The Jungle Giants are taking the momentum they generated in 2015 right into 2016. After 12 months’ worth of non-stop tour dates around Australia and the world promoting their second LP, Speakerzoid, they’re back on home turf and ready to do it all again.
The band’s final run of dates on the back of Speakerzoid will see them performing a string of licensed All Ages shows in capital cities around the country, with support from former Preatures guitarist Gideon Bensen and a whole host of other friends.
According to The Jungle Giants’ Sam Hales, the ‘Together We Can Work Together’ tour takes it stifle from “a misheard phrase during a board game in the early days of recording Speakerzoid. We all loved it so much we considered making it the album title.”
Having heard about the band discovering hearing their music at a strip club recently, we decided to ask the band about some of the other strange and wonderful stories have happened to the crew over the past few years, and oh boy did they deliver.
Check out the strangest things to ever happen to The Jungle Giants below and be sure to catch the crew on the road (’cause with these guys who knows what might happen), tour dates below.
Hanging at Sergio Mendes’ House
So it was our last night in LA, and a friend of ours was DJing at a huge club downtown. We had a crazy week of shows so we were all pretty wrecked and just thought we’d go in and say ‘hey’. At some point I was having a cigarette out the back with our keyboardist, Lewis, when a huge bald redneck came up to us and yelled, “Ya’ll look like you’re in R.E.M!”. We politely thanked him (?) and started talking. He was a really cool guy, and seemed to really, really like Australians. We told him we were on tour and that it was our last night.
We got on well and after a while, he offered us some free drinks. We thought that sounded great so we said “yes please”. He then patted me on the shoulder and said Ookay well I’ll be back with them in a minute, I just have to go find some pussy”. I thought he was just saying that to get out of actually giving us free drinks, so we went back inside and bought some.
After about an hour, I heard someone yelling my name, I turned and saw the R.E.M guy, coming up saying “Man I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”. It turned out he had actually done everything he said because he was standing there with a couple sexy girls and a handful of drink cards. We danced in the club amongst lots of muscly guys in tiny denim short shorts until the club closed at 2am. By that point everyone spilled out into the street, and as we were standing there, the R.E.M guy came up to me and asked if we wanted to go to his friend’s warehouse party.
[include_post id=”476305″]We had heard about this crazy party that moves around LA every Saturday, and to find it, you first need to receive a text from someone, who has the address of a U-Haul Van, which has a limited amount of post-it notes with the actual address of the party. R.E.M guy said that was his friend’s party. He then pointed to his truck and asked if we wanted a ride there.
We drove for a while down some shady streets and eventually got to an industrial area. The guy I was with was starting to think we shouldn’t have come, because the area looked pretty scary at night and the streets were completely empty of people and cars. We eventually got to a big warehouse. We walked to a side door and R.E.M guy slipped the security guy some money.
I wasn’t expecting much because there was barely anyone out the front, and I couldn’t hear music, but the security guy opened this big steel door and we walked into the best party of our dumb lives. First off, there was like a thousand people in there, dancing to extremely loud house music and we seemed to be the only white people there. As we waded though the hazy smoked out room, we walked into an area with a pop up bar. They even accepted cards, so we bought a drink.
While we were standing there REM guy said “Sam you’ve got to meet my friend”. He then called over the most gangster looking guy I’ve ever seen. The guy looked about 7 foot tall, corn rows on his head, wearing a tweed suit with a cane and velvet shoes. I held out my hand to shake his, and he just looked at me really weird. R.E.M guy said “Dude, you are so white”, so I offered a timid fist bump and the guy seemed a little more pleased.
We ended up dancing and chatting for a couple hours and eventually ended up with a cool group of people. We hung out for a good while, until they asked if we wanted to go to Venice Beach. That sounded good so we all jumped into cabs and met up on the beach. We hung out there drinking and swimming while watching the sunrise. I thought it was the perfect end to a wicked night, but it was so far from over.
When the sun was fully up, people started leaving, and a south american guy I had been chatting to asked if I wanted to go his house and have a jam. He was telling me about his studio and it sounded great so we jumped in a cab with a couple other people and headed for The Valley. It was a really long drive, and we were chatting about music. The south american guy mentioned his dad was a musician too. I told him how my dad works in irrigation and how his dad sounded cooler than mine. The cab finally slowed down and stopped in front of a giant gate. There was a guy in a little security booth next to the gate looking into the car. When he noticed the guy I was with he said “Morning, kid”, pressed a buzzer and opened the gate.
When I saw the driveway I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was car after car, all vintage and shiny and expensive looking, just lined up one after the other. Each one was also being scrubbed by a groundskeeper. We drove along them for what seemed like five minutes and then finally got to the front door of a huge yellow mansion that was surrounded by palm trees. I turned to the guy who had invited me and asked “Who the fuck is your dad?”. He smiled and said “Oh my dad’s name is Sergio Mendes”.
We went into the house and it was empty, except for a few maids. We all walked into his room which had a bar and a nice studio set up inside. We jammed for a while and had a couple of drinks. He asked me if I was hungry and took me to the kitchen.
There was a couple maids in there frying bacon and stuff for us, and while it was cooking he handed me some togs and said “Dude, you have to see the lagoon”. Before I could ask what he meant, he opened a big sliding door, and in front of me was a massive blue, palm tree filled, jacuzzi-sprinkled lagoon, built into the side of the house.
I couldn’t believe it. The few of us that were there spent the morning swimming, jumping off the built-in cliff, relaxing in the jacuzzi and drinking bloody marys. It was the best morning ever. The maids brought us breakfast and it was the most decadent breakfast I’ve ever eaten. About midday I thought I’d better get home before the Jungles crew started worrying, so I thanked him for having me and we exchanged emails. As I was saying goodbye to everyone, he handed me $100 cash. I asked what it was for and he said “for the cab, dummy”. I tried to give it back but he insisted, so I took it, thanked him again, and headed back to the hotel.
It was one of the weirdest and best nights ever.
Playing flute with Mumford & Sons
We were invited to play with Mumford & Sons for their ‘Gentlemen Of The Road’ show in Australia. The stage was build at the edge of The Domain in Sydney, and they were expecting to fill the whole thing up.
[include_post id=”452606″]Art Of Sleeping, Future Islands, The Vaccines, and Jake Bugg were playing too so it was an epic line-up and a really good show for us.The Mumford guys were really nice too. They watched our whole show, came to our green room after to tell us they loved it, and were making sure we had enough beers for the night. I had played a bit of flute during our set and one of the guys even managed to compliment me on that too. So they were sweet to us, which was lovely.
They said there were expecting 25,000 people for the show, and by the time it was coming closer to their set, it looked like everyone had showed up. Their set was crazy, with insane lighting production, confetti cannons, all kinds of stuff. We were side of stage when they came off and one of the guys came up to me and asked “Man, can you come up and play that flute of yours for our next song?”.
I stopped learning the flute when I was about 10 and I’m pretty shit at it. I looked at him, then back to the screaming crowd of 25,000 people and said “Yes. Okay”.
A couple of the guys from The Vaccines brought their guitars up, so did Cesira. Apparently we were going to be playing the Joe Cocker version of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, and everyone already seemed to know the chords perfectly. Like I said I’m shit at playing the flute, and when we walked onto the stage in front of nearly 30,000 screaming people.
I felt like I’d done a bad thing in agreeing to come up. That was also compounded by the fact that one of the stage techs had put me on 6 foot high podium with my own microphone, just to amplify my suckiness.
Before we were about to start, one of the trumpet players came up next to me and asked if I knew the notes. I told him “Nope. Please help.” He laughed and said “Follow my lead”.
The song then started, and thankfully he meant what he said, because before every note I had to play, he whispered “B” or “E” into my ear. So I just played whatever he was telling me to play. After a while I figured it out and it turned out great.
All in all it was weird, but it felt so good, because for that night, I was a proper flute boy.
THE JUNGLE GIANTS NATIONAL TOUR DATES
Friday, 17th June 2016
The Triffid, Brisbane (Lic/AA)
w/ Gideon Bensen (The Preatures), Lulu Raes and Machine Age
Saturday, 18th June 2016
The Gov, Adelaide (Lic/AA)
w/ Gideon Bensen (The Preatures), Lulu Raes and Machine Age
Friday, 24th June 2016
170 Russell, Melbourne (18+)
w/ Gideon Bensen (The Preatures), Lulu Raes and Machine Age
Saturday, 25th June 2016
The Metro, Sydney (Lic/AA)
w/ Gideon Bensen (The Preatures), Lulu Raes and Machine Age
Friday, 8th July 2016
Players Bar, Mandurah (18+)
w/ Special Guests TBA
Saturday, 9th July 2016
Jack Rabbit Slim’s, Perth (18+)
w/ Special Guests TBA
