From improvised jazz drummer to Sydney indie riser, Wicklow’s Bonniesongs, aka Bonnie Stewart, has consistently defied convention throughout her artistic endeavours.

While completing a degree in jazz drums performance at Newpark Music Centre in Dublin, she cut her teeth in Ireland’s 2010s punk scene as part of Middle Class Disaster whose line-up featured a pre-fame Sarah Corcoran from Pillow Queens.

During her degree she got the chance to attend summer school at the prestigious music mecca Berkley where she befriended Karen Crowley who would go on to gain recognition as part of Wyvern Lingo. “They played at my house”, she recalls fondly.

However, while options opened up for her to pursue rock and folk seriously in Ireland, the pull of jazz brought her to study at the School of Improvised Music, New York. That short stint proved to be a major milestone in her life. She made friends with some Australian musicians she met in New York and was invited to join them on tour in their homeland.

Over a decade later, Bonnie Stewart resides in Clovelly, a beachside suburb of Sydney, fully ensconced in Australia’s thriving music scene having released music as a solo artist and collaborative projects as Bonniesongs, Crossover, Rebel Scum, Prophets and the Splinter Orchestra amongst others.

Stewart will return to Ireland for only her second live appearance since 2019 as part of Ireland Music Week 2025.

“This is just the beginning of trying to build something,” she says earnestly of the upcoming performance. “I did it a couple of years ago so I'm excited to get back.” 

“I like Ireland Music Week it helps connect me (to Ireland)”, she says, noting, “Last time I was over I wasn't releasing anything; it was kind of bad timing. I'm feeling a bit better that I've got something to show people this time.”

Unlike her previous visit to Ireland in 2022, Bonniesongs comes armed with her excellent second album Strangest Feeling - one of the best Irish albums of 2025 - a record built much like her life on following her feelings and letting the music take her where it wants her to go. The art-folk of her debut has been replaced by a darker, gothic rock sound.

“It's amazing how much '90s grunge stuff has come through the music somehow. I'm okay with embracing that,” she says, reflecting on the album as a whole.

Oddly, for an album that has a fuller band sound to its predecessor, Energetic Mind, the album took its first tentative steps with Bonnie Stewart writing in solitude during lockdown.

“During one of the lockdowns we decided to go to my partner's family's place in New Zealand, because we'd no family here (Sydney)… we got stuck there for 9 months.”

“I'd only really just gotten into playing with a band,” she recalls, thinking back to that time period we’d all rather forget."My album (Energetic Mind) came out that September and we'd just started doing gigs and stuff and then I really missed that feeling, so I was trying to bring more of a rock band thing to a lot of songs.

“I just wanted things to be fun because I have so much fun when I play live with a band - it just brings me a lot of joy, so I was trying to inject joy as much as I could into myself.”

The quest for fun is a lyrical theme that runs through the record with Bonnie imploring herself not to become stale as a person or an artist and keep growing and exploring new possibilities.

This is most evident on the fighting against the dying of the light style alt-rock affirmation ‘Stay Fun’, but there are plenty of examples of Bonnie taking risks throughout the album.

“I've got to be watery; everything depends on the day and the sound and how everyone is feeling,” she says, noting, “I know some people demo everything perfectly and try and emulate it, but I can't do that.” 

A good example of Bonnie’s flexibility as a musician can be found in the album’s rousing lead single 'Olive Oil'. She was unhappy with the original recording, but producer Alyx Denisson helped her to reshape it into one of the stand-out moments on the record.

“I recorded the drums on 'Olive Oil' and it was a lot slower and it ended up sounding a lot folkier and just not what I was going for, and I almost didn't put it on (the album) but then Alyx said: ‘Let's speed it up’, and then we got Tully in to redo the drums and just make them a little bit more crunchy.”

With the album’s bones coming from songs written during lockdown and the adjacent timeframe, the album’s title is the perfect encapsulation of how we were all forced to spend lots of time with ourselves. It’s testament to Bonnie’s goal to stay watery that the song’s title changed via a suggestion from Dennison.

“I was originally calling the song 'Never Now' and she was like: ‘You should call this song 'Strangest Feeling' and you should call the album Strangest Feeling.”

“And I was like, that's actually a really good idea,” she says, adding, “It just made sense because I feel like 'Strangest Feeling' was my favourite song (on the record) and one of the ones I'm most proud of and there's a lot of strange feelings on the album.”

The videos for Strangest Feeling's singles see Bonnie Stewart showcase her whimsical side, evoking 1980’s fantasy films and the Christmas staple The Snowman with green screen and paying homage to Nirvana’s 'In Bloom'.

“I have a few songs about how I used to dream about flying and always wanted to fly,” explains Bonnie of 'Strangest Feeling', adding that she was delighted at the prospected of playing around with green screen, while on the video for grunge throwback track 'Bittersweet', Bonnie and friends ham it up for the camera, wearing animal masks and pretending to play their instruments.

“That band (in the video), they're not my usual rock band. The person playing bass never played bass before. She's a banjo player and we all play in her Irish band; we play trad together. They're just miming and being really silly and pretending to play instruments they don't normally play.”

The album opens with the epic slow burn 'Dragon' with Bonnie Stewart declaring “Remember, I am a Cancer” but the meaning is not as obvious as it seems at first listen.

“When I say ‘I'm a cancer’, I'm actually a Cancerian so it's kind a double meaning - it's kind of 'be careful because I'm sensitive’', offers Bonnie before explaining the deeper meaning behind the track.

“I was really annoyed with my partner at the time, I can't even remember what we were fighting about,” she says, laughing.

“Sometimes in a relationship you go between asking am I the horrible one are they the horrible one? I kind of see that song as a relationship with myself being in a relationship. I'm trying to connect with myself.”

Being explicitly obvious with her lyrics is something Bonnie isn’t wholly comfortable with at present, but she’s learning to share more of herself in her songs.

“I like to be ambiguous and I like to be abstract, that’s where I feel more comfortable, but I know that the songs that I'm more vulnerable (are the songs) people connect with....With 'Strangest Feeling' I had so many people message me saying: ‘Oh my god, this means so much, I feel exactly that’.

"A lot of the time I'm in space or whatever… it's all a little abstract and hidden meanings so I'm trying to find that balance a bit more of being real”, she adds.

Bonniesongs will be appearing at The Grand Social, Dublin at 9PM on Friday October 3^rd as part of Ireland Music Week 2025 with a band featuring Lauren Heron (Dose), Ben Bix (Meltybrains?) and Brendan Doherty (Villagers). Tickets on sale here.