Rum Jungle: Into the Jungle
It’s taken seven years for Steel City four-piece Rum Jungle to sharpen their sound and press their debut album. But the boys are ready, with Recency Bias distilling their genre-blind sensibilities into a noise that’s distinctive and downright infectious. Vocalist Benny McIntyre tells all on the stories and sounds that make this record your next must-listen.
Words by Zara Richards // Image Joe Puxley
Rum Jungle have been releasing music since 2017. When did you realise you were ready to drop a full-length project?
We put together the band and had no idea what we were doing. The three of us at the front – me, Maje [Kolmajer] and Josh [Giles] – were going to be three dudes on acoustic guitar and maybe some box drums. But then, we just fell into being a band. For our first EP in 2017, Josh didn’t even know what a guitar pedal was!
Some artists can bring out an album almost immediately, but it’s usually people who’ve had time to figure out their sound. Whereas I feel like we’ve been finding our sound live. We’ve thrown things around and made things we want to make instead of sitting back and putting out an album.
I don’t know if there was a specific turning point. It was more like, ‘Oh, we don’t know if we want to do another EP, we might as well do an album’. That meant there was more gravity behind it – a debut LP has so much weight. Every decision, texture, tone and song had to be exactly what we wanted. This is definitely the first project where all four of us equally love it. To us, that’s the main thing that matters.
What were some defining moments for you building Recency Bias?
There was this one roasting hot weekend we spent here in my small flat. We had a bunch of song ideas, but all four of us hadn't been in a room to get it to the next point. We worked away at what ended up being half the album. What came out of that weekend was ‘Always on Your Good Side’, ‘Alright’, ‘Chauffeur’ – which ended up being the first song released for the album – and ‘Notice’. Funnily enough, they ended up being the songs on the back half of the album, which is almost the whole idea of Recency Bias.
You were also touring throughout the album build, retreating to Simon Dobson’s Lakehouse Audio between shows to record. How did you find that balance?
It was the most amazing few months of our life but also difficult. We were doing this incredible thing of recording and touring – quite literally the dream – but towards the end, fatigue steps in because you haven’t seen any of your mates for months and have been creatively locking in for 10 hours a day while travelling pretty hard. After that, you’re like, ‘I’m pretty fried right now’. But I think we dealt well with it. Whenever we went back to [Lakehouse Audio], it felt like we were home because it’s in Simon’s backyard. He has this lovely family, a couple of chickens and a beautiful little cat.
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There’s a kaleidoscopic range of influences throughout Recency Bias. What were you listening to throughout the recording process?
I’m really into George Harrison, The Beatles and The Beach Boys – that ’60s and ’70s stuff. ‘Backwards’ was heavily inspired by that sound and it’s something I push for a lot. But then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I was also really into Charli XCX’s album, [BRAT], around the time we were recording – those real modern, hyperpop sounds – and that’s where ‘Hi Hello’ came from.
Frazer [McDonald], our drummer, who is one of the louder voices in the creative process, was really solid on wanting to reference Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix record. I think, especially on the drums, we got that. He was also rinsing The Flaming Lips. And Josh is an absolute Strokes die-hard.
It’s funny – to me, it all sounds so different, but I hope people listen to it and [the LP] sounds cohesive. I don’t think we’ll ever be that band where you listen and it’s the same song the whole way through. We’re probably always going to [have] 10 different sounds on the same album.
You're touring Australia in support of the LP, playing at The Gov on March 8. What should we expect from these headline shows?
We’ve finally found ways to amplify the show and make it our own. Without spoiling too much, we’ve made it larger than life, rather than it just being four dudes playing some instruments. We’ll be playing some new stuff off the album. We’re also diving back and grabbing a few old songs that we probably should have played for years, but couldn’t figure out how to make them sound good live. I think we’ve finally found our footing in being able to pull off a lot of stuff we’ve always wanted to.
Recency Bias arrives on February 21. Before listeners add their own meaning to the record, how would you define it?
As a proper introduction to Rum Jungle. There are so many sounds on it, but it’s all the sounds we love and want to put forward. To me, it’s like this little analogy I thought of, where you do your uni degree and then you go out into the open world and find whatever you need to do. I feel like the last couple of years have been us studying how to actually make music, and now, it’s like, ‘Here we go’. We’re out in the open world now. Finally!
Catch Rum Jungle pat The Gov on March 8. Tickets on sale now via Moshtix.
