However, for frontman and chief songwriter Sam Hales, making the progression into album two wasn’t seamless. “I try to write every day, just as a rule,” he says. “If I don’t really write that much I feel a bit shit or a bit lazy. So after the first album I went through this phase where I couldn’t really write that much. It wasn’t as much writer’s block… I think I was looking for something. I felt like I was looking for some sort of change or some sort of new direction.”
Breaking into new creative territory is never going to be easy. In fact, if it does occur without much resistance you should probably to be wary, as there’s a strong chance you’re either fooling yourself or just stealing someone else’s ideas. Acknowledging this, Hales worked determinedly to uncover new ground.
“The first six months after Learn to Exist was dedicated to just trying new things and writing in different ways and different styles and playing with different instruments,” he says. “That’s where Speakerzoid came from. It came from a want for something new. I can’t explain why, I just needed to wrap my head around a new challenge.”
Much like The Jungle Giants’ debut, Speakerzoid was recorded under the watchful eye of Australian producer extraordinaire, Magoo (AKA Lachlan Goold). However, the nature of the recording procedure – which happened in a makeshift studio space just near the NSW/Queensland border – vastly differed from that which birthed Learn to Exist.
“We went in with a plan,” says Hales. “We had all these demos and I’d purposefully left lots of gaps in the demos. Like, there was a song where a bridge wasn’t completely finished and the idea was that I could finish it at home, but I also wanted to go into the studio with all the band and try however we were feeling that day. I knew with this way the song was going to take on its own kind of feel once we started recording and jamming on it. We’d have Magoo there to [accommodate] every whim. I’d just be like ‘Magoo, I want to slap some strings on a piano right so can you mic that shit up?’
“Me and Magoo have a really, really cool relationship now,” he adds. “We did an EP with him and we did the last album with him. He’s kind of like a band dad, but also a friend. We have this thing where me and Magoo just agree on everything – sometimes in a big way, sometimes in a subtle way. If someone’s doing something and I’m like, ‘It’s not perfect,’ Magoo will be like, ‘No, you’re right.’ So we have a really creative gel going on. I went into this album and I said to Magoo, ‘I really want to fuck around with the production and work with a bunch of different instruments.’ He was like, ‘Cool. Just give it to me and we’ll figure something out’.”
The outcome of this method is plainly obvious: from a production point of view, Speakerzoid contains plenty of interesting textural details and curious instrumental flourishes. As a result, listening to the album on repeat occasions proves a continually rewarding experience.
“We just built this cave that was filled with instruments,” says Hales. “Whenever we’d get to a point where I’d be like, ‘It needs something,’ I’d just walk into this living room that we converted into this giant instrument room and we’d walk around knocking things and hitting things with sticks and blowing into things. Then eventually we’d find the instrument, we’d talk about it a little bit and see what we wanted. It was a way more creative process than the last one.
“The last album was just written and then recorded,” he continues. “We were pretty damn young when we did that. We were all 18 and we’d never really done an album before. This time around we realised an album is an album, recording is different for every band – we realised that and we said, ‘We can do whatever we want.’ There’s no particular rules, so we just said ‘We want to make a space where we can support that “Do whatever you want” thing’.”
Hales’ strong urge to uncover something new – sounds heretofore untouched by The Jungle Giants – was partly motivated by the huge assortment of fresh stimulus he was introduced to in the months following Learn to Exist.
“When we recorded Learn to Exist there was this huge amount of music that I had not listened to,” he says. “I moved into a house with a bunch of friends that are musicians and they’re all older than me, and so the last two years since Learn to Exist has just been me hearing a shitload of music that I’ve never heard before. That influenced me. Like, right after Learn to Exist was the first time I ever heard Grace by Jeff Buckley. I’d never heard that album and it completely just fucked me up when I heard it – it opened my mind up to a whole new way of writing, or something like that. I had some spiritual connection to that album. It was like this awesome thing. So I found a bunch of albums like that in the last two years. I listened to more music in the last two years than I ever have in my whole life. So that definitely put a huge influence into the album.”
Released in 1994, Buckley’s Grace is an easily grasped, well-crafted entity. However, in some ways, it’s all over the place – each of its ten songs does something distinctly different. In a similar manner, Speakerzoid covers a lot of ground; there are songs where Hales sings in a deadpan, speak-sing vocal style, then there’s immersive melodic moments and spacey rock numbers. However, as a whole, itpresents a strong, cohesive identity.
“I’ve always liked putting a bunch of different sounding songs on the album, all kind of pushing in different directions,” Hales says. “I feel like that opens up you and your fans to a certain thing. Beck does that on his albums. With this new Beck album that’s coming out, I don’t think anyone really knows what that’s going to sound like and I think that’s a really good thing. Beck just writes a shitload of music, and over the course of his albums it’s all been really different and really cool, but it still sounds like Beck. So I think just trying new things and making music that’s not all the same, to me that means a lot.”
Hales isn’t only inspired by preeminent figures in American music. It’s no secret there’s been some incredible Australian records making waves internationally in recent years. A primary example is the new Tame Impala album, which follows a string of excellent releases from the likes of Courtney Barnett, The Preatures, Jack Ladder, Seekae and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Seeing all this great music emerge from Australia has compelled The Jungle Giants to work even harder at distinguishing themselves.
“I feel like the world is looking at Australia because we are throwing out so much good shit right now,” Hales says. “I feel like there’s a really cool chance here for Australian bands to just fucking smash it and be a world leader in what the fuck is going on in music. There’s so many cool bands doing fucking really different things. All my favourite Australian bands are doing really, really fucking cool things, like King Gizzard, POND, Tame. They’re doing cool, weird shit, being really experimental and really confident. That confidence rubs off on you. [It makes you want to] try things, mix things together, make cool music and just do it yourself.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
