John Beaudin - Hi Jamie, nice to have you on the site again. How have you been?

Jamie Bonk - Hey John, I've been great! I've been working like crazy. With the new record out I've been doing so much which includes the business side of things. I've been so busy but it's great to have my dad helping out.

John - Ed Bonk! He's the man. I love your dad. He's "the" promo guy.

Jamie - (laughing) Yes, he is.

(left to right) Randy & Jamie Bonk filming the video to"My World"

John - I've never managed to talk to your dad for less than an hour at a time. (laughing) Hell, I have a better relationship with your dad than I do with my own. (laughing)

Jamie - (laughing) Once he gets going it's non stop. He took to promotions like a fish to water. There are a few promotions companies who just promote via email. I don't think that really works and my dad needs to talk to people, promotions work better one on one.

John - Hey, I was watching the video "My World" for the new album and I knew you'd arrived when I saw you walking aimlessly on there. That's a rights of passage every artist has to do that walk!

Jamie - (laughing) Hey, did you like the nice fade out at the end?

John - Seriously it's a nice video. Your brother Randy did a nice job.

Jamie - I thought he did a smokin' job. We had a lot of sleepless nights and I just pushed and pushed him. (laughing) There was one day where I think he was hating my guts. I went to his place and he looked at me and said, "Jamie if you ask for one more edit I'm going to kill you."

John - I see you chose the moving boxes over the hot chicks in the video.

Jamie - (laughing) Sorry, in the next video I'll work on getting the hot chicks in there. I told my wife the only thing missing was the dancing chicks but she wouldn't let me get them. You know using moving boxes was an easy way of doing the video since we didn't need crane shots or anything or the expensive wide angle lenses. The video was such a big deal to do but it took so long and Randy didn't have a powerful enough computer and every time we had to do an edit it would take a year to render. The beginning of the movie the "Italian Job" had the same kinds of boxes in there.

John - It's broadcast quality, right?

Jamie - Yes it is and it's on my website www.jamiebonk.com .

John - Make sure you send it to Cameron Smith at Smooth Jazz TV.

Jamie - I will. You know with instrumental music it's a little tougher to place the video.

John - Will you do another video?

Jamie - If my brother will talk to me. I'm giving him a bit of a break right now. I think I pushed him over the edge. (laughing)

John - "If This Is Love" one of the three vocal tracks on the new album is getting some good airplay. Ron Scott sounds great.

Jamie - Ron should have been a superstar! He still can, I think, and he has the biggest songbook I've ever seen. He has written so much material. He's one of the most talented guys I've ever met. He plays guitar piano and of course he sings and he's a painter as well. He's also written a musical and overall he's done so many things. Ron is also a musical therapist he works with challenged handicapped kids. I think this vocal thing has been something that he's been working towards he just hasn't had the big break yet. When I first heard him sing "If This Is Love" I thought now that's a hit tune.

John - I do like it a lot. I also like him on your remake of the Bee Gees "Night On Broadway." I had that original Bee Gees album "Main Course" back in the mid seventies before they got into Saturday Night Fever.

Jamie - Yeah and the drum track on that just floored me but I didn't want to but the same type of thing on my version I had to change it. I wanted to put my own spin on it to put my own esthetic on it especially with someone like the Bee Gees who are really iconic in there sound. Their writing is so strong and their vocals are in a class of their own so I had Ron sing it with a smoky voice and he didn't sing it in a falsetto range. I think that's why this record took so long to make because I really wanted the vocal tracks to fit into what it is I do.

John - Yeah, you didn't want the token vocal tracks.

Jamie - You know it and I hate that. With this album you can listen to it from the beginning to the end and nothing really sticks out because it really shouldn't be in there. I don't think I could ever do an album of all vocal tracks because it wouldn't represent who I am which is basically a guitar player that's all I do.

John - Hey man, I have to correct you there, you have enough titles to belong to a hyphenated support group; you're a guitarist, a composer, a producer and programmer! Get the title straight! (laughing)

Jamie - (laughing) You're reading my website dude! I think most artists now are hyphenated to a certain degree especially if you're an independent you're wearing a lot of different hats. You have to know how to record your guitar or your voice or both. You need to know how to put MP3's on your website. I think it's a different reality especially for independents.

John - You've said in the past that it's weird writing your own bio for you website but it's your job sometimes as an independent.

Jamie - You know I used to write in the third person, You know "Jamie used to do this and that"

John - (laughing) Only Wayne Gretzky talks like that!

Jamie - (laughing) Does Gretzky talk in the third person?

John - He used to but hell he's Gretzky he can talk anyway he wants. I was just emailed the other day from an old fan of New Age Voice Magazine who really missed them. I know we touched on it last time we talked but man that was a huge loss.

Jamie - It was a shame and there really hasn't been anything to really replace them, not as big anyway.

John - I get record companies telling me sometimes how great this site is and how big it is now that we're over 17 hundred pages but I always remind them if they want to keep it going they better support it with their advertising budgets. I talked to Barbara Taylor the last editor of New Age Voice and she told me the same story of how many people loved the magazine but didn't support it with advertising money. I know all the big Smooth Jazz sites could use more of it, there's really only 3-4 of us out there that are at that level. Hey, you played hockey right?

Jamie - Oh yeah tons of it as well as Lacrosse, wrestling, Tai Kwon Do and skateboarding, any kind of thing where you could hurt yourself. (laughing)

John - (laughing) Hey, Ed Bonk, lay off your son, he's just a kid damn it!

Jamie - (laughing) Oh, he was a real hockey dad.

John - Hey, I played Hockey for something like 12 years and my Dad saw me play only once so there's the other extreme. I was a goalie and the only time he saw me play we lost something like 14-0 and after the game he came up to me knowing nothing about hockey and said, "Are the pucks supposed to go in that often." (laughing)

Jamie - (laughing) Oh, that's priceless. My brother was a goalie.

John - Every family has one if there are enough boys in there. Do you play at all now?

Ron Scott

Jamie - No, not really. I'd like to get back into it but I live with that fear of breaking a hand. I'm a guitarist and I have to be careful. Well, that's my own thing. Do you play?

John - All my 1970's goalie equipment is hanging up in my basement like a shrine. I can't seem to get myself to sell it though I've heard that my Fibrosport Jacques Plante mask is worth hundreds on EBAY. I'd like to play in a beer league, like I need an excuse to drink more beer!

Jamie - Well, my brother says it's a staple of the Canadian diet.

John - How far back do you and Ron Scott go?

Jamie - I think the late eighties. I graduated in 1987 and I met him a year or two later and we clicked right away. We were playing in three or four bands together over the years. It always seemed that every group that we were in together just never took off. We'd stick around for a bit then there would be a knife fight between the drummer and the bass player. (laughing)

John - Oh, that's so sweet, I love those heartwarming stories.

Jamie - (laughing) Yeah, we still play quite a bit together just not as much as we did when we were in a band together.