Juan Pretorius – Bus Ride

Juan Pretorius is a good-looking surfer boy from KwaZulu-Natal who passed matric with six distinctions. He plays the piano and guitar quite as well as he plays water polo and soccer.

Not only does he have heaps of good looks, when he opens his mouth he sounds like a husky angel – pure honey and dark chocolate.  Not just blessed with looks and a voice to make the ladies swoon, he’s also got a solid head on him, currently studying towards a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Stellenbosch.

Music critics salute him as a younger version of South African hottie Danny K.

He is only twenty years old, but his first single Bus Ride alludes to complexities and heartbreaks you would expect from a much older songwriter.  

To the surprise of music lovers, this Stellenbosch student did not follow the same folk-rock musical road as most of the Stellenbosch singers do, his feet rather dancing their way down the electric pop route.

His passion is music and he enjoys listening to pop, punk and Indie music, but confesses to love classical music too.
Therefore, it is not strange to find elements of all of the above in this craftly produced song that was written and composed by Juan himself.

The artistically designed cover of Bus Ride provides an impression of this young singer’s personality and creative state of mind while writing the song; cheeky nonchalance screams in the use of mostly prime colours; blue, red, and yellow. The street signs indicate words that describe heavy emotions, sadness, fear, and happiness.  And then the bus bouncing on the road of live filled with heartbreaks, books (maybe a reference to the songwriter’s academic achievements), a guitar, death, cup cakes and used tyres.

The cover describes, in a way, some of the emotional lyrics that can be find in the song: Take the bait, stop the shake….

Juan describes Bus Ride as “full of electric complexes with a catchy melody and beating making it very radio-friendly.”

The song, he says, chronicles the dialogue of a man and his inner thoughts regarding the loss of a lover and his newfound inner turmoil. “It stands as a metaphor for life: life is like a bus-ride and we are all passengers. We go where it takes us; there are ups and downs; sometimes life races along, and other times it feels as if time has stopped. Often, we get so caught up in trying to change our lives, manipulating insignificant variables trying to find our way through the madness that we forget to enjoy the Bus Ride. “

Bus Ride was recorded by Andiamo Recording, and it’s a song that definitely strikes the right chord if electric dance/pop makes your feet itch!

LISTEN TO A SHORT AUDIO CLIP AT THIS LINK: