From Blog Darlings To Airplay On The Voice

Childhood friends J (Josh Lloyd-Watson) and T (Tom McFarland) formed Jungle at the beginning of 2013, and the band, which now boasts seven members when playing live, went from being complete unknowns to the most buzzed-about band on earth in the space of just one year.

They’re now in that rare position of having a song – and a music career – that has spun out of control.  “Just the other day I walked into a room,” Lloyd-Watson shares, “and Busy Earnin’ was the opening thing of this program on the BBC, The Voice… You don’t really get approval of certain placements of your song.” 

The rise and rise of Jungle happened so slickly one wonders if it was all part of a grand plan. “Well grand plans are something that manifest more in hope and dreams,” he suggests. “Everybody dreams, you know, and everybody hopes, and I think that’s what makes everybody successful human beings in a way. Definitely expectations are something slightly different; you can’t really expect it, and you don’t know if it’s going to happen.”

"You don’t really get approval of certain placements of your song.” 

Two weeks before their debut album dropped in July last year, Jungle played to “like, a million people” at Glastonbury on the back of just three singles. A year later, their album was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. The self-titled debut was a spectacular and inventive album of pop, soul, funk and boogie. “We definitely had a lot of blog support early on. But obviously then the blog support will tail off, and I think that’s because you’re no longer new... You can’t really control it. You have to be really calm in knowing you’ve created the best thing that you can create.”

Timing was of utmost importance too, he explains, and you get the feeling Jungle were conscious of the career-building significance of each step taken. “I think the thing with our first record is something that kind of happened and it got carried away very quickly and it was like we were definitely trying to play catch up because once you’ve released your first song you set this ticking time bomb off of how long you’ve got to release a record before people lose interest. It’s almost like, you know that game Dance? Where you have to dance and hit the arrows at the right time? It kind of feels a little bit like that, you’ve got to make sure you get it good or perfect with the timing.”

Lloyd-Watson and McFarland are well aware they set the bar high with their first record. “There’s definitely ideas there for the second record. We’re thinking of doing something completely different, just move the bar, not try and change its position. We’re very conscious to make something that’s much better than the first record and a little bit deeper and more emotional and slightly cleverer.”