The Jungle Giants - Big Day Out Interview

genevavalek
Feb 4, 2014
3 min read

In the midst of one of Sydney's Biggest Days Out we managed to snatch a lovely 10 minutes with Brisbane darlings, The Jungle Giants, for a catch up on what's been an awesome year and a little sneak peak into what's coming for the indie-fun quartet.

“We normally play at night,” says frontman and guitarist Sam Hales, chirpy beside guitarist Cesira Atikens who both seemed alight despite time standing still at a measly 2:30pm. We are reminiscing on the tour which followed their similarly titled debut, Learn To Exist. “Our live shows have changed in a weird way since the album came out. People just go crazy, singing the words to every song. It’s more exciting having an album out, as opposed to an EP – more real.”

AACS: What was the best part of the tour?

SAM: We can’t remember anything

CESIRA: We definitely partied too hard.

SAM: The Triple J Safari Party was crazy, though.

CESIRA: Yeah I dressed up as a monkey. The shows in Perth are insane, though.

AACS: Is the music scene as big as it is on this side of the country?

SAM: Yeah! I mean you’ve obviously got like Tame Impala, Pond, all those guys and San Cisco and stuff. But yeah, it’s really good, everyone gets into it.

AACS: What have you been listening to lately?

CESIRA: Outkast!!! The Love Below is amazing.

SAM: Yeah! Cesira got me into that. Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, too. My brother and I were at my mum’s place and we found this blank CD, we didn’t know what it was, then we put it in, and it was Plastic Beach. Happy days.

AACS: How did you come up with the album art for Learn To Exist?

SAM: Everyone had a few ideas, so we had to fight for our own, everything’s a bit packed in. We all liked the idea of a collage. Keelan really liked the idea of having a collage, and I liked all of the things in the head.

AACS: Is it an accurate representation of you guys as a band?

CESIRA: For the time that it was made in yeah.

SAM: We have a lot of little... like we have this word if you hit someone, or you’re messing with someone, you say “tuss”. And that’s written in it. And we’re a bit stupid sometimes, our manager...

CESIRA: We’ll always come out of a meeting and he’s always like, “Meetings with other bands aren’t as long as they are with you”

SAM: And after he does that we always say “hashtag, MANAGED” and that ‘#MANAGED” made it into the album booklet as well.

AACS: So who do you think is going to get the number one spot today on the hottest 100?

BOTH: Daft Punk!

CESIRA: We love that album, man. We smashed that album so badly.

SAM: That song “Touch”...

AACS: Can we maybe expect a Jungle Giants cover?

SAM: No way, no.

CESIRA: That album’s magical.

SAM: We can’t touch it [laughs].

AACS: Do you feel like you need to keep up with all of the indie bands emerging on Triple J and et cetra?

SAM: I think it’s cool. We only have like a personal competitive edge, it’s nothing professional. All of the bands from Brisbane and whatnot we all play together. Everyone’s trying to write music that makes them feel good. The shit is good.

AACS: How did the ping pong game with Arcade Fire go?

SAM: We had been playing for like five hours so we didn’t even see the guy - Win - come in, like we didn’t even think about handing the bat to someone else or anything.

CESIRA: Keelan just got a ping pong table, so Sam and I just turn up to his house unannounced.

SAM: The other day we showed up drunk!

CESIRA: We’re actually really good.

SAM: Anyone that wants to challenge us at ping pong, come at us.

AACS: Even Win Butler?

SAM: Especially Win Butler.

AACS: Have you been checking out their set?

SAM: We’ve been seeing them every night, they’re incredible.

AACS: Who else have you seen at BDO?

CESIRA: Major Lazer!

SAM: Major Lazer... blew our fucking brains out

CESIRA: It was like nothing we’d ever seen.