Not A Spelling Error, It Is Fcukers.

I decided that this NYE just gone, was the perfect time to get up on my mate’s decks for the first time.

I was throwing a house party and being the host and all, I felt as though my friends would be gracious enough to ignore, or potentially not even remember given what was being consumed, a few harsh transitions. I pretty much mixed in Fcukers, Fcukers, Doechii, and Fcukers. Now despite me forgetting that I actually had to manually bring in the next song once or twice… I’d say, all in all, it was a huge success. I am, however, happy to admit that it was likely a success, because it had very little to do with me and that of my amateur skillset, and far more to do with the tracks that I was playing.

And don’t worry I made sure to give credit where credit was due, after the interview.

Shanny Wise and Jackson Lewis Walker, or better known by their stage name as, Fcukers, are doing something entirely new. Yet in many ways, what they’re producing, feels like a love letter to that of the past.With a sound steeped in modern electronica, while maintaining an old-school house feel, tied all together by Shanny’s velvety vocals, it’s impossible for your body to maintain any sort of inhibition. And the best part is that their energy on stage is everything that you could hope for. It’s cool, nostalgic, and oh, so god damn sexy.

I caught up with Shanny and Jackson, backstage at Sydney’s Laneway Festival, to ask them a few questions. Here’s how the conversation went.

You released your first track as a band in 2023. Tell me how that happened?

We had a mutual friend who introduced us and Jackson had this early demo of Homie Don’t Shake, and he played it for me and asked if I wanted to sing on it. I was like hell yeah! I just started going over to Jackson’s house and we were like, should we put out a song? And then decided, fuck it, let’s just see what happens.

Well, we’ve been running your stuff a lot down here this summer. And although there is a lot of chat about BRAT summer, I do truly feel it has also been a bit of a Bon Bon summer, for us Aussies.

Yeah?!

So, that leads me into a question: What does Bon Bon mean to you guys?

I don’t know if there is much meaning behind it per say, it was more, like, a phonetic thing… I remember Shanny had just come back from Jamaica, and she loves going to Jamaica, so I kind of just made this beat that we were sort of singing gibberish to. And I don’t really know why we landed on ‘Bon Bon’, but we just liked how it sounded.

That’s cool. Tell me what you love about Jamaica, Shanny? Jackson just made a point of mentioning it.

Yeah, I like to go there and just hang out. You know go to the beach, drink some pina coladas.

I mean it does seem like a good place to do that.

Yeah.

So, are you both from New York?

Shanny was born and raised there. And I’m from LA actually, but I’ve been in New York for, like, the last ten years now.

Shanny, I read that you were in a band before this? Can you talk me through what that transition was like, going from creating indie music to doing what you are doing now?

I think we both, in our separate paths, had gotten kind of over making indie music. And I had kind of been just messing around on my own, writing and recording, more electronic songs. Just for fun, you know. And then Jackson was on kind of the same thing. We had both reached the same point independently and decided, fuck it, let’s try this.

I really like where your music sits. The way I’ve described it to people who aren’t familiar with your stuff, is that it almost makes me miss the era of 90s house parties, without having even been quite alive yet to have experienced that time. So, I guess I’m interested Jackson, how did you land on this sound?

The funny thing is that I’d played in rock bands since high school. But before I met Shanny, I was DJ’ing a lot in New York for rent money. And I had this one weekly party that was all vinyl, and I would do this six-hour club night. But obviously vinyl is expensive, and I didn’t have a lot of money. So, I was basically bargain bin, crate digging at this one record store and what was in there for like dollar records, were 90s club twelve-inch’s. So that was how I got super into 90s house, just organically, by literally taking stacks to the listening station and going through them. And this club night was on a Monday, which was like the worst night of the week to play. I had no aspirations from the start, you know, I was like Monday night sucks. So, I’m going to play exactly what I want to play, who cares. So, I was playing all this cheap 90s stuff that I was buying, and I could tell that these kids didn’t really know what it was that they were listening to, but they were reacting to it. And I guess that’s why, when Shanny and I met, and we just wanted to make music for fun, that was a big thing that we were pulling from.

That organic, sort of pressure free beginning, is such a beautiful thing because it clearly allowed you to tap into what you actually wanted to play with. Whether it went somewhere or not.

Yeah, yeah.

Clearly it has gone somewhere! You’re playing to thousands of Australians and Kiwis for Laneway. How has it been, have you managed to find much downtime?

Not a lot of downtime, I would say. But it’s been so fun and really cool to keep bouncing to different places. We definitely can’t complain.

Do you feel as though the crowd is much different down under, compared to the crowd back in New York?

I mean it actually blows me away that there is this many people. Even like our side, headline shows have sold so well, I feel like we’ve sold more tickets here then, like, when we played in Washington DC. It’s pretty crazy.

If you’re still here, you’ll be glad to know that there was a strong confirmation, from both Jackson and Shanny, that there is an album well and truly on its way.