FEATURES

     Twenty years ago Aussie rock icon, Bon Scott, was found dead of alcohol
poisoning in the back seat of a friend's car. "When Bon died, rock 'n' roll
lost one of it's greatest voices," said singer/bassist, Jim Hillegonds.

    Bonfire, which Hillegonds assembled in tribute to Scott, made it's stage
debut on February 19 of this year. "That was the anniversary date of Scott's
death and we had held off on performing any shows, so that we could debut on
that night. It wasn't so much a marketing move, as it was a way of tipping
our hat to Bon Scott."

    Starting their band life on the same night as life ended for the hard
drinking, wild-eyed Scott seems to have been fateful for Bonfire. It's
almost as though the gravelly-throated singer has been watching over the band
ever since, because their career has really taken off since that first night.

    "Don't get me wrong, I am totally thrilled that people love the band and
dig the show that we are doing, but Bonfire was never really meant to be a
working band. At least not working as much as we have been," said
Hillegonds, who says he turns down almost as many gigs as he takes these days.

    His reason is two-fold. The first is that he doesn't ever want the band
to stop being fun and start being work. "When it gets to be about trying to
fill open dates and playing in a different club every weekend, then it
becomes work and just between you and me...WORK SUCKS!"

     A more tangible reason for turning down some job offers is simply
logistics. A musician, no matter how talented, just can't be in two clubs
playing different shows on the same night.

     "We never thought that there would be this kind of demand for the band,
so most of the guys planned this as a side project," said Hillegonds.
"Everyone other than me is in another full time band in the area. So when we
book Bonfire, we have to make sure that everyone's schedule is open.

    Aside from Hillegonds, Bonfire features lead guitarist Zeke Rongers (of
Nick Danger), bassist Aaron Hedges and drummer Chris Karp (both do double
band duty of The Crawpuppies).   Both those bands already play a heavy
rotation in clubs, making open dates for Bonfire to play a tough thing to
come by.

    The notion of putting together a Bon Scott tribute act struck Hillegonds
during the waning months spent with his last band, Alison's Mailbox, an
original alt-rock group that had some major labels sniffing around for a
while.

   "When we were doing college gigs, I started ending a lot of show by doing
'Big Balls' and people would love it," he said. "Eventually, they started
yelling for it about half way through the night and expecting it. One day the
light bulb just went off."

     An avowed Bon fan since his junior high school days, the bassist said he
has learned to imitate the late singer in both his singing and speaking voice
and proceeds to eerily continue the interview with me using his eerie Scott
voice.

    "This is something I've always wanted to do and it's something people
have been telling me I should do for some time now, but I was always too
busy," he said. "I planned to do it shortly after Mailbox called it quits,
but then my father passed away. I took some time off from playing to be with
my family. Last winter I just figured it was time to do it!"

     Why not a full-service AC/DC tribute?

    "Nothing against Brian Johnson (who replaced Scott in AC/DC in 1980), but
Bonfire will only do early AC/DC songs from Bon's era," said Hillegonds.
"Bon was very unique and it's actually hard to do some of the stuff he did
with those old songs. It was Bon that made me become an AC/DC fan when I was
a kid. I still like them and I respect that Johnson had some big shoes to
fill and I think he has done a great job. But Johnson is still here to do
those songs, Bon is not.

     "In our shows, you will hear all the classic pre-1980 cuts like 'The
Girl's Got Rhythm', 'Live Wire', 'Dirty Deeds', 'The Jack' and 'Highway To
Hell'. Don't even come asking for Johnson songs, because you ain't gonna get
'em!"