Chatting to Rum Jungle’s lead singer and guitarist Benny about their new album ‘Recency Bias’, we touch on the band’s creative process, their many EPs, and whether we can expect UK tour dates from the Aussies anytime soon.
Despite what Spotify seems to think, ‘Recency Bias’ – released last month – is Rum Jungle’s debut album, not their seven track 2018 EP ‘Sun & Smoke’. That said, the Rum Jungle lads took a different approach to the tracks on this non-EP, definitely an album this time, than they had done previously.
“We’ve done lots of EPs, and not very many albums. Which is a funny thing. But I think doing an album was a long time coming. It’s like, compared to all of the EPs we’ve done before, it was drastically different,” Benny says as he takes a swig of his drink.
“To be honest, I think the release of your debut album has so much weight behind it. So, I think we did approach it very differently in that we really spent a lot of time making sure that every song sounded exactly the way that we wanted to.”
Benny explains how working on their several EPs over the years acted as a ‘learning period’ for trying different sounds, writing songs, and playing their own instruments too. But the singer quickly points out that, “It’s not to say that we’re masters of our instruments or songwriting or anything like that, but I think having had the time to do so many EPs beforehand has meant that by the time we’ve come around to the album, it’s felt like we were genuinely ready.
“And now, on the other end of it, we feel like we’ve made something that we’re all incredibly proud of. Front to back.”
Starting with ‘Chauffeur’ in July of last year, Rum Jungle steadily released a few of the tracks that were to be included on their debut album. But not all of them made the cut – including the earlier April release ‘Did The Morning Let You Down?’.
“We already knew that some of the songs would make it, which were ‘Chauffeur’, ‘What’s It Like?’ and ‘Did The Morning Let You Down?’. But ‘Did The Morning Let You Down?’ didn’t really hit the mark exactly like we wanted it to.
“So we were like, let’s just release it as a standalone single that kind of bridges the gap from the last EP to the next project,” says the Australian singer.
Originally, ‘Recency Bias’ consisted of 14 tracks, but any die-hard Rum Jungle fan, or maybe just a casual fan with a good memory, would know that there are only 12. Seemingly the two extra tracks threw the album out of kilter as Benny says, “I think what ended up happening was we recorded them all, and we listened to them in a bunch of different orders, and we just found that with all 14 Songs, there wasn’t any way that it felt like a tight, concise piece of work by the end. No matter how we arranged them.
“We almost felt a little bit like this is dragging on. And then we figured out that there were two songs that, if we took out, made the rest feel a lot stronger together.”
Rest-assured to fans of the indie Aussie band, it is likely that these two unreleased tracks will make an appearance in the band’s discography in the future.
And with a few of the tracks being released throughout 2024, as well as the album itself being out since February, the band have been able to get these tracks in front of an audience. With Benny admitting that the opening and closing songs have been his personal favourites to play live so far.
“I don’t know how it really happened, but the opening song of the album, ‘Hi, Hello’ very much is like an introduction. Which is what it ended up being for the album. And so that’s been something that’s been really fun to play live, because we’ve been opening shows with it.”
Saying this, it is the last track that stands out amongst the rest for the singer. “I think playing the finishing song ‘Pass You By’, has been insane, just because it’s really easy to sing along to the chorus. A massive amount of people at these shows have sung it along with it, so it’s kind of been a little bit surreal to be honest.”
When asking Benny which artists or bands the members of Rum Jungle took inspiration from in the creative process, and lead up to the new album, he rattles off a few names. But one that sticks out. “All four of us have, like, pretty different tastes. But Phoenix was a big inspiration that we kind of wanted to use.
“‘Lisztomania’ by Phoenix. Like, we love the sound of the drums, and we love the sound of all the songs that were part of that album.”
He goes on to say that the band also listened to a lot of The Flaming Lips during the careful curation of the album. “And then, yeah, it’s a funny one, because there’s so many random little different inspirations, but it’s like, like, you could say, like The Strokes, Cage The Elephant, The Beatles, obviously, like, who isn’t inspired by those guys?.”
And we would have to agree with Benny on that one.
In a whirlwind turn of events, Rum Jungle’s debut album ‘Recency Bias’ currently sits at number nine on the Australian charts, amongst some pretty major names. Describing what that felt like, Benny says, “Oh, it’s basically ridiculous, to be honest I was kind of in shock. Looking at it, it was literally just all of these massive, global big hitters, like Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams, Ed Sheeran, a few others, and then little old Rum Jungle.
“I think we’re still kind of just reeling from it.”
Equally as impressive, their new album is at number one on the Australian album charts, and according to Benny, he had a pretty visceral reaction about it. “I almost felt like my whole body was gonna fall apart when we found that out, because it was just so surreal. Especially because we didn’t think that we were gonna get it.
“Definitely a top five moment in my life.”
And standing out against its counterparts on the Aussie charts is also the album artwork of ‘Recency Bias’. Unique in its design, the singer says that the band did have some creative influence over the artwork, but they were also happy for the artist to run with it. “If we’re going to get an artist involved to make a cover, we’ll give them a few directions of the general idea, and we’ll show them the music, but in the same way that if someone asked me to write a song, I would hope that they would just kind of trust my artistic process,” Benny says.
He also reveals that the artist is actually the brother of fellow Rum Jungle bandmate Fraser. And we can’t complain about them keeping it in the family, as it is a great album cover. In agreement to this, Benny says, “Not to toot our own horn but when I finally did hold the vinyl, I was like, oh my God.
“Finally seeing all the physical copy was so sick. And then we were able to, like, build on that quite heavily with, like, the rest of the vinyl design as well, which we were really stoked with.”
And with some gigs coming up in the US towards the end of March, we are desperately hoping for some UK tour dates from Rum Jungle in the coming months (hopefully Manchester), to which Benny says, “We’re working on coming back – is essentially all I can say at the moment. But we were there twice in 2024, twice in Manchester as well, which was one of my favorite places.”
Ah, a man after our own hearts.
Playing in both the basement and pink room gig venues in YES – near Oxford Road in Manchester, the Aussie singer says that next time ‘hopefully we’ll do something a bit bigger’.
So, Rum Jungle fans should stay tuned in the hopes of possible UK date announcements for 2025 and to get to hear Benny’s favourite new album tracks played live, in person.
Featured image by Joe Puxley