Video Interview: Johni Holiday of Ruff Majik on Making Records, Brewing Pandemic Beer & More
Who’s in Ruff Majik? According to Johni Holiday, founding guitarist/vocalist of the Lydenburg, South African rockers Ruff Majik, it kind of depends on the day. He definitely is. And longtime producer Evert Snyman — whose name I almost learned to pronounce correctly in the interview below — is a pretty reliable presence one way or the other. The latter was never more present than on the band’s 2020 third album, The Devil’s Cattle (review here), released last Fall, contributing to songwriting and piano and vocals as well as production, working alongside Holiday at a time when usual compatriots Jimmy Glass (bass) and Benni Manchino (drums) were separated by a strict pandemic lockdown. Somehow during this process, Ruff Majik became the five-piece you see above: Holiday, Snyman, Glass, Manchino and keyboardist/guitarist/etc.-ist Cowboy Van, and there were other players involved as well, such as Vincent Houde of Montreal’s Dopethrone turning in a guest appearance on “Born to be Bile.”
That, ultimately, is the ‘majik’ of The Devil’s Cattle — you never know quite where it’s going to head next. With influences that span decades and continents as well as styles and multiple songwriters, Ruff Majik‘s sound has never come across as broader than it does on The Devil’s Cattle, and as with many excellent albums released in the last year-plus, it’s a record that’s had to go largely unsupported. Sure, they’ve put out videos — there’s another one coming in June, so heads up on that — but to hear Holiday talk about tour plans that, in addition to Europe, might’ve brought them to the US for the first time, well, that’s a bummer. It’s a global pandemic, you feel for everybody. I tend to specifically feel for bands who put out killer records and didn’t get to hand-deliver them to audiences on tour. The truth of the matter is people are going to spend years mining stuff they missed in 2020, myself included.
Holiday talks a bit about the pandemic, including the South African government’s banning of alcohol and cigarettes during heavy lockdown — that led to him brewing his own beer, as he mentioned here last Spring — and the possibility of another wave hitting the country. But he also talks about writing the band’s next record, including with some varied points of inspiration and, yes, personnel, as well as bringing Snyman into the band itself for The Devil’s Cattle, also playing on Snyman‘s 2021 solo album, Hot Mess (review here), needing to quit smoking — c’mon, man — and more.
Though we’ve been in touch before, this was the first time Holiday and I have spoken face-to-face (as it were), and it was a good chat. I’ll look forward to talking with him about going goth next time out.
Enjoy:
Ruff Majik, The Devil’s Cattle Interview with Johni Holiday, May 20, 2021
Ruff Majik‘s The Devil’s Cattle is out now through Mongrel Records. You can see the videos from it so far as well as stream it below.
