Bukowski's Triumphant Return: From Creative Hiatus to 'Superweak' - An Exclusive Interview with James 'Bassy' Karagiozis

Earlier this year, Bukowski ended their creative hiatus with their first new single since 2021, 'One Hundred Seconds',which received support from 'Triple J’s Mornings' and 'Short.Fast.Loud', and coverage from 'Wall of Sound', 'Pilerats','HEAVY Mag', 'Happy Mag', 'The Rock Pit', and more. Bukowski’s return marks a new beginning for the band. Despite a break to work on new music and focus on their personal lives, the boys haven’t lost their bite since their 2017 debut EP,'Grow Up. Give Up. Let Go'. They have consistently released gutsy, emotive, and rough-around-the-edges singles, including 2021’s 'Elevator Song', and have shared the stage with bands like Knuckle Puck, Trophy Eyes, and Deaf Havana. With their latest single 'Superweak' now released, we managed to chat with James “Bassy” Karagiozis about the single and the origins of Bukowski.

The band originated back in early 2016 when two friends, James (Bassy) and Benji had just met, recently moving to Melbourne.

"We were just hanging out and chillin', we both loved music so we just started putting some ideas down together for fun. The name didn’t come for a little while later, I think Benji was reading some Charles Bukowski and said ‘Hey this guy's writing is kinda fucked yo and honest like your lyrics, why don’t we call the band Bukowski?’"

Influences can make or break music, some bands struggle to find new influencing sounds or other artists, for Bukowski, finding motivation and influence from heavy hitters like The Eagles, Switchfoot, Box Car Racer and many more.

"Everything kind of comes to me all at once, sometimes it’s heavily defined in my mind and other times it is a feeling or a theme I want to be captured. Sometimes I will get a whole video clip idea before I’ve even finished a song, or I’ll see a potential album cover before we had even had enough songs for the record"

Bukowski's lyricism is phenomenal, touching on other people's perspectives and not always focusing on the emotions the band members are facing. Bassy goes on to elaborate.

"Later down the track I’ll be going through something in life and realise I had sent myself a message or explained a situation to myself in the form of a song long before I am going through it. I'm just writing songs for myself, getting my shit down on paper for my own life, I’m glad sometimes it can have an impact on the listeners as well"

With the recent release of their single 'Superweak', which was written preserving someone else's point of view about looking into other people's way of living and how people can easily be misunderstood.

"'Superweak' was written, at the time, from someone else’s perspective or at least someone else’s perspective of me. I was writing about how somebody may find it difficult to understand the way I live my life and how I feel misunderstood a lot of the time even though I’m trying my best to have clear intentions. Then about a year after we finished writing it I was listening to it and realising, maybe I wasn’t as clear or as carefree about my life as I thought. Maybe I am a super anxious person but I was good at hiding it by being loud. Maybe I was so good at hiding it that I was able to hide it from myself"

Live performances can be a significant part of a band's exosystem, crowd-sourcing funds for new singles just like 'Superweak', or getting ready to do an international tour. Bassy touches on live performances by stating:

"To be honest, we just try and play with as much passion as we can and try and have as much fun as we can. we take everyone that we meet as they are and we hope people do the same with us. We talk to the crowd as if we are talking between ourselves and making jokes just like we are all mates hanging out. There are no egos here. We have been testing out 'Superweak' since we’ve written it, it’s been played at a handful of shows and seems to get people's heads bouncing, so I’m hoping when they know the song, they might sing along"

Music can also be an outlet for emotions and a way to let go of the past, Bassy talks about one particular experience in their song 'Brood'.

"I’ve received a few over time, but one that stuck out to me was a friend who came to me and mentioned that our song ‘Brood’ really hit them hard when they were going through a breakup and helped them navigate the situation they were going through. having someone in the industry that I respected telling me that something I wrote about something personal helping them, it was just wild how all of our journeys are so different but also we have similar hardships along the way. I’m just stoked I was able to help a friend unknowingly"