Bus Call (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - Everything Is Not Every Thing - full transcript
Back in the US the band is disillusioned. We flashback 6 months for a trip to their homeland of South Africa. We learn more about their dad, John Kongos and family history. An emotional interview with Jesse puts everything in perspective.
Episode 6: Everything Is Not Every Thing
After returning from Europe the guys had six
more gigs in December to close out the year
Before the second single was killed, they
had committed to these festival shows
put on by radio stations
to support the song
Now with no radio campaign the station's
had nothing to play leading up to the shows
And though the shows were well attended,
KONGOS didn't make any money on the tour
and looming questions about the
band's future weighed heavily
I'm not saying I have the solutions to any of this, I
just think that we are scattered for various reasons
If we had a hit single none
of this shit would be..
I know but we may not have
a hit single ever again
Certainly not the size of Come With Me
Now - that was a fucking fluke
When we had a hit,
there was nothing getting in our way
We got all the interviews we got all the
fucking TV looks that we uh...
And we didn't parlay it, I'm not blaming us
entirely, we know our team fucked it up..
That's because the emphasis
was on milking a single
instead of developing the band.
We have squandered our energy in the
last six months. All our energy has gone
into the live show or..
"Are you fucking kidding me you put
the wrong CD out". It's exhausting
Well everybody got their predictions
wrong for this year..
Completely fucking wrong. We need a song
to connect, it doesn't need to be huge,
we just need to fucking not disappear.
We made a couple mistakes but I think the
handling of this launch of our, you know,
second major album was a complete fuckup
I really feel like this band needs a
rethink. I have a baby coming.
January, she's due in January so I'm
trying to mentally prepare for that
In South Africa here are KONGOS
They have one of the
biggest hits of the summer.
In 2016 the band launched the
Egomaniac touring and press cycle
with a two-week tour to South Africa.
The brothers grew up in Johannesburg
and South Africa is where
their music career finally took off in 2011
The guys were greeted at the airport by
a rep from their South African label..
an independent, not affiliated with
their US label
We'll be spending most of
our time in Johannesburg
which is where we're originally from
and we've got a family home there.
Coming up here, when we get to this
stoplight, is where we all went to school
Saheti school is a
Greek school founded by this guy called
George Bizos who was one of Nelson
Mandela's lawyers
one of the most important civil rights lawyers
of all time and he started this school
for the Greek community in South Africa
GEORGE BIZOS: Because people say, well we
produce doctors, and we produce lawyers
and we produce this that and the other
But we also produce musicians.
We are very proud of you and thank you very
much for coming back to your Alma Mater
We had to learn Greek and Greek dancing
JESSE: It was all Greek to me
We are at our South African childhood
home in Johannesburg. Dylan and I used to
stay in here, we shared a room we shared
this room.
This used to be the studio.
You can hear how it used to be the studio
Yeah this used to be a big, just a glass
look through from the control room.
That's how excited Mo is to be here.
We are playing three
shows out in South Africa.
Oppikoppi, Cape Town and Durban and before
that we've got like a week off.
We'll be working but at the same time we're
gonna try to show the crew a really good time
The guys took the crew to check out some
of Joburg's international food markets
The only thing I don't like about these places
is there's like 12 million options and it's
impossible to choose and you always
feel like did I get the right thing
And what style of food is this?
It's Congolese
It's Congolese. Oh ok cool.
He's Congolese, I'm Zambian
All right he's Congolese she's Zambian..
I'm Kong, Kongo-ese
mm. It's good.
So we've got some really expensive
"nose-bleed" seats for the rugby on Saturday
usually the "nose-bleed" seats are right at the
back but these ones are at the rugby games
where you get punched in
the face right in the front.
Quick start to the game.
Where are we Michael?
We're at the Radium Beer Hall
We're getting a Cane-Train which is green Cream
Soda and cane liquor. It looks radioactive,
and probably is radioactive. I was
cured of that last time we were here.
None of us,
none of the locals are drinking it
Cheers everybody
It tastes like airplane glue.
No it tastes like Super Glue. Stroh Rum.
So this is a kind of beer that
we have here. Sorghum beer.
This is what we call Makunya...
this is like an African croissant
Just take it to your mouth and bite it.
I got some vanilla ice cream
I'll be honest, it might just be the
best vanilla ice cream I've ever had.
I saw you guys at the opening of Linkin Park. I've
got this shit on my phone! 'Escape' is my favorite.
The last show we played in South Africa was
opening for Lincoln Park at Soccer City
so we played to 65,000 people
and we flew back to America and I think two
days later we played a show to like 12 people
I'm shaking. It's winter and I'm
sweating, I'm so nervous.
In between excursions, the guys have
plenty of work to do to prepare for
their upcoming shows
One of our expression pedals
broke for Joe's rig so
I'm borrowing one from the guitar rig to
see if I can make it work
which it looks like it will.
Mo and I built these canons, smoke canons
On 'I'm Only Joking' smoke rings come flying
out of the stage across the crowd so we
couldn't ship those because they're like
four feet long by three feet wide and they
weigh probably 70 or 80 pounds
So we had our friend Michael - he
has a team that's working for him
he's built some cannons for us and
we're here just getting the fabric
And we're looking for the fabric to
use for our diaphragm of our cannon
So that's the part that
you actually pullback
DYLAN: I've never heard him
use the word diaphragm before.
Yea, I say diaphragm..yea
it's on the blue prints
They're like white prints but whatever
KONGOS it is an absolute honor and a
pleasure to be hosting you on this tour
The future of rock and roll. A few years ago
Just Music founder Karl Anderson said to me
I've got this band you've gotta hear
they're called KONGOS and you're not gonna
believe who their dad is.
I was born in Johannesburg in 1945 just
after the war. I was raised by my mother
and my grandmother and then basically my
grandmother 'cause my mom needed to make
some money and I didn't see her that
much. My mom started the Casbah Roadhouse
in this very small town in 1955, she
subsequently built two more they were
incredibly successful the first one in
particular was the top Roadhouse in the
country and we refurbished the third one
and it's called Johnny Guitar
My mother supported me in the whole
music thing ever since the start.
She was a self-taught - pianist
she was always fanatic about music.
I was 12 when she bought me my first guitar
I got together a few friends
from school and we formed
this band Johnny Kongos And The G-Men
And then we did our first gig at school in
the school hall and they went crazy and that
kind of changed my life really
When I was 16 I had a number-one hit
with the band and that really started
the whole music career
That song ended up being the
first of many number-one hits
resulting in John becoming one of South
Africa's biggest recording artists
One of the worst things to happen to me
really was to be a teen star in South
Africa because I didn't realize how big
the world was and it took quite a while
to make me realize whoa you know y ou got
a long way to go.
I moved to the UK in
1966 to pursue music. I made a few
records there and so then I toured the
UK at a very low level
My first big hit in the UK as an artist was
a song called He's Gonna Step On You Again
which I co-wrote with the
keyboard player in the ex-band
I followed He's Gonna Step On You Again
with a song called Tokoloshe Man which was
based on this mythical bad guy, little
character in South Africa that is a sort
of boogeyman
With his career off the ground, he
built a recording studio in London and
ended up working with some of the
biggest names in the music business.
I started building the studio in about
1970 and within two years we had a
number-one record in fact out of there with
the band called Dexys Midnight Runners.
A lot of people came through the
studio..probably the most well-known
producer who used the studio extensively
was a guy called Tony Visconti and then
Gus Dudgeon who produced Elton John also
used the studio
I met Shelley in 1977 she was only gonna
be passing through London for about two
weeks.. she stayed there for 12 years.
Subsequently we had three kids in the
UK - Johnny
Jesse and Dylan were born in London and
Danny was born in South Africa.
They all embraced South Africa and
sort of grew up there and loved it.
Do you want to go back to England?
No
Why not?
I don't want to.
Why not Dylan, Jess, Joey, gee
What is the reason you don't
want to go back to England?
It's cold.
Hey Jesse, are we close or what?
Yeah, here you go,
for excess sales of 20 thousand
We have the Gold award this side
Oh shit you spelled our name wrong.
Cheers, cheers!
Well what we're doing tonight is, we 're
having a Braai which is the South African
word for barbecue with basically our best
friends that we've known for 25 years now.
He's making traditional
Afrikaans or South African Wurst which
is called Boerewors which means
basically farmer sausage
Things and things and buns good moves.
Jesse's making "pap and
sous" which means mealy pap
which is kind of like
polenta - it's a cornmeal..
and tomato sauce
It's obviously
nostalgic having a party at the place
that you have so many memories from
especially when you basically take all
the same people and make them older you
know. They are the kind of people that
you go away and you come back and
you're right where you started
The guys have interviews and acoustic
performances with the three of
Johannesburg's biggest radio stations before
an afternoon excursion to a traditional market
When we were here in 2012 that was kind
of the kick off of an actual career for us
so since then,
things have been going pretty well.
Pretty smooth sailing.
Thank you so so much for being on the
Martin Bester Drive, really appreciate it.
Its great to.. "lekker" to meet you.
*Speaking Afrikaans - how much
Afrikaans can you understand?"
*A little, I can understand a little*
KONGOS are here, welcome back to the
country gentlemen, it's nice to have you.
Yeah we took the whole crew down
to this part of downtown Johannesburg where
they have the "Muti" market which is the sort
of traditional African medicinal market.
It's like ingredients for
healing potions and healing stews
This one you soak it in water and then
you go around to your yard
to chase away the bad spirits. If you need
some luck this is what you use.
This is "Igobongo" - it helps you
to communicate with your ancestors.
Roots and vegetables and bark and entrails
This is called "Imbiza" -
it's for cleaning blood.
This is for cancer.
This one is like a Viagra
Claws, limbs, skins, fat
There was an entire
hollowed out monkey carcass.
We weren't supposed to film the animal shit
probably because a lot of it is illegal.
This one is for calling,
you know, your loved one.
It helps you to be invisible.
Oh ok.
This is the tricky part - to make it
exactly go across.
More towards me don't pull,
don't pull, don't pull.
Thats a golf ball.
Do you put 2 on?
I don't but should I?
You gotta tilt up.
There we go, there it is.
Perfect
Daddy
We're gonna make pizzas tonight.
Have you ever been to a KONGOS pizza party?
No
It is quite an experience.
Do it well-done
I burned myself on the couch.
Before their performances, they take
the opportunity to spend some time
at a game reserve near
the Kruger National Park.
It's just an incredible experience they
pick you up on Land Rovers and it's
about an hour drive to kind of take you
down into the middle of the park where
the lodge is. So they hand you a beer, you
get on an open vehicle
and all of a sudden you
start seeing animals.
Welcome back, nice to see you.
We're in the middle of Africa
on safari and that's my friend.
Thats my buddy, Rhino. Its a black rhino..
No.
It's a white rhino I
was gonna say that next.
Welcome guys to Klaserie Camps in Kitara. Our
little piece of paradise as we like to refer to it.
There's a guy, a chef and a whole staff
that basically take care - I mean it's
five-star accomodation just
pampered in the middle of the wilderness
You feel like fucking
royalty at this place.
It's 6:30 a.m. We're about to go on our
first morning game drive
We have two guides in
the different vehicles
It looks like I've just found some tracks
Really? Whoa what is that?
That's the tracks of a Land Rover.
Just important that while we
are approaching the sighting,
while we are viewing that
animal and while we are
leaving that sighting, that you guys
stay as still as possible. Any movement
or sound is going to draw the attention
of that animal and we're looking at one
of two things are going to happen. Either
fight or flight and obviously we don't want
either scenario. We want to get
a nice visual of these guys okay
Day one - Game farm. Spotted vultures
accumulating in trees.
Wiseman says must have been a kill,
so we then look for the carcass.
We come over the ridge, and what do we see?
Bing Bang Boom - a pride of lions.
Feasting lions.
Holy shit.
We got the call that the other vehicle had
seen the lions so we made our way over
here. The lions are all feeding on a
carcass of a buffalo then a rhino shows
up so the lions start to chase the Rhino
off. Then as we come to get a better view
of the lion chasing the rhino, we come across
a herd of 12, 15 elephants across the ridge.
So I take a whole one? or is it like..
He's pointing at the leopard tracks,
he's like "these are fresh leopard tracks"
and Mo's like "where do
you think he's going?"
What are they eating?
Are these elephant tracks right here?
Did we find out what lion poop looks like?
Do you know what type of wood this is?
What's their average body
temperature, do you know?
I don't know.
Do you have dogs at home?
Does rhino eat meat?
What type of beef is it?
Filet.
Oh from what animal?
Oh beef..so that's a cow?
Is the one in the middle smiling?
Where's your family?
What's a bird?
How can you tell that's a baby?
That's a good question!
What animal would I be?
I reckon you're a "Shinzeli"
A "Shinzeli" is that a mongoose?
No
Is it a bird?
Is it a bush baby?
It's a honey badger.
A honey badger
Aww a honey badger, cool!
I was gonna say warthog.
The sighting that we saw this morning,
was as good as I've ever seen.
In 25 years some of the greatest viewing
I've had as a guide, so, very special.
The guy's spent two more days on the
game reserve and were lucky to come across
many more incredible sights
Oh my god.
I've got visual still,
but it's not going to be long.
And there's a "Madola" here as well.
Big Madola but they're moving fast.
wow
Oh my god.
You know, I was almost as excited to see what the
crew's response was, you know, fir st timers
here on the game reserve as I was to
actually get here
I just can't even believe that this is where
we are and how fucking awesome this is.
oh there's a little one
When we play this song
overseas, we tell the crowd
that we're going to take them down
to South Africa where we grew up
But now we're here
So let's hear it.
Enjoy the rest of your night
We're in Cape Town.
It's Oppikoppi Day
What is Oppikoppi?
Oppikoppi is fucking awesome.
This is like three days of just people losing
their minds, drinking, getting sunburned
It's like any other festival
except for the dust is crazy
and also South Africans can drink like no
other people on Earth that I've encountered
"Oppi-fucking-Koppi"
So we played in 2012 and that was, it was crazy.
It was one of the best crowds we ever played to
This festival is legendary, it's been
running for 25 years now I think.
Yea it's pretty special to come back to South
Africa and be able to headline that festival.
now..now..now what do we do?
Six months later, the band plays their
final show of 2016 in Elmhurst, Illinois
After months of no progress, communication
with the label has broken down.
2016 for us was, if we're honest, probably
quite underwhelming.
We also could have just gotten our hopes
up too high based on Come With Me Now.
And you know, the years before.
But, I think there were a lot of positive
things like
we went to South Africa. We got to take our whole
crew to where we grew up and stayed in the house we
grew up in, and got to go to the game
farm, and Cape Town and all that
Our tour in the US was encouraging that we
saw where our real base is at in terms of
hardcore fans that are gonna come out to I think
every tour and an album that we... album cycle.
There were good shows and
stuff. The best shows I think Poland,
I think Warsaw was up there. Moscow.
What were some highlights
for you for the past year?
Uh, getting pregnant.
That's kind of you know.. that's in
my mind a lot right now obviously
I have a baby girl due
in a couple of months.
Less than two months really and that puts
this all in perspective for me because
alright whatever our album didn't do great
who gives a shit you know life is...
new life is coming and
that's where I'm at..
Is that going to kinda change your...
Oh
DANNY: He thinks maybe the
baby won't like the album.
That's the start of a new composition isn't
it?
Let's do our exercises okay. Here we
go right hand. 1... 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1
Pretty good.
Next time on Bus Call.
I don't want him to miss anything.
Hola Mexico, we are KONGOS,
and we are here in Mexico City.
Ah fuck.
Technical issues.
I hate today.
Props goes to Danny for living life to
the fullest
*SPANISH* Los amo los amo, KONGOS
After returning from Europe the guys had six
more gigs in December to close out the year
Before the second single was killed, they
had committed to these festival shows
put on by radio stations
to support the song
Now with no radio campaign the station's
had nothing to play leading up to the shows
And though the shows were well attended,
KONGOS didn't make any money on the tour
and looming questions about the
band's future weighed heavily
I'm not saying I have the solutions to any of this, I
just think that we are scattered for various reasons
If we had a hit single none
of this shit would be..
I know but we may not have
a hit single ever again
Certainly not the size of Come With Me
Now - that was a fucking fluke
When we had a hit,
there was nothing getting in our way
We got all the interviews we got all the
fucking TV looks that we uh...
And we didn't parlay it, I'm not blaming us
entirely, we know our team fucked it up..
That's because the emphasis
was on milking a single
instead of developing the band.
We have squandered our energy in the
last six months. All our energy has gone
into the live show or..
"Are you fucking kidding me you put
the wrong CD out". It's exhausting
Well everybody got their predictions
wrong for this year..
Completely fucking wrong. We need a song
to connect, it doesn't need to be huge,
we just need to fucking not disappear.
We made a couple mistakes but I think the
handling of this launch of our, you know,
second major album was a complete fuckup
I really feel like this band needs a
rethink. I have a baby coming.
January, she's due in January so I'm
trying to mentally prepare for that
In South Africa here are KONGOS
They have one of the
biggest hits of the summer.
In 2016 the band launched the
Egomaniac touring and press cycle
with a two-week tour to South Africa.
The brothers grew up in Johannesburg
and South Africa is where
their music career finally took off in 2011
The guys were greeted at the airport by
a rep from their South African label..
an independent, not affiliated with
their US label
We'll be spending most of
our time in Johannesburg
which is where we're originally from
and we've got a family home there.
Coming up here, when we get to this
stoplight, is where we all went to school
Saheti school is a
Greek school founded by this guy called
George Bizos who was one of Nelson
Mandela's lawyers
one of the most important civil rights lawyers
of all time and he started this school
for the Greek community in South Africa
GEORGE BIZOS: Because people say, well we
produce doctors, and we produce lawyers
and we produce this that and the other
But we also produce musicians.
We are very proud of you and thank you very
much for coming back to your Alma Mater
We had to learn Greek and Greek dancing
JESSE: It was all Greek to me
We are at our South African childhood
home in Johannesburg. Dylan and I used to
stay in here, we shared a room we shared
this room.
This used to be the studio.
You can hear how it used to be the studio
Yeah this used to be a big, just a glass
look through from the control room.
That's how excited Mo is to be here.
We are playing three
shows out in South Africa.
Oppikoppi, Cape Town and Durban and before
that we've got like a week off.
We'll be working but at the same time we're
gonna try to show the crew a really good time
The guys took the crew to check out some
of Joburg's international food markets
The only thing I don't like about these places
is there's like 12 million options and it's
impossible to choose and you always
feel like did I get the right thing
And what style of food is this?
It's Congolese
It's Congolese. Oh ok cool.
He's Congolese, I'm Zambian
All right he's Congolese she's Zambian..
I'm Kong, Kongo-ese
mm. It's good.
So we've got some really expensive
"nose-bleed" seats for the rugby on Saturday
usually the "nose-bleed" seats are right at the
back but these ones are at the rugby games
where you get punched in
the face right in the front.
Quick start to the game.
Where are we Michael?
We're at the Radium Beer Hall
We're getting a Cane-Train which is green Cream
Soda and cane liquor. It looks radioactive,
and probably is radioactive. I was
cured of that last time we were here.
None of us,
none of the locals are drinking it
Cheers everybody
It tastes like airplane glue.
No it tastes like Super Glue. Stroh Rum.
So this is a kind of beer that
we have here. Sorghum beer.
This is what we call Makunya...
this is like an African croissant
Just take it to your mouth and bite it.
I got some vanilla ice cream
I'll be honest, it might just be the
best vanilla ice cream I've ever had.
I saw you guys at the opening of Linkin Park. I've
got this shit on my phone! 'Escape' is my favorite.
The last show we played in South Africa was
opening for Lincoln Park at Soccer City
so we played to 65,000 people
and we flew back to America and I think two
days later we played a show to like 12 people
I'm shaking. It's winter and I'm
sweating, I'm so nervous.
In between excursions, the guys have
plenty of work to do to prepare for
their upcoming shows
One of our expression pedals
broke for Joe's rig so
I'm borrowing one from the guitar rig to
see if I can make it work
which it looks like it will.
Mo and I built these canons, smoke canons
On 'I'm Only Joking' smoke rings come flying
out of the stage across the crowd so we
couldn't ship those because they're like
four feet long by three feet wide and they
weigh probably 70 or 80 pounds
So we had our friend Michael - he
has a team that's working for him
he's built some cannons for us and
we're here just getting the fabric
And we're looking for the fabric to
use for our diaphragm of our cannon
So that's the part that
you actually pullback
DYLAN: I've never heard him
use the word diaphragm before.
Yea, I say diaphragm..yea
it's on the blue prints
They're like white prints but whatever
KONGOS it is an absolute honor and a
pleasure to be hosting you on this tour
The future of rock and roll. A few years ago
Just Music founder Karl Anderson said to me
I've got this band you've gotta hear
they're called KONGOS and you're not gonna
believe who their dad is.
I was born in Johannesburg in 1945 just
after the war. I was raised by my mother
and my grandmother and then basically my
grandmother 'cause my mom needed to make
some money and I didn't see her that
much. My mom started the Casbah Roadhouse
in this very small town in 1955, she
subsequently built two more they were
incredibly successful the first one in
particular was the top Roadhouse in the
country and we refurbished the third one
and it's called Johnny Guitar
My mother supported me in the whole
music thing ever since the start.
She was a self-taught - pianist
she was always fanatic about music.
I was 12 when she bought me my first guitar
I got together a few friends
from school and we formed
this band Johnny Kongos And The G-Men
And then we did our first gig at school in
the school hall and they went crazy and that
kind of changed my life really
When I was 16 I had a number-one hit
with the band and that really started
the whole music career
That song ended up being the
first of many number-one hits
resulting in John becoming one of South
Africa's biggest recording artists
One of the worst things to happen to me
really was to be a teen star in South
Africa because I didn't realize how big
the world was and it took quite a while
to make me realize whoa you know y ou got
a long way to go.
I moved to the UK in
1966 to pursue music. I made a few
records there and so then I toured the
UK at a very low level
My first big hit in the UK as an artist was
a song called He's Gonna Step On You Again
which I co-wrote with the
keyboard player in the ex-band
I followed He's Gonna Step On You Again
with a song called Tokoloshe Man which was
based on this mythical bad guy, little
character in South Africa that is a sort
of boogeyman
With his career off the ground, he
built a recording studio in London and
ended up working with some of the
biggest names in the music business.
I started building the studio in about
1970 and within two years we had a
number-one record in fact out of there with
the band called Dexys Midnight Runners.
A lot of people came through the
studio..probably the most well-known
producer who used the studio extensively
was a guy called Tony Visconti and then
Gus Dudgeon who produced Elton John also
used the studio
I met Shelley in 1977 she was only gonna
be passing through London for about two
weeks.. she stayed there for 12 years.
Subsequently we had three kids in the
UK - Johnny
Jesse and Dylan were born in London and
Danny was born in South Africa.
They all embraced South Africa and
sort of grew up there and loved it.
Do you want to go back to England?
No
Why not?
I don't want to.
Why not Dylan, Jess, Joey, gee
What is the reason you don't
want to go back to England?
It's cold.
Hey Jesse, are we close or what?
Yeah, here you go,
for excess sales of 20 thousand
We have the Gold award this side
Oh shit you spelled our name wrong.
Cheers, cheers!
Well what we're doing tonight is, we 're
having a Braai which is the South African
word for barbecue with basically our best
friends that we've known for 25 years now.
He's making traditional
Afrikaans or South African Wurst which
is called Boerewors which means
basically farmer sausage
Things and things and buns good moves.
Jesse's making "pap and
sous" which means mealy pap
which is kind of like
polenta - it's a cornmeal..
and tomato sauce
It's obviously
nostalgic having a party at the place
that you have so many memories from
especially when you basically take all
the same people and make them older you
know. They are the kind of people that
you go away and you come back and
you're right where you started
The guys have interviews and acoustic
performances with the three of
Johannesburg's biggest radio stations before
an afternoon excursion to a traditional market
When we were here in 2012 that was kind
of the kick off of an actual career for us
so since then,
things have been going pretty well.
Pretty smooth sailing.
Thank you so so much for being on the
Martin Bester Drive, really appreciate it.
Its great to.. "lekker" to meet you.
*Speaking Afrikaans - how much
Afrikaans can you understand?"
*A little, I can understand a little*
KONGOS are here, welcome back to the
country gentlemen, it's nice to have you.
Yeah we took the whole crew down
to this part of downtown Johannesburg where
they have the "Muti" market which is the sort
of traditional African medicinal market.
It's like ingredients for
healing potions and healing stews
This one you soak it in water and then
you go around to your yard
to chase away the bad spirits. If you need
some luck this is what you use.
This is "Igobongo" - it helps you
to communicate with your ancestors.
Roots and vegetables and bark and entrails
This is called "Imbiza" -
it's for cleaning blood.
This is for cancer.
This one is like a Viagra
Claws, limbs, skins, fat
There was an entire
hollowed out monkey carcass.
We weren't supposed to film the animal shit
probably because a lot of it is illegal.
This one is for calling,
you know, your loved one.
It helps you to be invisible.
Oh ok.
This is the tricky part - to make it
exactly go across.
More towards me don't pull,
don't pull, don't pull.
Thats a golf ball.
Do you put 2 on?
I don't but should I?
You gotta tilt up.
There we go, there it is.
Perfect
Daddy
We're gonna make pizzas tonight.
Have you ever been to a KONGOS pizza party?
No
It is quite an experience.
Do it well-done
I burned myself on the couch.
Before their performances, they take
the opportunity to spend some time
at a game reserve near
the Kruger National Park.
It's just an incredible experience they
pick you up on Land Rovers and it's
about an hour drive to kind of take you
down into the middle of the park where
the lodge is. So they hand you a beer, you
get on an open vehicle
and all of a sudden you
start seeing animals.
Welcome back, nice to see you.
We're in the middle of Africa
on safari and that's my friend.
Thats my buddy, Rhino. Its a black rhino..
No.
It's a white rhino I
was gonna say that next.
Welcome guys to Klaserie Camps in Kitara. Our
little piece of paradise as we like to refer to it.
There's a guy, a chef and a whole staff
that basically take care - I mean it's
five-star accomodation just
pampered in the middle of the wilderness
You feel like fucking
royalty at this place.
It's 6:30 a.m. We're about to go on our
first morning game drive
We have two guides in
the different vehicles
It looks like I've just found some tracks
Really? Whoa what is that?
That's the tracks of a Land Rover.
Just important that while we
are approaching the sighting,
while we are viewing that
animal and while we are
leaving that sighting, that you guys
stay as still as possible. Any movement
or sound is going to draw the attention
of that animal and we're looking at one
of two things are going to happen. Either
fight or flight and obviously we don't want
either scenario. We want to get
a nice visual of these guys okay
Day one - Game farm. Spotted vultures
accumulating in trees.
Wiseman says must have been a kill,
so we then look for the carcass.
We come over the ridge, and what do we see?
Bing Bang Boom - a pride of lions.
Feasting lions.
Holy shit.
We got the call that the other vehicle had
seen the lions so we made our way over
here. The lions are all feeding on a
carcass of a buffalo then a rhino shows
up so the lions start to chase the Rhino
off. Then as we come to get a better view
of the lion chasing the rhino, we come across
a herd of 12, 15 elephants across the ridge.
So I take a whole one? or is it like..
He's pointing at the leopard tracks,
he's like "these are fresh leopard tracks"
and Mo's like "where do
you think he's going?"
What are they eating?
Are these elephant tracks right here?
Did we find out what lion poop looks like?
Do you know what type of wood this is?
What's their average body
temperature, do you know?
I don't know.
Do you have dogs at home?
Does rhino eat meat?
What type of beef is it?
Filet.
Oh from what animal?
Oh beef..so that's a cow?
Is the one in the middle smiling?
Where's your family?
What's a bird?
How can you tell that's a baby?
That's a good question!
What animal would I be?
I reckon you're a "Shinzeli"
A "Shinzeli" is that a mongoose?
No
Is it a bird?
Is it a bush baby?
It's a honey badger.
A honey badger
Aww a honey badger, cool!
I was gonna say warthog.
The sighting that we saw this morning,
was as good as I've ever seen.
In 25 years some of the greatest viewing
I've had as a guide, so, very special.
The guy's spent two more days on the
game reserve and were lucky to come across
many more incredible sights
Oh my god.
I've got visual still,
but it's not going to be long.
And there's a "Madola" here as well.
Big Madola but they're moving fast.
wow
Oh my god.
You know, I was almost as excited to see what the
crew's response was, you know, fir st timers
here on the game reserve as I was to
actually get here
I just can't even believe that this is where
we are and how fucking awesome this is.
oh there's a little one
When we play this song
overseas, we tell the crowd
that we're going to take them down
to South Africa where we grew up
But now we're here
So let's hear it.
Enjoy the rest of your night
We're in Cape Town.
It's Oppikoppi Day
What is Oppikoppi?
Oppikoppi is fucking awesome.
This is like three days of just people losing
their minds, drinking, getting sunburned
It's like any other festival
except for the dust is crazy
and also South Africans can drink like no
other people on Earth that I've encountered
"Oppi-fucking-Koppi"
So we played in 2012 and that was, it was crazy.
It was one of the best crowds we ever played to
This festival is legendary, it's been
running for 25 years now I think.
Yea it's pretty special to come back to South
Africa and be able to headline that festival.
now..now..now what do we do?
Six months later, the band plays their
final show of 2016 in Elmhurst, Illinois
After months of no progress, communication
with the label has broken down.
2016 for us was, if we're honest, probably
quite underwhelming.
We also could have just gotten our hopes
up too high based on Come With Me Now.
And you know, the years before.
But, I think there were a lot of positive
things like
we went to South Africa. We got to take our whole
crew to where we grew up and stayed in the house we
grew up in, and got to go to the game
farm, and Cape Town and all that
Our tour in the US was encouraging that we
saw where our real base is at in terms of
hardcore fans that are gonna come out to I think
every tour and an album that we... album cycle.
There were good shows and
stuff. The best shows I think Poland,
I think Warsaw was up there. Moscow.
What were some highlights
for you for the past year?
Uh, getting pregnant.
That's kind of you know.. that's in
my mind a lot right now obviously
I have a baby girl due
in a couple of months.
Less than two months really and that puts
this all in perspective for me because
alright whatever our album didn't do great
who gives a shit you know life is...
new life is coming and
that's where I'm at..
Is that going to kinda change your...
Oh
DANNY: He thinks maybe the
baby won't like the album.
That's the start of a new composition isn't
it?
Let's do our exercises okay. Here we
go right hand. 1... 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1
Pretty good.
Next time on Bus Call.
I don't want him to miss anything.
Hola Mexico, we are KONGOS,
and we are here in Mexico City.
Ah fuck.
Technical issues.
I hate today.
Props goes to Danny for living life to
the fullest
*SPANISH* Los amo los amo, KONGOS