Just before jumping aboard a plane to Indonesia, Sam Hales of The Jungle Giants sits down to talk all things heartbreak, working holidays and holding hands.
While the glistening, cerulean waters of Nusa Lembongan await him, the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter prefaces that the trip won’t be all sunshine and sand. “I’m going to write and finish bits and pieces of the record and just get out of town,” he says.
“It’s not fully done,” Sam continues, referring to the upcoming album, of which the lead single – the dazzlingly heartfelt Hold My Hand – dropped in January. “This is classic Jungle Giants. I’ve got, like, a chunk ready, and then we like to release bits and pieces. Then, I just call it treading on water. It’s me working at my best.”
The Jungle Giants
- With Sycco (DJ set) & Friends
- Saturday, April 12
- Northcote Theatre
- Tickets here
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The band rose to fame in 2011 with their self-titled EP, followed up the year after with the career-making She’s A Riot. Exploding onto the scene with the kind of indie rock anthems that become instant classics, now – almost 15 years on – The Jungle Giants show no sign of slowing down. In fact, just the opposite.
“I’m working all year round, for sure,” Sam says. “I call that the routine.” A riff off the writing method that Hemingway made famous, ‘the routine’ is perhaps Sam’s constant anchor in a life made chaotic by world tours and upended schedules. And, of course, the usual chaos.
The last few years have thrown Sam enough spanners to fill a mechanic’s garage. The ending of a decades-long romantic relationship, compounded by a serious jet-ski accident that led to surgery and a months-long recovery… if there’s ever been a time to embrace change, it’s now. Enter, Hold My Hand.
“For me, it was like Hold My Hand was kind of the flagship,” Sam says. “I didn’t want to write breakup songs – I don’t know what it was. Maybe part of it was denial, you know what I mean?”
“There was a whole emotional roller coaster to get here,” the musician continues. “For me, Hold My Hand ticked every box. It was like, okay, well this is a breakup song, but it’s not just a down-in-the-dumps breakup song. For me, it’s one that’s got loss and hope at the same time.”
“Then everything else fell into place”
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During a period of unbelievable change in Sam’s life and career, it is only fitting that “Hold My Hand has kind of held my hand through this whole thing.”
Having originally written a collection of songs for the new album that didn’t feeling quite right, as soon as Sam wrote Hold My Hand, “everything else fell into place.” Although he knew he’d struck gold when he finished writing it, Sam says that sharing it – even at the early stages with bandmates and friends – wasn’t easy.
“You know what’s funny, it was like almost at first I was ashamed of it. It was just super raw, super intense. It didn’t really have that many metaphors in it. It was just really clear about how I felt and at first, I was a little shy about it. [But] I always knew that it was the song that evoked the most emotion from me.”
Not just from Sam, either. Having just played a string of shows across the ditch in Aotearoa, The Jungle Giants got the chance to test the new track out. Despite Sam’s usual rules about not playing unreleased songs live, it was soon proved that rules are made to be broken.
“‘I’ve usually been pretty stringent, [but] it’s feeling really good at the moment, so I think I’m gonna break my own rule,” he says.“The second time we ever played it [in New Zealand], we finished the song and then the crowd kept chanting ‘hold my hand,’” he says.
A new era of sound
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The more that Sam shared the track, he says, “the more it became clear to be the favourite.” It’s humming with an undercurrent of the signature Jungle Giants sound, but displaying an undeniable evolution.
“It sounds like a progression, as well, with the sound. And that’s a nice thing. What I’m also realising is that the more you progress your sound, no one complains as long as you love it.”
Taking the new track – and perhaps some more unreleased songs, Sam teases – on the road around Australia, Victorian fans can catch the band at Naarm’s Northcote Theatre on April 12 and Frankston’s Pier Bandroom on April 13, supported by fellow ex-Brisbaner Sycco.
It’s undeniable that change is in the air that surrounds the stratosphere of The Jungle Giants. Routines are shifting, rules are breaking and sound is progressing. Thankfully, there’s a track to hold their hands through it all.
For tickets to see The Jungle Giants at Northcote Theatre on April 12, head here.
