When you think of music for kids you think of groups like The Wiggles and Hi-5. Well if you want your kids to listen to something a little rockier we have a saviour on the way with Bunny Racket. The brain child of Andy Walker (aka King Bunny) Bunny Racket also features Robbie Krieger from The Doors and legendary tour manager of The Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead Sam Cutler lends his hand to some vocals on the new Bunny Racket album as well. And if you aren’t convinced of Bunny Racket’s rock pedigree yet, well the album was put together at Brant Bjork’s (KYUSS) Joshua Tree Studios.
Now with an album about to be released, a TV show in the works and Bunny Racket about to hit Melbourne for some shows HEAVY Mag caught up with Andy Walker (King Bunny) for a bit of a chat.
“It came from years of rock n roll and a whole lot of friends stating to have families,” says Walker when I asked where the idea for Bunny Racket came from. “Then my own family started to have kids and I started to look around at what was there and what started to scare me was that with all these kids around there was so much bad kid’s music and there was all that sugar-pop-fluff-stuff that goes with having kids and I just thought ‘honestly where is the rock n roll?’ Rock n Roll has been such an awesome thing in my life and I just thought that it should be for everyone… but it wasn’t there. So yeah I just thought about how to introduce my friend’s kids to rock n roll and I wanted to be that cool uncle or that cool friend that could bring things into kids lives that would be there forever.”
“Kids are really honest with what they like and what they don’t like which actually made things a lot easier,” Walker explains as we talk about how he deals with the fact that kids can be so honest with their feedback. “Kids just want to have a good time and so do we. Adults want to have a good time but kids will be so much more honest about it – they will be like ‘yeah nah I don’t like that’ or ‘that is better than that’. But it is also easier to engage with kids as an audience as well because they are so instant, they don’t sit back and think about it too much if something is making them want to dance they will dance. If they are having fun they will let you know. I have a couple of kids and they are my guides will all of us. When I go into the studio it will be with the songs that the kids have latched onto and keep singing.”
You can listen to our full Bunny Racket interview on Spotify and you can see them play live at the follow dates:
Northcote Social Club – Saturday 9th of February at 1.30pm
St Kilda Festival (Little Catania Stage) – Sunday 10th of February at 4.15pm
