Groove is in the heart

There is possibly nobody more influential in a teenager’s school life than their careers advisor. They can harness a talent, or temper pipe dreams; they can fuel a fire that paves the way to a life-long passion, or they can destroy hopes and launch a student into loveless roles.

For Bonnie Hurunui, being told she told wasn’t good enough to make a career out of music stifled a fire in her belly, and it was decades before she found the courage to embrace her insatiable desire to be on stage.

She’s now an effervescent performer with her brilliant band White Chapel Jak, who won Radio New Zealand’s Battle of the Cover Bands in 2018, and have opened for Bonnie Tyler and for Alanis Morissette. They went from the in-between set filler at Auckland’s SeePort Festival one year, to being the headline act the next, getting 15,000 fans on their feet, singing and dancing.

Yet the sheer joy Bonnie