In a world full of sound and look-alikes, BONES UK dares to be themselves. A band led by Guitarist/Vocalist Rosie Bones and Lead Guitarist Carmen Vandenberg, BONES UK may immediately strike you as empowering female-centric music, but really, they are so much more. Comfortable in their own skin, these ladies blend Classic Rock, Blues Rock, and more modern elements to create something truly their own.
Factors that have rightfully helped them stick out: in 2019, their single “Pretty Waste” earned a Grammy Nomination for Best Rock Performance. Beyond this, their self-titled debut album made it on many lists as the best Rock album of that same year.
Impressive, some may ask – where are BONES UK now? Well, in 2024, they returned with a more expansive sounding Soft album, which should challenge as one of the best Rock records of this year. Showing growth, BONES UK also shows they are not some trendy here today and gone tomorrow act… because they are here to stay. Excited for the future, Ms. Rosie Bones herself sat down to recap the last few years of the band, their artistic progression, staying true to themselves, the hypocrisies surrounding us, plus more.
Cryptic Rock – We have spoken a couple of times through the years. The last time we spoke was back in 2019. A lot has happened for the band since then. You had success with a record release and award nominations. Before diving into the new music, how would you describe the journey of Bones UK since we last spoke?
Rosie Bones – It’s been a pretty wild five years. It’s been such a journey, which is the right word for it because we were on this trajectory where things were happening. We moved to LA. Then, it was just before 2020, and it felt like everything was finally coming together. It’s incredible. We got nominated for a Grammy. It was amazing. Then, COVID happened, and it just stopped everything, as it did for all musicians and most people’s lives. It just put complete breaks on everything.
That year, 2020, was touring with Royal Blood. We had our first late-night television show appearance on the day that the world shut down. We’re on Seth Meyers. As we were there during the day, bit by bit, all the guests canceled because they were scared of COVID. Then, there was going to be no studio audience. Then it was, “Well, do the show. We’ll record you guys, but it’s not going to go out after this is all sorted.” That didn’t go out for another two years.
So many amazing things happened. It was just like everything stopped. There were two years of nothing happening, and all of us were questioning our lives and whether music was ever going to start up again. Within that period, we had every intention. And we did. I was writing continually. The album took quite a long time to get out because we lost two years to humaning, being scared, and just being humans.
There are a lot of changes going on in the world. It’s been a really amazing growth period and learning period. We do feel like we’re starting the band again in some respects because it’s been so long. It’s a lot like re-reminding people of who we are because it’s been such a long time.
Cryptic Rock – Exactly. As you mentioned, it was like the world stopped for everyone, particularly the music industry. You also mentioned you had reached a point where things were starting to pick up, and all of a sudden, “Oh, great. Here we go.” You kept writing, which is good. We all started to question who we are as people, what we do, what we value, and what is important. Was that discouraging when all that happened?
Rosie Bones – I don’t know whether discouraging is the right word, but it was more like the worth of what you did. When we started this band, it’s like you die for it. This is my life. I’ll do anything to make it, and you have that energy.
What COVID did for lots of people, is it just changed your perspective on the worth of the things that you did? Everything just seemed a bit silly, didn’t it? All the things, especially being creative, were really hard to remember, especially the worth of what you did and why it was important. At that time, it was just a kind of survival, even for mental health and stuff. Writing songs felt a bit; I was doing a lot of it, but it was hard.
It was hard to find things to write about. I don’t write songs unless they are coming from the truth. Within that, a lot of the stuff that Bones was about, such as self-image, confidence, and all those things that I always thought were and are incredibly important, at that time just didn’t mean much. They were secondary to the fact that we thought everyone was going to die.
We didn’t want to write a record of the lockdown sessions. It was hard to find that creativity or that voice within what we did was hard to attach to. It just shifted my perspective on music and how important it is. I know how important music is, but it made you zoom out and question that for a second. It’s been a journey getting back there.
Cryptic Rock – Absolutely. It’s been a journey for everyone. You dig down and find that inspiration again. You find something that gives you that fire again, which is a good policy. You did that because the new album is spectacular. These songs took a while to put together. What was it like to write and record this record?
Rosie Bones – It was grabbing scraps of time that we could. It was coming together, falling apart, then coming together differently, trying that, and then falling apart. It was a disjointed experience full of lots of humans.
It was lots of human emotions, people going through their stuff, and struggling with mental health. It was a messy experience. It wasn’t easy. I’m not going to lie that it was. It was hard. No one knew what they were doing or where they wanted to be. We left LA. I fled LA and thought, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” We just drove around in a car.
Then we’d be like, “Let’s get the album done,” and then you’d meet up and do it for a bit. Then the world would fall. What happened within that disjointed experience over time was that it meant that we had this body of work from which we could cherry-pick the best songs. We had 150 songs by the end of it. We then had the hindsight to know what the best songs were and understand that.
As artists, you always tend to think that your most recent work is the best. You’re writing your song, and you’re like, “It’s the best song I’ve ever written.” It’s often not the case. What happened in this experience is we got to subjectively look at the songs and the art and be like, “No, that is actually the best. That’s the best one. That stood the test of time almost. That still is great.” That’s why we’ve got the album that we have. We’re proud of it.
Cryptic Rock – As you should be. You had quite a substantial amount of material to sift through to figure out what you wanted to put on this record because you whittled it down to 11 tracks. These are strong tracks. It shows a progression in the band’s sound. Upfront most is the genuine quality of your lyrics. Like you said, it’s always got to come from the heart. It seems to always be the case. As you also said, it was hard to think about things as far as our image when so much was going on in the world. What was it like getting back in the headspace, and the moment that clicked for you, things started flowing out and making sense?
Rosie Bones – Whenever we write a song or do anything, when we started the band… It’s a process that I use when creating art. There are so many ways you can go to make things. There are so many options. There are so many decisions that you can make.
The way that I can whittle down the choices is to set up walls or parameters, build the world, and all the decisions that you make have to live in that world. When writing this record, what was really important to me was to understand the parameters. What is the vision of the overall thing that we’re trying to create? Then, every decision will make sense within it.
Going into this record, the things that we had from the first record was understanding our fans a lot more. Understanding what resonates with them, what messages, what touches them, what floats to the surface. The big one was when people came up to us saying that they felt empowered.
The most inspiring thing fans say to us is how empowered they feel when listening to us. For this record, it was really important to make that one of the rules: We need this music to make people feel empowered. Another big one is that we feel we’re the voice of the underdog.
There’s this feeling we want to create anthems for people who are struggling a bit or have issues with self-worth or self-confidence. We want to be the leaders and people that rally the troops and hopefully help people feel a bit more confident. That was another rule that we set up.
Once I set up those rules or that world, everything just flowed into it. All of the ideas have to come from me. It’s not like I’m just making up stuff. Everything is then attached to my own feelings that I have had to go through personally within those themes. Then, it’s much easier for things to flow.
Cryptic Rock – It seemed to work well. You mentioned all those things that you figured out that connect with the fans. Another important thing to mention about your lyrics and the music is that they point out the hypocrisies that surround us. There are a good number of people who are bothered by these hypocrisies. Another connection with your music is that you point out these hypocrisies.
There are just so many of them, whether selling sex or selling a certain image of what a man or a woman should look like. You see these contradictions, and it’s upsetting, but the music that you present empowers you to say, “I’m not alone. I see this as well.”
Rosie Bones – Brilliant. I’m so glad to hear that because it’s so important. We try and do it in a way that’s never preachy. We always want that kind of lightness and play and throw those seeds of thoughts into the mix so that everyone feels them.
Cryptic Rock – Right. As you said, you do that with a bit of tongue-in-cheek quality in some of these songs, which drives home even more because sometimes, when an artist takes themselves too seriously, something gets lost in translation.
Rosie Bones – Yeah. Nobody wants to be preached at. It’s not a way to ever get a point across. Arguing with someone is never the way to help people understand your point of view, in my opinion. No one likes the feeling of being told off. It’s just about throwing these thoughts out. I love it. It’s my favorite thing in the world.
Cryptic Rock – Yes. There is an old saying – you catch more flies with honey. If you are constantly negative, preaching to someone and belittling them, you are never going to get anywhere.
Rosie Bones – There’s a song called “Ride” that came out just before the album, and it’s the lyrics, “Why does your car need to be that big? Is it to make up for the size of your tiny dick?” Even within that, it’s not being, “You’re a fucking idiot.” It’s like playing. We played it at this car show, which we thought would be funny. It was great. All the people who had the big cars were like, “What?” It was funny, and they got it. It’s not being horrible. It’s not bullying someone. It’s gently being, “Come on, mate.”
Cryptic Rock – Exactly. That is a good thing. The other thing noticed about the new record is that more of your Blues Rock influences are coming out a little. Is that something that you felt as well?
Rosie Bones – Yes. Definitely. It was important for this record, as all art, in my opinion, to be based on truth. If you’re trying to make something to please people, it’s not going to resonate. Carmen’s background is massively Blues. It was important within this record to give her the space to breathe and go with her instincts, not to try and be cool. Not saying Blues isn’t cool, but do not try and be edgy, just for edgy’s sake. To let her find her voice again within her instrument. Her voice is more blues-leaning if it’s just naturally flowing.
Cryptic Rock – You could feel that in the music, for sure. In our original interview six years ago, you said that you would like to call Bones’ music Future Rock. That was a cool statement. If what you are doing is the future of Rock, we are in good hands because it pays homage to Classical Rock and Blues Rock. It has a uniqueness to it, which is cool.
Rosie Bones – Yeah. It’s important to us. When starting the band, it was so important not to sound like other people, to never be able to be compared. We like that. For people to not put their finger on what we’re like.
Our radio people have nightmares with us because we’re too old for Rock and too Rock for old. I don’t care. It is more important for us to try and do something different, new, and exciting.
Cryptic Rock – Most certainly. What you just mentioned goes back to more of the hypocrisies around us because they need to sell something, right? They need to put it in a box and sell it on a radio station. This whole idea of, “Well, it doesn’t fit this genre. It doesn’t fit in that genre.” What does it matter? It’s all Rock-n-Roll. It’s all music.
Rosie Bones – Things are so much more fluid these days – Country, Rock, Pop, and all this. If you’re not at the very base level, just love what you do. You have to love and stand behind what you do with your full soul.
The big life lesson that I’m learning more and more as a human and an artist is to do your best and love what you do, but then try not to have any expectations on it. Put it out and don’t attach—this is going to happen with it or when people hear this. Just do everything you can to create good work, release it into the world, and move on. Expectations are the root of all evil, I think.
Cryptic Rock – That is a good point. Let what happens with it happen with it, but concentrate on creating the music. That is a great outlook to have. It is funny how you said that things are crossing genres now with everything with Pop, Country, Rock, and whatever it may be. It is so interesting because it seems there seems to be more segregation of music than ever in different genres. There are a gazillion different genres at this point. Where did some of these genres come from? Thinking back to ’80s Pop radio, you would have Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston, and Guns N’ Roses.
Rosie Bones – Yeah. Some radio!
Cryptic Rock – Exactly. So what is going on now? It is very weird.
Rosie Bones – I don’t know. It feels like another way to make things harder sometimes.
Cryptic Rock – It is an interesting study. With Soft out, you did some touring with Bush, yes?
Rosie Bones – Yes, the Bush tour was amazing. The last show was at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. The next idea is to be starting to do some headline shows. That’s being organized.
Cryptic Rock – Okay. Great. You mentioned fan reactions. Do you find that equally men and women are attracted to the music and reacting to it in a way?
Rosie Bones – Yeah. We do. We have this rep for being a feminist band, in which we are strong women. Our fan base is so balanced. It’s male and female, 100%. Young and old, it’s a big mix. The messaging and what we’re trying to do transcends most boxes.
Cryptic Rock – Because it’s honest and resonates the most with people. They could try to sell something as much as they can. What sells is honesty.
Rosie Bones – Agreed. Amen. Thank God. I agree, and you can smell it. We got to a big point where things felt very disingenuous. It felt very manufactured, like the big Pop stars, and didn’t feel real. I do feel like we’re entering a stage where there’s been a bit of a kickback from that.
Because we’ve had that for so long, I feel some of the amazing, very raw artists are coming through, and people like that. They like that feeling of something a bit more raw and honest now, which is great.
Cryptic Rock – Yeah. That is what real Rock-n-Roll was always about. You go to Janice Joplin; that’s really what it was about. It was about the rawness and the honesty in the music. It is good to see that people are catching on to that again.
Rosie Bones – Yeah. Thank God.
Cryptic Rock – Some will try to put down younger people, saying they don’t have good taste in music. That is not necessarily true. If you give them something good, they will like it. It is all a matter of what is in front of you.
Rosie Bones – Agreed.
Cryptic Rock – Yeah. You are originally from the UK. You have been in America for quite some time now, whether it be in LA or Nashville. Having spent more time living in the United States the way you have, what do you think are the differences between the culture and everything that you have experienced?
Rosie Bones – They’re just completely different places. The consumerism thing here is much more heightened. I do feel like I’m being tapped for money all the time or sold to. There’s a lot more of that. I do think in America, everything feels turned up. It’s just bigger. That’s something that America is very proud of as well. Some really good things are bigger as well.
The consumerism side of things feels very, especially in LA, very, “Oof.” The people, to be honest, differ so much from state to state in America. State-to-state is completely different. The general overarching thing is that it feels like everything’s turned up.
I feel there is a thing here where people help each other more. In England, it’s much more you hoard your gold. You don’t let people touch your gold. It’s very you don’t help because if you do, that’s somehow going to diminish your ladder. You don’t give people your contacts because they might use them and be more successful than you. In America, there’s much more of a “Come on, guys, let’s all do this together. Yeah, sure. Let’s meet up. We’ll talk about it. Here’s my guy. Here’s an introduction.” It’s much more like that, and I enjoy the mentality of helping each other out. Especially in Nashville, it’s nice for that. I think those are the differences.
Cryptic Rock – That is an interesting perspective that you find Americans more helpful. The feeling of being sold is also very relatable. If you are watching television, it seems like they are selling you something every ten minutes in between whatever you are watching. It always seems like it is a pharmaceutical medication.
Rosie Bones – When you tap into it, you start noticing it. It’s a bit relentless.
Cryptic Rock – It is relentless. What is advertised changes from generation to generation. Within the past ten to fifteen years, every other commercial has been for some sort of medication, at least in the United States.
Rosie Bones – Yeah, medication or anti-aging stuff. That’s a huge schedule at the moment. Massive.
Cryptic Rock – It also goes back to the self-image.
Rosie Bones – Exactly.
Cryptic Rock – Selling medications so that you don’t have to eat well. You could take this, and you will drop one hundred pounds. Extremely troublesome!
Rosie Bones – Bonkers. Yeah, it’s weird. Yeah, that’s a big one for me. Whenever I go back to England, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, it’s different here.” It’s not like that there. Different.
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