Melbourne Ska Orchestra Create A Cinematic Ska-ghetti Western With Their New Album
Ska flag-bearers and homegrown fan favourites, Melbourne Ska Orchestra are currently recording their new album and preparing for their mammoth 2025 global tour spanning Australia, Japan and Canada.
When we speak to band leader Nicky Bomba, he had just finished at the studio for the day after working on their new album. "It's called 'The Ballad Of Monte Loco' and it's like we're writing the soundtrack to a film that hasn't been released yet," Nicky explains.
"We're heavily using [influence from] Ennio Morricone; one of the members of the band used to be in a show that toured that live, with all the sound effects. He's an amazing whistler and he's in the band, Pat Cronnin.
"Ska for me and what we do with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra is about hybrids. It's really easy, just to kind of stay in the old kind of formula but I think it's really important to try different things.
"It's really the food that drives you, you know. So we like to have parameters when you're recording an album going like 'let's just do spaghetti Western ska, we can even call it 'Ska-ghetti', 'Ska-ghetti Western Chronicles''. So there was a real easy play on it."
In the studio, Nicky and the Melbourne Ska Orchestra have so far done a loose narrative in four sections over twelve songs, and have used everything from whips, castanets, shakers, harmonica, steel guitar, mariachi horns, acoustic guitars, melodicas, accordions, organ and piano. Seeing the album translated live is going to be a whole new experience to their shows.
"I love life so much, it's incredible. The older I get the more I am energised by this existence." - Nicky Bomba
Their latest single, 'Walls Of Jericho', carries this cinematic spaghetti Western sound. Nicky was sitting on this chorus for a long time, but never landed properly until now. The lyrics conclude with a powerful message of hope while exploring the futility of war and how history often repeats itself.
The topical messaging has always been present in ska and Nicky says it's constantly been an underlying theme of their music. "It was the music of the people.
"It really came about through the independence of Jamaica, they wanted to kind of stake their own thing. 'We've got independence, we've got our energy.' Then when things kind of went 'oh it's not as they said it would be', they used ska as the voice.
"In essence all the ska that we do and reggae – it all came from the ska scene – is about being topical and questioning and food for thought and stuff like that. A lot of our songs have already got that, but probably not as relevant as it is right now."
One of the band's crowning achievements is the 'One Year Of Ska' project, which was released in 2019. It was 52 recorded songs mixing covers and originals with a song released each week of the year. It was a massive undertaking that led to the band winning an ARIA Award.
It's the only guide you need if you're looking to explore the history and creativity of ska. "It was madness really, to even think we could have, it was crazy. It was such a beautiful thing to do," Nicky remembers.
"The first 13 [songs] we recorded all the classic ska things, a little bible of ska, if you want an introduction to ska here it is, the first 13 songs. So we played, recorded and sang and did all those. We did one a week but we had to kind of start to be working two songs ahead a lot of the time.
"The second batch was TV and movie themes. . . We did everything from 'Family Guy', to 'Narcos', 'Skippy', 'Game Of Thrones', 'Star Wars', so we did 13 of those in ska. Played them, recorded them, arranged them, all the horn sections.
"The [next] 13 was called 'Read All About It!', which were newspaper articles and that's when it got hairy because we were writing stuff on the spot. The last 13 was called 'Transmission Fridays' and we came out every Friday so we basically had to write 26 new tunes."
Having one of the biggest, best and most fun orchestras in Australian music is a blessing for Nicky, but it's also a double-edged sword when trying to organise a schedule for about 30 musicians. "We often liken it to a soccer team, I have an amazing team. I co-manage the band with Wally Maloney, he also plays trombone with the band.
Nicky has had such a career with Melbourne Ska Orchestra and the other many projects he's been a part of, like being the drummer of John Butler Trio, Bomba, and Bustamento as well as his solo work, to name just a few.
You would think he'd slow down eventually, but there's still plenty left to do. From wanting to do a film with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, toasting gigs, the Freebird Dubbers and his new project MoonJuice, where does he find the energy?
"I love life so much, it's incredible. The older I get the more I am energised by this existence. It's amazing. The wonder of life and to be healthy and to be in a position – like most people still got the mortgage and everything – but able to at least experiment with things with my own studio and where I live is beautiful."
