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: play some cello on some of our songs on the album, because,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: like we thought, I mean, we we've really tried to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: go all out with like sound effects and like extra
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: kind of like SyncE and piano and strings and like.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: All that extra stuff.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But it was really good to have live track to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: cello on the album for the last three songs. So
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it really kind of especially with next playing, like he
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: added so much more.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Liveliness to the songs.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Like it was very great just having something other than
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: guitar and bass and drums and he shreds so it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Was I didn't know he was on the album.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: That's my Yeah, no, that's all good.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: I did a wicked job and it added so much
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: dimension to your stuff. And how did you personally get
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: your studying music? Like did you just like realize one
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: day that you could sing and play bass or guitar?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I mean I was always kind of I was always
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: singing at a young age, Like I was in a
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: school choir and I did like a bunch of I
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: did an a cappella group outside of.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: School, and.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I always I think I just picked up guitar. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: when I first picked it up, I didn't really like it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And then a couple of years later I grew up
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Got really into it.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I borrowed my neighbor's guitar, and my next door neighbor
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: taught me how to play, and then I kind of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: really got into it, started playing music at school, started
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: finding other people around my age to play with. So
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I've always kind of been into music and always deivated
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: by it. But yeah, learning guitar really kind of made
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: me figure out what I wanted to do, and like
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, I want to I really
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: want to write songs. I really want to play some
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of my favorite songs. So I just work towards that
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, awesome.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: And is there any festivals or tours that you'd really
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: love to be a part of someday?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, we would love to tour with some of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the bands that we kind of look up to and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: like some some of the other prog bands and like
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: prog rock bands, metal alternative like we'd love to eventually
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: support in the in the long shot, bands like Carnival
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and like Butterfly Effect and Khalil Gill's Horse and a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: bunch of those kind of prog bands because we feel
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: our music, we with our music as we're developing, we
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: want to eventually do more stuff fitted in with those
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: bands and like kind of challenge ourselves as musicians and yeah,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: so we'd we'd love to support those bands, but then
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: we'd also be love to be on any kind of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: local festivals to start with that just kind of have
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: similar music to us, and yeah.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that'd be awesome hopefully one day. Do you
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: what's going on for non Burk at the moment? What
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: do you have upcoming?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: So we have.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Album launch next Saturday on the seventh for the album,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: which will be nice to kind of get that off
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: our chest because we've been working on the album for
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: so long and it'll be good to have just some
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: kind of closures to be able to play it live
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: before we go and rat the next album and whatnot.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think we have our fifth anniversary of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: our debut album coming up. As well, so we're probably
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: we might be doing something for that and might be
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: re releasing some remixed and some newly recorded versions of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: some of our old songs, so that could be fun.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic. That's awesome.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Make sure you put it all up on social media
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: so we.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Can see as well. Yeah for sure.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for joining us here. Everyone
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: can go stream elements on the twenty ninth of November.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: OH Worries, thanks for having us