Ruff Majik Interview: Johni Holiday Talks Elektrik Ram, Mental Health and Much More
Next Friday, South African fuzz rock luminaries Ruff Majik issue their new album, Elektrik Ram, through Mongrel Records. It’s slated to stream here in its entirety on Thursday the 27th with a full review, and in the interest of honesty and in keeping with what I feel is the spirit of the release — so, again, honesty — I’ll confess I’m a little nervous to write about it.
Rest assured, I’ve heard it enough. Can’t stop listening, actually. But that’s only part of the point. I’m addition to being maddening in its catchiness and setting a standard for memorable songcraft that nothing I’ve heard so far this year comes close to touching, the album follows in brutally upfront and sometimes hilarious fashion a narrative of mental health crisis on the part of guitarist/vocalist Johni Holiday — also responsible for the odd bit of percussion; like, say, a whole box of instruments being shaken at once.
This story plays out as Elektrik Ram engages the fullness of real life in love songs, the odd bit of triumph as in the second verse of its title-track (“I come to lay waste”) and good fun mined from tales of terror and paranoia like “Delirium Tremors” or the brash-as-fuck-and-it-knows-it leadoff “Hillbilly Fight Song,” which is enough to make you believe Waffle House opened a franchise in Lydenburg. I’ll save the review for the review (too late), but through it all, the songwriting recounts the tale without losing a beat or giving up any of its immediacy for the sake of narrative. It’s not the kind of record that comes along every year, and for the band, a high point of their career to-date.
Among its other strengths in structure, melody, performance, variety, and so on, Elektrik Ram is rife with minute aural details, be it the continuity thread of samples as they relate to the material itself or the or that triangle in “Delirium Tremors” that’s so
purposefully obnoxious. Or maybe it’s just that part where the corporate boss from the “high-flying world of riff management” comes on with the many big plans for Zurich, Budapest, Shanghai, speculating that Philadelphia will be tough, whereas New York and Chicago are pushovers in what’s obviously a joke, but probably a fair assessment nonetheless.
All of these moments are collected throughout the album, and so in setting up this interview, there was a TON of shit that I wanted to discuss with Holiday. To wit, the interview runs over an hour and I didn’t even get to ask if he was tempted to fade the end of closer “Chemically Humanized” after including “I’ve seen the end/It fades out slow” in the lyrics of the earlier “Mourning Wood.” There are a bunch of those kinds of things that are discussed, however, so part of my hesitation here as well comes from the fact that, if you’re reading or watching this today, right now, you probably haven’t heard the full record yet.
I could’ve waited to run this until after Elektrik Ram is out, but at the same time, it’s a pickle since I already know I’ll want to refer to information from this interview in the album review, so having it here helps that. I’d tell you to check it out maybe after the release but how fucking likely is that not fucking likely at all thank you very much. So here we are.
It’s a good chat though, either way, and Holiday goes deep on the state he was in when some of this material was being written and recorded. It’s worth a watch or I wouldn’t be posting it, is what I’m saying, but no question you’ll have more context for it after next week when the album stream goes live. We make the most of what we have when we have it.
So please, enjoy:
Ruff Majik, Interview with Johni Holiday, March 17, 2023
Ruff Majik release Elektrik Ram April 28 through Mongrel Records. Initial singles can be heard on the player below, and more info is at the links that follow.
