Rumble In The Jungle - Jungle Interview

Calm down Internet. We’re not dealing with Wu Lyf manifestos or Weeknd-style modern marketing 2.0. If Jungle, the nucleus of which is two unassuming London chums who call each other J and T, started off “anonymous”, it was simply because they didn’t think they personally were all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Releasing a song, ‘Platoon’, and an accompanying video, which they co-directed, to test the waters last year, they were genuinely perplexed when their manager told them they’d also need a press shot.
An act who cite more movie and video game influences than musical ones, their thinking was essentially this: no-one goes looking for a photo of a director or script writer before seeing the latest big screen blockbuster, why is music so different?
“A hundred percent,” nods T, or Tom McFarland on his passport. “You go and see a Martin Scorsese film and at the end of it the credits roll. Who needs a video of Martin Scorsese being like, ‘hey guys, it’s me Marty, hope you enjoyed me movie’! You don’t go to an art gallery and next to a van Gogh painting there’s a picture of him! You want to be able to communicate who you are as a person through your art.”
Now in their twenties, T and his comrade Josh Lloyd-Watson were once teens with guitars, trying to emulate The Strokes. And while they shirk attention now, there were once dreams of being bonafide rock stars.
“Definitely. But that’s when you’re young and naive. You grow up and care less about what you wear, care less about what people think of you – because you’re happy. As you get older, hopefully you learn that it’s the little things in life that make it enjoyable. Not necessarily being on a magazine cover.
"When you’re young, you tend to be dishonest in your taste and your creativity, because you’re trying to please somebody else. You give up trying to please other people and start trying to please yourself, and eventually that pays off.”
He sees cause for concern with his generation and below, a group of people in the midst of an identity crisis, defined by their online projected selves and how many likes and retweets they get.
“Particularly the generation below us. J’s little sister grew up with the Internet whereas we were still kinda getting it. Broadband didn’t exist for us. I remember dial-up and waiting for songs to download on Winamp – it would take a day! Now these kids go to sleep and wake up looking at a screen. Physiologically, that’s not a great way to be. We’re not designed for that. And people aren’t learning how to make human connections, which is really disappointing. The nature of what we do and why we do what we do live is to try and counteract that and have human experiences with people.”
So the duo set about creating their own world and immersing people in a distinctive, soul-drenched and J Dilla-indebted sound on their self-titled debut. Live, Jungle are a seven-piece monster, while the first faces we could put to the music were not J or T, but rather skaters Icky and Silence and 6-year-old dancer B-Girl Terra. They like their characters. Talking to T slap bang in the middle of a world tour, you figure there’s been plenty of opportunities to pick up new comrades as they move from Australia to Japan and then on to the US.
“A couple! We had the great fortune to play with a great percussionist in LA called Alfredo. He literally came in for one rehearsal and by the end of it our drummer was in awe of this dude. He’s been on tour with Beastie Boys and some really fucking cool bands.”
These on-the-road experiences will rumble on for the rest of the year. Then the pair are eager to get creative again.
“You look at artists you really admire and see how they progress from record to record. Artists like Wild Beasts and Bombay Bicycle Club. The way they develop their sound is amazing, really inspiring. The next record will be different because we’ll buy some more equipment, we’ll upgrade stuff. Learn a little bit more about the way that we engineer our studio space.
“The only pressure we put on is ourselves. We want to inspire ourselves and surprise ourselves every day with what we do. That’s the most important thing. XL is the dream because they respect you so much as an artist that that gives you the incentive to respect their opinion as a record label. I listen to everything on their roster. Whereas you look at the roster at a major label and 95% is stuff that you wouldn’t even touch with a bargepole! So it was a real honour signing and we’re still pinching ourselves.”