Band Interview: Ali In The Jungle
Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with post punk revivalist band, Ali in the Jungle.
How did you get started as a band?
Ali In The Jungle are: Ali, Chris, Tim & Sam.
We met at school eight years ago, and formed Ali In The Jungle with a view to standing out from all the other bands our age who were copying The xx and 2013 Arctic Monkeys. Our remedy was complex, genre bending supercharged and raw piano-punk revival music (a term I have made up just now).
How would you describe your sound?
Post-punk revival music (Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Interpol) with a piano pulsing through it instead of two guitars. That’s a big part of our sound but our pallete is wider because of Sam’s proficiency with classical guitar. We use those techniques to write acoustic ballads such as ‘I Don’t Even Know You’ and progressive rock too such as in ‘You Make Me Feel So Alive’, both from our debut EP ‘Anyway’.
What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?
With regards to genre bending its The Beatles and David Bowie. But otherwise our danceable take on 2000s rock styles is heavily influenced by The Killers, The Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Kasabian, Vampire Weekend, etc. Vocally we’re big on using humour to talk about serious themes, and having the music reflect the themes at hand, so people like Lou Reed, Radiohead, Kanye West are important to us here.
Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?
It’s helped for sure! We’ve found a great audience on YouTube. We’re all film buffs, some of whom have studied and worked in the film industry, so the visual side of Ali In The Jungle is really important to us. We’ve recently released our first music video ‘Drunk Generation’, described by critics as a “DIY (Drink It Yourself) Subterranean Homesick Blues”.
YouTube been a great place to give our supporters the live Ali In The Jungle experience. We made a professional live vid of our support show for popular ‘drunk folk’ artist Beans On Toast.
Streaming platforms have also helped us reach a much wider fan base than if they didn’t exist – we have a mass of supporters in South America! Follow this link to stream our songs from Spotify, Apple, Soundcloud and more.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?
Listening to music haha; currently listening to a lot of Fleet Foxes and Beirut. I guess I covered our love of film earlier too… Tim & Ali play in a five aside team together called ‘Ali In The Football’; Sam is an incredible rock climber; Chris is a Jiu Jitsu fighter (which means he has the upper hand in all creative discussions). Tim’s also a huge Doctor Who fan and hopes one day that the BBC hear all the references in Ali In The Jungle songs, and gets us on the show.
What are your future plans musically? Tours?
Once the world of live music re-opens we wanna get back to our EP-mini tour around London. We had festivals booked, but they’ve been moved to next summer now. We’ve got our music video for ‘I Don’t Even Know You’ coming out on 17th July, and our video for ‘People Change’ is in the final stages of post production. We’re also recording a soundtrack for a short film called Making Waves which will be on BBC iPlayer!
The plan is then to record a follow up EP to ‘Anyway’ (if we’re not on a label and making an album by then)! We can’t wait to record some more bangers, as we’ve got so much we want to share!
