INTERVIEW: Croquettes, Taco Terriers and Boujee Meals with The Jungle Giants’ Cesira Aitken
Coming off a sold-out Europe and exhilarating USA tour, The Jungle Giants are back in Australia and ready to tour the nation, fresh off their new synthy single ‘Heavy Hearted’ — and rumour has it they are bringing back a lot of old goldies to perform for us.
We spoke to lead guitarist Cesira Aitken ahead of their tour to get the lowdown on the tour life and what to expect from the band in the future!
Hey! How’s your morning been?
Cesira: Not bad, how about yours?
Not too bad! So I saw you guys went on a tour around Europe and the US and sold out a few shows, how did that feel?
Cesira: It was awesome! First time seeing the US properly after doing SXSW ages and ages ago. Did some shows in the UK and four shows in Europe, and they were awesome! Sold them all out — partied maybe a bit too hard, but ate some really good food!
Haha that’s always good! Did you end up hitting the heat wave over there? I saw temperatures were reaching over 40 degrees sometimes.
Cesira: Not really, we were there in May so it was still a little cold, but I just had some friends come back Europe a couple of weeks ago and they said the heat waves there were proper hell. But yeah, we were definitely in some cold weather.
That’s lucky! What was the weirdest thing you saw while you were overseas?
Cesira: My memory is still a bit hazy, but in Amsterdam the boys were shocked you could get there potato croquettes out of like a vending machine, that’s probably the weirdest thing that stands out to me from the trip haha.
Did you miss anything back home in Australia? What was the first thing you did when you got back home?
Cesira: I missed my housemate’s dog so much. It’s not my puppy but I’m pretty much a stepmum. I think I cried when I saw her.
What sort of breed is it?
Cesira: Umm it’s a Taco Terrier, which is a mix between a Chihuahua and a Fox Terrier. It’s an amazing name for the breed. So I cried when I saw her and I cried when I saw my boyfriend — priorities.
Haha have to put the dog first! So are you guys excited for your upcoming tour around Australia?
Cesira: Yeah super excited! We’re currently piecing together set lists and putting shows together, and then we start rehearsing in a couple of weeks. We’re playing some old songs so it’s really fun trying to put the setlist together and plan it because we’re really diving back into a our older stuff. So, trying to put something together that doesn’t seem weird is kinda fun, and it’s pretty funny going back over songs we haven’t done years!
Awesome, I’m getting excited! I’ve listened to ‘Heavy Hearted’ probably more than I should have — I love it, it’s a banger! But what sort of process went into producing the song?
Cesira: Sam played us the first load of demos back in November last year. We went down to Melbourne, had a listening party, Sam played four songs for us and this really stood out — we got up on the couch and started dancing. And we were all like “That’s It! That’s going to be our next song!”. And then he went away and finished the track, we recorded a couple instrumentals, a lot were from the demo, and he turned it around pretty quickly! In no time it was finished. I went down to Melbourne for a day to play a little bit of guitar for him, then he just smashed out a mix and production came up really cool — nice and big!
When we heard one of the first mixes, that was like, pretty much the mix we went with. It was a pretty quick turn around from the listening party to the track being done, but the demo was so well recorded and produced that the end product had a sound really similar to what the demo sounded like.
Do you see it as a progression of The Jungle Giants’ style, or a move into something new?
Cesira: I think it’s a progression. Everything just sounds cleaner, bigger — but definitely still sounds like us. That fun thing is totally always there! Everything has just felt like a progression, it’s never been like “It’s so different we have to dial it back”, it’s just felt like steps forward.
That’s so great! What are you looking forward to the most about travelling around Australia?
Cesira: Well we always go pretty hard on nice meals before shows. All day we hunt for boujee meals to eat in city to city. Apart from playing the gigs, priorities are our stomachs.
Yes, love that. Thank you so much for your time, can’t wait to see you guys play in a month!
Cesira: Hell yeah! Thanks so much!
