Jungle discuss new album ‘Volcano’, headlining All Points East and being the world’s biggest unknown band
On a supposed July afternoon, amid a week of thunderous rain across the United Kingdom, I log on to Zoom to speak with Josh Lloyd-Watson from Jungle, who greets me from a picture-perfect location straight from a postcard.
Watson is speaking ahead of a DJ set in Monterrey, Mexico. Before we talk about Jungle’s new album Volcano, he gives me a tour of his surroundings from his iPhone, making this Yorkshire-based journalist green with envy. Jungle are superstars in Mexico, and last year, they played to 20,000 fans at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. However, this time, the duo only made a quick flying visit to the capital city rather than for a full-blown seven-piece band set.
“It’s where we come from. We’re producers, ultimately, as well as writers and creators. So it’s us in our element in some way,” Lloyd-Watson says on the art of DJing. “The live shows are a jamboree, but the DJ sets are also amazing because you just get to play other people’s stuff, and when you play your own songs, they always sound perfect.”
Balancing these two parts of Jungle side-by-side is what Lloyd-Watson and his bandmate Tom McFarland have been doing for a decade. It allows the duo to express themselves in a different environment and travel lightly without the expense of bringing a full-touring party to far-flung locations.
Even wildly successful acts like Jungle, set to headline the All Points Festival in London and Forest Hills Stadium in New York this summer, need to consider expenses in this current climate. Otherwise, delivering live shows become money-losing exercises.
During these times, artists have to think outside of the box. As an independent band without the backing of a major label, Jungle teamed up with WeTransfer for an interactive music video for ‘Back On 74’ to promote their new album Volcano, released on August 11th. The visuals include a series of artworks fans can click on and digitally save through WeTransfer.
Lloyd-Watson explained the decision to join forces with the business: “It’s been mental, but amazing. We partnered with WeTransfer because videos are expensive, and I’m bored of paying for them myself. Having a corporation pay for them provides a lot more freedom, so we shot videos for all 14 songs on Volcano, we wrote a whole script for it, and it tells the tale of Will West, whose an incredible dancer.”
For Jungle, the visuals are equally as important as the songs, and they use them as a method of storytelling, allowing Lloyd-Watson to express his artistry through another avenue. West was away for the videos on their last album, Loving In Stereo, but is now back with Lloyd-Watson revealing the theme is a “mysterious sort of TV show which contextualises Jungle videos.”
To add another layer, they added 1000 pieces of AI-generated art relating to volcanoes which still took Lloyd-Watson “three or four days” to create. In days gone by, teaming up with a software company such as WeTransfer might have been as selling out, but in 2023, the money has fallen out of the music industry. As long as the brand they are working with isn’t morally questionable, these deals are necessary for most acts.
“WeTransfer is probably the best collaboration you could ever ask for. It doesn’t really evoke any negative feelings,” he admits. “It’s not like we’ve done a collab with Shell. The industry has completely changed, and music doesn’t make that much money anymore. So, the only real money that can be made out of it is with brands”.
Lloyd-Watson continues: “You think about Radiohead in the 1990s, and they wouldn’t do an advert, but they were selling records. People bought CDs, so there was actual money there which is different when the music is given away for free. We didn’t get paid any money to do the collaboration, we just needed to pay for the videos, and it all went back into the art.”
For a group now on their fourth LP, Jungle are still sounding fresh while retaining the quintessential DNA of their music that skyrocketed them to success. There is also a selection of special guests on the album, including ‘You Ain’t No Celebrity’ with British rap royalty Roots Manuva.
“That came about around five years ago, we just randomly did a session with Roots, and he recorded some vocals but sort of left it at that,” the producer explains. “We then moved on, but I picked it up recently, and I had this new track, ‘You Ain’t A Celebrity’, it went to this section at the end, and I said, ‘It would be amazing to have a feature in here’. Sometimes it’s easier to go into the back catalogue and almost collage it. There’s a beauty to that because the artist doesn’t know what they are performing over, so you get these happy accidents of juxtaposed rhythms.”
Unlike other albums in their back catalogue, Jungle set themselves a strict time limit on completing Volcano. As soon as they completed touring Loving In Stereo toward the end of 2022, they returned to the studio, and within two months, their fourth record was complete.
“It had to be done by Christmas, and I think that is really, really important,” he says adamantly. “Because with the other process, we’ll make it; I won’t finish it and then stick it on a hard drive that we carry around for five years. Nothing happens that way. It just goes on forever. We experienced that with our second album. With that was sort of non-deadline working, nothing ever gets done, and it drives you mad in the process.”
In the current climate, music has become a throwaway consumption for many, but Lloyd-Watson has no intention of altering his artistry on Tik-Tok. The Londoner confesses that he tried out the platform for the first time recently but says he’s “not really into that” and has “always tried to make records that are whole bodies of work that you can lose yourself into”.
According to Lloyd-Watson, Volcano is centred on “love lost and love found”, like the rest of their albums. He elaborates: “They go through the cycles of life. I think that applies to every relationship. All our feelings are based on relationships with people, whether they are romantic or letting go of friends or finding new friends or finding new musical partners, finding new romantic partners or losing a dad.”
While lyrically Jungle tackles these subjects of immense personal importance, they are also designed to sweep thousands of people in waves of euphoria and dance like there’s no tomorrow. They have earned a reputation internationally for their performances, hence why they are headlining The Kia Forum in Los Angeles and Forest Hills Stadium in New York.
Additionally, Jungle headline All Points East this summer in London alongside Stormzy and The Strokes. “Well, obviously, they’ve fucked up there because we ain’t as big as those two,” Lloyd-Watson self-deprecatingly says about the slot. “It’s an honour to be able to step up to headline, but I’m aware Jungle aren’t The Stokes. I grew up listening to them, and they’re the greatest. Stormz is obviously the man, too. He’s so loveable. We’ve just got to go, have a good time and get people dancing.”
Unlike the other artists mentioned above, Lloyd-Watson still has his privacy, a privilege he doesn’t take for granted. “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You’ve nailed it, you can headline a festival, but nobody knows you when you walk down the street’. When you see what fame can do the people, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that in the rawest way,” he earnestly adds.
In this current musical climate, when the line between artists and content creators is thinner than ever, Jungle represents a throwback to a time when there was still mystique attached to musical acts. The strength of their songs and live performances is why they’ve become a festival headliner, not because of their ability to go viral on social media. Volcano is another example of Jungle continuing to play by their own rules and helps cement their status as cult heroes.
Volcano is out now; stream it in full below.
