Australia’s The Jungle Giants return with new single ‘Hold My Hand’
Starting on jazz flute & drums. Bon Iver & Caribou being major influences. Breakup songs. Songwriting being a vessel for catharsis. The morning birds after an all-nighter at the studio. Tamarind margs. Trusting your gut. Going on tour in Australia & New Zealand, and more.
Fuzzer: Hi Sam! How's it going?
Sam from TFG: Good. We've got a final run before tour today, which is nice. It's been going good. We've added an extra day because all of our gear broke yesterday.
Fuzzer: Oh shit, that's not the one!
Sam: It's alright. Just sometimes everything goes wrong. This is why we rehearse, you know?
Fuzzer: Totally, I guess you’ve gotta surrender to it and just keep it moving!
Sam: Yeah, exactly! As long as it’s not on stage, everything’s fine.
Fuzzer: Yeah! Well, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Can’t wait to talk about your new single. First off I'd love to start by asking, who were your main musical and creative influences going growing up?
Sam: Oh I mean, it changed a lot. When I first started, I started on the flute. I was a very avid flute player. And I got into the jazz flute and then from there, I started becoming a jazz drummer, and that's exactly what I wanted to be. I was playing at the Conservatorium of Music for a bit, and I was really into Buddy Rich, just like really nerdy jazzy drums. And then I got into Miles Davis heavily. I thought that was going to be my life, I just loved that stuff. And then I heard Bon Iver and it fully rewired my brain. I quit the drums! It changed my life. Got a guitar. I remember when I was leaving school, I'd saved up a bunch of money and it was like, I could either get a car or a guitar, and I just ended up getting a good guitar (laughs). But I just caught the bus a lot - whatever, it worked out.
But yeah, Bon Iver was one of the biggest influences. It started my obsession with songwriting, and I don't know, that was one thing I liked about the drums, but I feel like there was a ceiling that you can hit. I didn't realize what it was, but playing your own music is another layer of beautiful difficulty. I love the challenge. I just like what songwriting has to offer, and Bon Iver kind of like, unlocked that for me. I went from Bon Iver to Caribou, and I'm still stuck on Caribou.
Fuzzer: I love Caribou!
Sam: He’s so sick. He influenced me a lot. One thing I liked growing up was all his records are really different, like you actually never know what the next record is going to sound like. And I love that. It's fun. So that definitely influenced me - I just realized the best thing you can do is make the music you love despite what your last record sounded like. And it can seem risky, but it's actually less risky than doing something you don't like. Do you know what I mean?
Fuzzer: Yeah, 100%! That’s such a great answer. And congrats on the your first release in over a year with your single “Hold My Hand” which is absolutely amazing. It's just full of emotion, with this dance pop production and there’s so many layers instrumentation wise. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind that track?
Sam: Thank you. Yeah, well it’s a breakup song that took me a while to write. A little while ago, I came out of a 10 year relationship and it was so interesting. We're best friends now, it's actually like a really beautiful thing, but making music after that was really strange because at first I didn't want to write a breakup song (laughs). I don't know why. I just didn't want to do it, but it's so funny because the music kind of forced me to do it. Any song I wrote just felt fake or something like that. I just became very conscious of the fact that I wasn't making the song I actually wanted to make, maybe because I was scared or whatever, and then “Hold My Hand” was the product of just going with how I felt, and it was super cathartic and really helpful.
And I guess for me, it boils down how I felt, because you can fall out of love but you can stay within that friendship, that love that you have for that person. That’s what me and my ex did, and we speak on the phone all the time. We're like besties, and I wanted to boil that into a song. And so “Hold My Hand”, it's kind of like a loss but it's also hope and it says something about “we're not together anymore, but I'll always be here to hold your hand”, in like a friendship, loving way. And I liked that. Once I had that language together, I was like “that's how I feel, that's awesome”. It kind of unlocked the rest of the songs for me. It became like a bit of a flagship for the record. So, yeah, it was actually a really helpful song for me.
Fuzzer: Yeah, that's awesome. I love what you said about how love can transform in different ways. And then obviously, you are a big producer, and you produce a lot of your stuff, including this. What was that process like for this song?
Sam: It's actually really fun. There's a lot of instrumentation to it. I went to LA for a little bit last year looking to collab with people, write songs for other people, whatever. And I ended up hanging out with a guy called Running Touch. And usually with Jungle’s music, I don't like to work with other producers just because I kind of like being in the box and figuring it out for myself. But I brought the song to Running Touch, and it was just the best thing ever. He really added some really delicious things to the song. So in the song, there's no like guitar part, but there's like 13 guitars in the song, and it was a great idea what he did. He was like, “in the key of the song, let's just solo. You do a solo. I'll do a solo”. And then he compressed it and changed the time and the speed, and then we put them all in. So it just became like this massive tonal prettiness. That essentially is such a big flavour of the song. When you take it out, it's like “oh my God, what's missing?”. And then my poor guitarist - we've been learning the song this week, and my guitarist is like, “what do I play?!” (laughs). So we've been figuring that out which is really fun.
There's also the bird sounds in the song that I really love. I kind of look at it like a smorgasbord of influence. The song, in the verse, that's about me and my ex used to make a lot of music together. We would do these full all-nighters. And then sometimes we'd be like “oh my God, it's daytime. We have to stop”. And when you open the studio door, it's like leaving the cinema (laughs). And that's why the birds are there, because it's those morning birds as a little reminder or like a little memory of just walking out the studio and it's morning (laughs).
Fuzzer: I love that touch, that’s so awesome! And you’ve mentioned this is the first single off your upcoming fifth studio album which is super exciting! Is there anything that you can tell us about this new album?
Sam: Yeah, I think one thing I'm really liking about this record now that “Hold My Hand” kind of unlocked stuff and as I said, but I'm really loving the mix of intense strings. There’s something inherently sad about strings, at least in my head, they feel really reflective and mixing that with dance elements. So for me, it's kind of like a dancey orchestra vibe going on at the moment. That’s the best way to explain it. Because for me, often an instrumental can express a feeling better than words can, and I always find that in strings and your kind of open mapped production, this album is kind of a lot of that. The instrumentation is always first for me. And I think I'm just kind of leaning into just saying as much as I possibly can without words. We’ve even got an instrumental on the record. I haven't really done that for a while, but I tried to sing on it and I was like “this is better if I don’t sing” (laughs). I'm going to ruin it if I say anything. I think there's just a lot of intensity in the record which is nice
Fuzzer: Wow, that's awesome. I can't wait to hear the instrumental track. It's always a nice surprise when you're listening to the album in full, just having that creative instrumental element really brings something special to the whole project. And you've had such an illustrious career - I read nearly a billion streams just for The Jungle Giants alone which is incredible. And of course, you started Confidence Man back in that 2015/2016 era. Would you be able to share some of the biggest lessons and takeaways you've learned throughout your career?
Sam: Wow. I mean, so many! (Laughs) Well, I guess the biggest one which is like so obvious, but trusting your gut is the key thing. We’ve got powerful brains, right? And we can often convince ourselves not to do something because it’s “dangerous” or “risky” or whatever. But your gut always knows. I just started to realize, if you do follow your gut, people can tell. One thing I say is, I feel like people can smell if you love what you're doing. It's like there's a scent through the music. There's just a sense. For me, once I kind of really, really discovered that, and that became a bottom line, that's definitely one of the biggest lessons for me. You never forget a lesson like that. And sometimes you catch yourself using logic, and then you go “no, no, trust the gut”. And it's a lesson that keeps giving.
Fuzzer: Yeah it's such a good inner guide, and I guess, not only for music, but even like business decisions that you're making, or just like relationships or general, just trust the gut.
Sam: Yeah, it works everywhere!
Fuzzer: Yeah, and I like that point that you mentioned - I think people can definitely tell if there's authenticity and people really gravitate towards that. So one thing we do for each interview is we customise a cocktail recipe in relation to the artist that we're interviewing. So taking it back all the way back to your last album “Love Signs”, if that was a cocktail, or a mocktail if you don't drink, what type of drink do you think that would be? What kind of flavours do you think would have?
Sam: I already know, because we're a very big Margarita band. So we love a spicy Tommy's margarita. But at the moment, because actually on our riders backstage, we ask for like a shaker - we're fully into it. And we love tamarind margs at the moment. So I'm going to say tamarind margarita. They're so good, and there's just a little edge to it. A secret sauce.
Fuzzer: Yeah I have not tried that before, but I need to!
Sam: Yeah our guitarist Cesira, she's the best at making drinks and the tamarind marg is like her specialty. She like changed tamarind for me for the rest of my life.
Fuzzer: (Laughs) I love that! We're going to make a recipe for that when we post the interview! And what kind of music are you listening to at the moment? Have there been any new artists or songs that you recommend we listen to?
Sam: Yeah, actually you know what, I’ve been making a lot of playlists at the moment. There's a guy that I love, his name's Pale Jay. It’s so soulful and juicy. I love it. I kind of do this thing where I get obsessed with an artist and then often like my friends are like “dude, can you listen to something else? You’re playing the same song over and over” (laughs). He’s my current obsession.
Fuzzer: Yes I love Pale Jay! “The Garden”, that's my favorite song of his.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. I think “Shameful Game” for me, that's the one I first discovered. I think it was in the UK - we were just leaving a bar and then it was on. I'm like an average Shazam-er, and often at the end of tour, I'll just go through all my Shazams and that one just fully stuck with me.
Fuzzer: Yeah, amazing! Okay, that's definitely a great suggestion. And you've got your Australia and New Zealand tour coming up. Super excited to see you at Powerstation. That's going to be such a good show. What are you looking forward to most about that?
Sam: Oh I just can't wait to be back in New Zealand. New Zealand crowds are just so fun, they're music loving. And the last time we were there, even our agent was like “that show was awesome!”. Like, there was just such a good vibe. We were talking about the tour just the other day and I just kind of can't wait to be back in that atmosphere, because it always kind of goes down. It's a party, but it's like a fun loving party. Do you know what I mean? It's loose in the funnest, nicest way.
Fuzzer: Yeah for sure! And for 2025, you’ve also got the album coming out!
Sam: Yeah a lot more shows and a lot of songs, so we're going to be kind of trickling out the record through the year and then announcing an album tour at some point later in the year. But this year is just going to be, between touring, I'm going to go do some writing trips which is part of the plan. I love going to Darwin at the moment for writing trips - there’s a place called Wagait Beach. It's like two hour drivefrom Darwin, and it's just like the weirdest place in Australia ever. Red ant hills that are like 10 feet high. It’s super thick bush, and you just feel like you're in like Mars. It's so crazy. You can't swim, of course, because of the crocodiles. But it's a place that I like to go to disconnect. So this year, I think there'll be a lot of that as well. Just touring and then just being in the wilderness writing music.
