Timber and Steel

Image Courtesy of Jinja Safari

Jinja Safari had a massive 2011 and their 2012 shows no signs of slowing down with the band announced for both WOMADelaide and Gum Ball to kick the year off. Timber and Steel’s Evan Hughes sat down with one half of Jinja Safari’s original duo, Marcus Azon, to talk about what’s next for the band.

Evan Hughes: We first came across you guys via Husky who you toured with last year. Although you’re not a strictly folk band, despite the folk reference in your bio, we really liked your stuff so started following what you do.
Marcus Azon: When we first started we were thinking that we might just be this duo, an acoustic kind of Simon and Garfunkel or MGMT type of experience. We both really like Midlake and a lot of the new folk, medieval folk artists. And then as we became a bit more of a band it just turned into something else – a bit more of a party, a bit more wild I guess.
EH: I can see that folk was a starting point for you but that your music has come a long way since then.
MA: It’s nice that it’s happened just naturally and that we didn’t have anything specific we set out to achieve.
EH: So you’ve just been announced for a couple of festivals including WOMADelaide which is not the type of festival you’d normally play.
MA: No but it’s the sort of festivals that we’d love to go to. That’s one of the great benefits of playing in a band is all the fantastic festivals that you get to go to as a result. And if you’re lucky like us where your in a space where no one really knows who you are so you play early in the day and you’ve got the rest of the festival to enjoy yourself, really soak up some artists and have a really good think about what sort of musician and what sort of band you want to be.
EH: You’re in a pretty unique position because WOMADelaide never has too many local bands on the bill, mainly internationals. I reckon you’ll get a lot of curious locals coming up and supporting you just because you’re Australian.
MA: I think the only way we got onto the bill is because we’ve got the name of an East African town in the title of our band so I think the organisers just got confused and thought we were from Uganda [laughes].
EH: I was at WOMADelaide last year and it was fantastic – one of the most professionally run, slick festivals in the country with this really chilled out, friendly vibe. I think you’ll have a ball.
MA: That’s really good! We’re all big Peter Gabriel and Genesis fans so it’s an honour to be at something that he’s loosely associated with.
EH: Is there anyone at the festival that you’re keen to see while you’re there?
MA: There’s a few artists on the bill that I’ve heard of and have albums of but there’s a lot there that I don’t know and that’s what I’m really excited about – going and finding something none of friends are listening to and there’s no other way that I’d hear about them other than just bumbling into them by accident at a festival.
EH: You also just announced for Gum Ball festival as well.
MA: Yeah, that’s really great. I think it’s the very last show we play in Australia before we go overseas for a short little trip. It’s so so good to play these smaller, outdoor festivals where it’s just about having a great time in the field with some good vibe music. There’s nothing better.
EH: It’s got a really family, community vibe, the Gum Ball.
MA: I haven’t been but we’ve played Peats Ridge and it sounds like it’s the same vibe – kids and partiers can be in the same place and there’s no danger and no threat. Everyone can just have a great time. How a music festival should be.
EH: Those small festivals are where you discover so much music as well
MA: Absolutely. I watched a documentary on the ’69 Woodstock and boy – they already achieved back then what we’re still trying to replicate now. It’s just that we’ve got the wrong sort of drugs now, we can’t quite get there [laughs]
EH: Now your track “Mermaids” was all over the radio last year and seems to have touched a chord with people. It’s one of my favourite tracks last year – I think you guys were giving it away for free at some point…
MA: Yeah we did our second EP [Mermaids and Sirens] as a free download just because we didn’t have many overhead costs in our band. We haven’t signed to anyone and anything we’ve recorded has been at home in our bedrooms so there’s not much of a cost for us just to go straight to the guys who like our music and get in their iPods. It was a pretty easy thing to do.
EH: I think we linked to the free download from Timber and Steel and to this day we still get hits on that article.
MA: Really?
EH: Almost daily we get at least 10 people visiting that specific article. It must be pretty high up in Google.
MA: That’s great! That’s really good!
EH: I don’t think the link works anymore though. But it still gets hits even though we posted the piece mid last year. People must just like that song.
MA: It’s a fishy little song, pun intended, and it’s been pretty surprising so far how a simple song like that can turn out to be a little bit of fun. It’s certainly a fun song to play live – it’s one of those songs which came about fairly quickly and naturally and once you jam it out with two drummers, having a couple of kicks, it just makes it into something that gets very exciting.
EH: So you said you’re heading overseas. What else is coming up? Any plans to record an album?
MA: We’ve actually got about 25 new demos that we’ve been showing around to the boys and the managers and deciding which songs they like and which songs they hate and trying to figure out if there’s enough for an album in there – which it seems like there is. We’re hopefully going to release something in August and then do a tour with a whole bunch of new material.
EH: That’s definitely something to look forward to. Well thanks so much for spending some time with us today and good luck with WOMADelaide and everything else this year.
MA: Thanks man, it was a pleasure.