Community and music are two worlds that Western Sydney brings together. Whether it be Street University Mount Druitt that gave us drill group ONEFOUR, or metalcore band Elara running the all-ages Your Locals event, your next favourite musical act could be found at a local community event, performing in a suburb that is as West as it gets. However, finding or creating a platform for aspiring career-goers isn’t always as transparent and accessible.
When conversing with Western Sydney-based producer Johnny Bullz, he shared an extensive level of wisdom and knowledge about the creative and business side of music, having worked with artists encompassing different sounds, including Munzer, Don Kapri and Rosie Belvie. It’s not every day that we get to hear from someone sustaining a living through music, much less in Western Sydney. While he does stray away from the conventional music industry leanings, his methods and experience in the community gives him a unique perspective.
Johnny Bullz has practiced music all his life. A Maori creative raised in Rotorua New Zealand, he recalls that his early memories revolved around music. “Six years old, I was performing at family gatherings and little events,” he shares with The Western. “Thirteen years old I learnt to play guitar and write music. Fifteen I was in harmony groups, bands, choirs. I started learning things like the drums, the bass guitar and the piano. I got into the production style of things at 21.”
It was his move to Mt Druitt in 2017 that immersed himself with the local community with music — a move he made by himself, with no one to lean on. He committed to his passion for music in the after hours of his nine-to-five work. By 2024, he took the leap of faith and became a full-time self-run business, which later paid off in his suburban Emerton home. In the present, Johnny keeps a tightly condensed room in his home, packed with a music keyboard and speakers. More than just a room, it is a recording booth that brings his artists to life with his prolific musical knowledge.
As an independent producer, Johnny explained that he has a different approach to working with artists. Rather than having artists try to chase the latest trendy sounds, he emphasises giving them a space to express themselves without compromise. “Every single person is like a fingerprint, and you treat them as such. Everybody has a different way of living and has a different basis of thought, different creativity.”
Johnny Bullz’s ability to give artists creative autonomy has made him the producer for a small collective of Western Sydney artists. We find this across his credits — the punchy beats that amplify the gritty braggadocious rhythms of MUNZER’s ‘Keep It Real’; the trap sound mixed with autotune in Don Kapri’s ‘Temptation’; or the emotional acoustics accompanying the vulnerability in Rosie Belvie’s ‘Daddy’s Girl.’ Johnny understands how to adapt and cater to his artists’ sound.
“I apply myself in accordance to their creativity and their expression,” he expresses to The Western. “I don’t try to do what the industry does and say ‘you’ve got to do it my way.’ I would much rather learn something that I might have missed somewhere along my journey of learning, by allowing them to be uniquely and completely expressive. So, it’s always been different for everybody. They feel much more comfortable knowing that they can be that openly expressive”
It’s a level of comfort that has gone beyond artist relationships, and into strong everlasting bonds. MUNZER, one of Bullzeye’s collaborators, recalls meeting him after a performance.
“He’s being really nice like a fanboy with these demon eyes”, he said, referring to the white contacts that Johnny can often be seen wearing. “We just clicked off straight away … I went back to his house and see what he’s been doing, [and he] told me about his beats.”
They happily call each other brothers, journeying through their own ups and downs — and like all good siblings, they have their own squabbles, resolved through the acts of giving space to each other. It’s a bond that MUNZER speaks passionately about. “He helped me get my confidence and value myself and be assertive,” he shares. “I’d like to think I helped Johnny be more positive”
Johnny has cultivated a following through his participation within the Western Sydney music scene, including the open mic and music Jam event Lyricists Lab hosted at Mount Ethnic Community Agency. “I got a little deeper into the Lyrist Lab,” he recalls “I’d eventually start running it for a couple of sessions there. I noticed there was a different kind of audience. The people that I was attracting were young artists that were looking for a space to perform.” While he had no idea what was required or expected, he was able to help in giving a platform for the youth; spaces that are important to him for his own growth as well. “I’m now sitting in community group chats that are massive and each one of them now are telling me, Johnny, when are you going to set up another?”
Although not originally from out West, he is immersed enough to talk about what he notices within the community. “Everybody can relate with each other and eventually they all utilise their community to push forward. When you attribute that to how people express their art, it would be the environment that influences them. There’s a different kind of hunger in this community. Whether it be politically charged with it, whether it be lawfully or unlawfully charged, whether it’s circumstances, whether it’s culture, there’s so much culture in this area.”
It’s a culture that doesn’t get as much visibility like other areas of Sydney. But a lack of representation is also a breeding ground for artists wanting to be seen and heard.
“Sydney is worldwide,” Johnny comments. “Sydney is that kind of famous. But … it only shows the city. So the hunger begins, I’m trying to feed that hunger by saying [to others], ‘you’re worth it’.”
It’s that hunger within the community that helps Johnny and his artists push forward into local performance events. At one point in his career, he received a tip from MUNZER to perform at Hobby Mania in Penrith. “The organiser, Ben, said ‘I like what you do, and I would like you to be implemented somehow in the next one.’”
On Hobby Mania’s Instagram, Johnny Bull’s artists like Munzer and Don Kapri can be seen on event posts all over their page. Watch any video of their performances, and you will see more than a group of artists, but a family, cheering and hyping each other up. “There’s more in a family than there is in a team,” Johnny remarks. “Everybody shares the same level of expression, the same level of love and care.”
Johnny is experienced enough in his craft to offer sage wisdom, his perspective been shaped by numerous trials and errors. However, if there is one aspect of creativity he recommends to all aspiring artists to have, it’s receiving support in their work. “Support is always a good thing,” he shares to The Western. “We are herd-type people. We need each other. It can be meagre support, [and] it can be massive support — but there is no person in this game that can claim they did this all on their own. They had someone. So, you need somebody and it could [even] be somebody to hug like your mom.”
To Johnny, his support comes from his artists who have also turned into close friends. “We’re like a family, but we needed each other, and now we started to progress faster.” He further elaborates that this support can build into a network. “Every single person is a pyramid. You tell one person anything, they’ve got a pyramid of people behind them. But you’ve got to give them something they want to hear, and you’ve got to impress them.”
Although musicianship is rewarding, Johnny explains that finding a pathway into music can still be a struggle that, with experience, does get easier over time. “It doesn’t come without its consequences,” he laments. “It was hard when I did it. You learn it when you are in it. It’s like if you were thrown into a swimming pool. You’ll learn how to swim eventually. You’ll learn the biggest lessons in the hardest situations. Find out your circumstances, and then you work with it. But don’t sit still. Go. Move. Find someone. Talk to someone.”
Johnny Bullz’s advice stands out from the average music producer — such lessons came from a path that had been learnt in his own failed attempts. He recalls at least five different times in his life that he tried what is now Bullzeye Beats.
Why was the fifth attempt the one that stuck out? “It really came down to finding the right people,” the music producer explains “to be over here alone, I needed to also have another sense of another family.”
Bullzeye had his biggest event yet: the launch party for Munzer’s latest track ‘Do That’. It marked Munzer’s first international feature with English rapper M Dot R, which was also produced by Bullzeye himself. The event saw a collective of music artists, dancers and DJs coming together to support a milestone achievement of their fellow artist.
For Bullzeye, it’s one of the many steps that he’s taken to elevating himself and his artists from the suburbs of Western Sydney into worldwide known superstars.
***
David Mansour is a Western Sydney resident from Mount Druitt. A Bachelor of Communications graduate, his past work experience includes video editing work at Pixflix Productions, collaborating with local businesses to bring their stories to life. When David isn’t working, he enjoys spending time on his hobbies such as video games, skateboarding, music and combat sports.