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Interview | Jinja Safari

Jinja Safari 

This Australian band is the result of mixing happiness, music, and the world together. Jinja Safari rose to Australian fame back in 2010, when they were hand-picked by Triple J to play at Splendour In The Grass.

Their indie rock sound is composed of tribal beats, dual drums, sitars and storytelling from across the globe. Releasing their first self-titled in 2010 and their other album “Locked By Land in 2011, Jinja Safari have already graced the festivals of Big Day Out, Falls, Southbound, Bestival (UK) and have recently passed the milestone of one million views on their YouTube channel

Fast forward to May 2013, Jinja Safari have released their third self titled album with positive reception. This 12 track album features some of our new favourite songs, “West Coast Rock”, “Just One Thing” and “Source Of The Nile”. “Toothless Grin” and “Plagiarist” are also featured on the new album. Catching up with Joe (bass) from Jinja Safari, we talked all things live shows and also about the crazy shoot to success they had back in 2010. 

Jinja Safari’s Australian tour started in Melbourne, then continued on through Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and then ended in Sydney on May 30. 

“The tour was definitely a roaring success. It was a pretty simple tour actually.We did a few dates, toured the main cities and played smaller shows. It was pretty fun because we tried out some new stuff and just tried to get the album out there as much as possible. Pretty much all the shows sold out, which was crazy! We haven’t toured in a while so it’s nice to see that there are still some crazy fans out there. My personal favourite part of the tour definitely has to be Adelaide – not only because of the show at the Jive Bar, but we actually managed to go out as a group afterwards to the Rocket Bar. Peppa and Marcus don’t usually drink, or hardly drink at all, so when we went out, they finally realised what club life was like (laughs). It was nice to have us all together, our manager and sound guy included! (laughs).”

The band is definitely the envy of a lot of Australian artists, as they went straight into playing at Splendour In The Grass after having only been around for a few months. Being invited back twice to play at the festival, Joe commented on the weird feeling of instantly touring with the freshly made band. 

“There wasn’t really any time as a band to dream of playing at festivals, we just did (laughs). We played at Splendour due to being picked out by Triple J and we kind of just continued from there. We’ve played at big festivals such as The Big Day Out and Falls which is ridiculous. It’s the fastest way to reach the right crowd I suppose.”

Their new album titled “Jinja Safari” contains tracks written all around the world. Over the past 18 months Marcus and Pepa travelled to India, Cambodia, Indonesia, the UK, the US, Germany, Canada and of course, Uganda, home to the town which inspired the outfit’s name. 

“They are both machines when they write songs, I think they pretty much write everyday. Marcus and Pepa write whilst they’re on planes, they write on iPad’s, behind the Taj Mahal, and it’s crazy how much they do. When they show us the songs they’ve come up with, such as “Source Of The Nile”, we immediately fall in love with them. There’s about 50 versions of that song actually (laughs).”

The YouTube ID of 2VAmoWjL2Aw?feature=player_detailpage is invalid. As a tradition at Ezra Magazine, we like to ask a few different questions at the end of the interview. This time round we also have two fan questions we asked Joe. Enjoy! If you could collaborate with any musician or band, who would it be?

“I am pretty obsessed with The Flaming Lips, so I’d probably have to collab with them. The last thing they released actually they worked with Tame Impala (which by the way are living every Australian band’s dream (laughs).

From Morgan, S.A: how would you describe your band to an elderly person?

“(laughs). Hmm an elderly person? Gosh, I don’t know! Probably how I describe the music and the band to everyone: Straight up rock and roll!”

From Alex, S.A: has allowing fans up on stage to dance/sing with you ever gone wrong?

“Oh now this is a funny story, and a long one! We managed to end up playing at the Secret Garden festival which I’m pretty sure ended up being south of Sydney (I don’t actually know the location because we were driven there on a bus in the dark of the night and it was all very hush hush (laughs). When we hopped off the bus we were led into this forest-y looking area with a weird path and weird lights, it didn’t look real I can tell you that. Anyhow, I went up to the open bar and was ordering a drink and noticed a guy dressed as Peter Pan. We started chatting and I mentioned that we have a song called “Peter Pan” and that he should get up and dance during the song. Well, when it was our chance to play, I spotted him, called him up and he started dancing. Now, this stage that we were playing on was not huge. To everyone’s surprise, including our manager and the security guards, one after another people were jumping up on stage. They’d help up other people and keep doing it until suddenly there was no room to move, the stage was bending in the middle and the staff were getting a little angry. I moved myself to the edge of the stage, deciding that if it were to go down, I’d be at the front (laughs). People were jumping everywhere and it was such a crazy insane atmosphere, actually there’s footage of it! Check it out!”

If you want to listen to a happy-go-lucky album that can make you smile within the first few moments of listening to it, we recommend to start listening to”Jinja Safari“. It’s definitely the new cure for our unhappy moods! Jinja Safari’s social links:

Website

YouTube

Facebook

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