by Dan Stapleton

Even more difficult is building a solid, lasting reputation without being accused of selling out or rehashing the same songs ad nauseam. Bearing this in mind, Bodyjar’s career is somewhat anomalous – with close to a decade’s experience, six acclaimed albums under their belt and hordes of dedicated fans, their own brand of brash, unpretentious music-making has consistently innovated and inspired, providing something of a benchmark for scores of upcoming Aussie and international punk-rockers.

Bodyjar’s sixth studio album (‘Plastic Skies’, released in June) is the group’s most impressive collection to date. The band’s signature riffs and muscular structure have been tempered with a new-found cohesiveness that, ironically, seems to be a result of the album’s diversity. "Each song has its own little spot on the album," Cam Baines – Bodyjar’s vivacious singer – explains. "On the first couple of albums we were repeating ourselves and a lot of the songs were fairly similar. With this album we demo’d a lot of tracks and picked the twelve that differed the most." The emphasis on preparation seems to have paid off: ‘Plastic Skies’ is an eclectic, meticulously sculpted dozen that still retains the spontaneity and bite of the ‘Jar’s previous offerings. "Every band aims not to have any filler," Cam continues, "and the key to that is just to do heaps of pre-production and heaps of demos and make sure every song is strong enough to be a single."

Much of the tight unity evident within the band (Cam on vocals, Tom Read playing guitar, Grant Relf on bass and Ross Hetherington drumming) can be attributed to their songwriting, most of which takes place in Cam’s bedroom. "Someone will come around and say, ‘I’ve got this riff,’ and someone else might have another riff that goes with it, and then we just work it a bit," he says. "It’s usually a process that everybody has something to do with. Everyone gets a say. If someone doesn’t like it then we just don’t do it, but we usually agree on most things."

The band rose to prominence in the nineties by riding the global punk wave and touring constantly. Far from resting on the laurels of their early releases, they pounded out long-players and EPs with relentless regularity, spreading their sound across the globe by performing live at every festival or tour that mattered. Early triumphs came when their idols – seminal punkers the Descendants – produced their debut, ‘Take a Look Inside’, in 1994, and when they toured Australia with Pennywise and Blink 182 in 1995. 1996’s ‘Rimshot’ LP was accompanied by more touring in North America and Japan, and their fan base continued to grow exponentially with the releases of No Touch Red (1998), Singles and Stuff (1999) and How It Works (2000), all backed up, of course, by electric concert performances.

Having a live edge is as crucial to Bodyjar’s current success as flashy promotion will ever be, a fact that the group is well aware of. "We’re out there giving it 110% when we play live," Cam says. "It’s pretty energetic. We tend to play everything a tad faster to push it a bit. And Ross goes pretty nuts live sometimes. It’s fitting in as many songs in the time we’re given. We just try to bang out as many as we can." Supported by an enthusiastic crowd of punkers ("They’re not trying to bite each other; they’re trying to have fun," Cam says), the Bodyjar concert experience is a distilled representation of what the band is trying to achieve with its music – it’s invigorating, intense and very loud.

Of course, having a punk scene as strong as Australia’s takes some of the pressure off bands – especially those as influential and popular as Bodyjar – when it comes to securing gigs.  "At the moment the scene’s strong," says Cam. "There are lots of bands out there flying the punk flag. If anything, you could accuse it of being a bit derivative now. There are a lot of bands out there but there aren’t a lot of bands with their own sound. It’s easy to play punk rock but it’s hard to be original."

Hard as it may be, Bodyjar seem to have found the balance between originality and infectious punk anthemry. "We’re in a position now where we can make the records we wanna make and work with the people we wanna work with," Cam says. "I don’t care if we ever recoup the money from a record – we never have and we probably never will. I just want to have enough money to make a really good album."