“I’m always blown away, I just can’t believe the amount of people coming to our shows,” he exudes. “We played in Chicago the day after Thanksgiving, I thought to myself, ‘No one’s really going to be there, this could be a bit of a doozy.’ Then it filled out, I’m pretty sure it was sold out.”
The number of Australian artists making their mark overseas in the last few years has increased the Northern Hemisphere’s hunger for Down Under sounds. Of course, we know the Australian music scene is amply equipped to satisfy this growing demand. In fact, so well-endowed are we that a number of bands are inciting masses of praise in Europe and North America before being recognised here. Jagwar Ma have certainly spent far more time abroad than at home thus far, but they’re looking to remedy that fact.
“It seems very much like Australia has been supportive of us, especially triple j and people voting,” says Winterfield. “Ultimately we probably need to play more in Australia. You can’t be everywhere, but I’d love to spend more time in Oz this year.”
True to this intention, the band recently performed a couple of headline shows in Melbourne and Sydney and they’re all set to take part in the nationwide Laneway Festival tour that kicks off this week. Howlin’ is distinguished by the intermeshing of dancehall beats and deep bass grooves with paisley-pop melodies and electric guitars, which makes it difficult to predict what the Jagwar Ma live experience is like. Winterfield acknowledges the ambiguous nature of their setup.
“When people ask us what the band is I normally say, ‘Well we’re kind of an electronic band but I play guitar and sing.’ I think that’s the best way to describe it because everything that I do is completely live and everything’s playing live. We actually have an 808 on stage and it’s running live. Ultimately [we] try to strike that balance between electronic music and a live band.”
The group’s compositional duality is the product of Winterfield and his co-pilot, producer and synth commander Jono Ma, intertwining their separate fortes. Winterfield reveals that initially the project was basically just a bit of a lark for the two core members.
“We had no expectations whatsoever. Ultimately, this was a side project that we really enjoyed doing. Jono and I were in different bands so this was just a fun thing to do on the weekend. It became really fun, [so] we kept on doing it.”
Thankfully, Winterfield and Ma’s joyful partnership developed into a prosperous songwriting dynamic. The feel-good diversity of Howlin’ ensured them a high-position in many critics’ best-of 2013 lists and even ex-Oasis crank Noel Gallagher announced himself as a fan. It’s easy to imagine how such widespread acclaim might prevent them from reviving the carefree atmosphere that permeated their original songwriting experiments, but Winterfield quickly dismisses this notion.
“I think you can actually always hold onto a level of naivety with being musical. It’s not about not having expectations, it’s just about not being too concerned about the big goals and things like that.
“It’s always just got to be about the music,” Winterfield emphasises. “I think making music can always be quite playful and fun. Yeah, it can be work as well, but it’s always fun. So long as it’s fun it’s always pretty good.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
