With a Film, A Single, Family and Friends It’s Full Speed Ahead for Billy Bones
By DONNA BALANCIA – The Sold And Bones is a good-time punk band, with Billy Bones having a career that has been going strong since the late 1970s.
If you’re a punk fan you won’t want to miss this dynamic group that plays tonight at the Maui Sugar Mill with Prima Donna.
“It’s awesome to get together with Prima Donna and those guys, I call them the Velvet Boys, cause they really get it,” said Billy Bones.
The bands have been collaborating for a while, Billy Bones said. “They’re stylish, they got the music; and there’s a gang of them, they know who they are.”
Veteran punker Billy Bones knows what he’s talking about. He was the lead singer the 1977 L.A. punk band The Skulls, as well as the band Forbidden Colors between 1979 and 1980, he formed The BillyBones in 2006, and Sold and Bones came together six shows ago.
Billy Bones’ various bands and Prima Donna have been intertwined as friends going back some years. Sold And Bones is Easy Lou Jones on vocals and guitar; Charles La Ferrera on bass and backing vocals and Justin McGrath on drums and backing vocals.
The Sold And Bones is putting out a cool single, “All Night Rocker” written by Kevin Preston from Prima Donna, Billy Bones and Drew Milford, the original bass player from Billy Bones’ band.
It came about because of the documentary film based on Billy Bones’ life. “All Night Rocker” was the closing track for the film Who is Billy Bones, a documentary by Kathy Kolla released last year. It’s about how Billy Bones came out to L.A., put his band The Skulls together and ripped up the L.A. punk scene.
“It’s going to be released at some point maybe within the next year,” Billy Bones said. “Who Is Billy Bones is about family and the struggles, and love. I get to take people down to The Masque, where we played 30 years ago, it’s really an interesting film. It’s humbling to me, how people have reacted to it; my mom’s in it, my dear friends are in it.”
So Billy Bones was looking for the B side to the single “All Night Rocker.” Easy, who came to work as the bass player in Billy Bones band, came up with “You Just Don’t Get It,” for the B side and voila! The single was planned.
“Easy did it all,” said Billy Bones. “He came up with so many songs and before you knew it we had 10 songs. We already recorded a live CD, now we’re going into the studio and do proper album.”
Stay tuned.
