Rum Jungle, a New South Wales surf rock quartet, dove into the rock scene in 2020. The band eased into an early set Sunday on the American Express stage. The Daily Texan sat down with lead singer Benjamin McIntyre to discuss his first experience with Austin City Limits Music Festival and how the band decided on their unique sound.
The Daily Texan: Tell me a little bit about how the band got started.
Benjamin McIntyre: (We started) pretty much straight out of school in Australia. A couple of months later, I moved into a (shared) house … I was straight out of school and I was the first to move into a house that didn’t have any parents, so it meant that a bunch of friends would just come through and that would be the place to be, right? … (Michael Kolmajer, Josh Giles and I) ended up jamming on this balcony in Newcastle and that turned into me writing a couple of songs and that turned into recording a few songs … we played (at our) first show. We released a couple of songs, and now fast forward however many years it’s been, and here we are at ACL, and (it) feels like I’m dreaming.
DT: What has the experience been like at ACL?
BM: The festival feels huge, to be honest, and it’s been fun going in the golf cart, getting shipped here and there. … We have a lot of festivals in Australia, and they’re really cool, and they’re really amazing. Sadly, a lot of them are closing their doors just because not enough people are buying tickets, which is a massive shame. But, coming here and seeing a festival that’s flourishing feels really good. To be able to be a part of it and play our music to some people who might not have ever heard of us before has been an absolute pleasure.
DT: Do you feel like a fan girl walking around the festival?
BM: Absolutely. Honestly, our green room is in the artist village, … a couple of doors down, there’s Audrey Hobert, … a couple more doors down, it’s Geese. For us, just being four clueless Australians from this random town called Newcastle, the fact that we’re even in the same artist village as a bunch of these artists that we respect so much. (We) feel very lucky and very privileged.
DT: Where does Rum Jungle get their (musical) inspiration from?
BM: Originally in the 2010s, there was this huge wave of indie old rock (and) surf rock coming out of Australia … That was when we were teenagers, and that was the music that we were listening to while we were discovering music. I feel like when you’re a teenager, more often than not, … so much of your music taste is shaped by what you’re discovering there. What we all collectively discovered was a bunch of those bands. There’s just so many instances where you listen to (music) so much and you’re so enamored by it, and then you’re like, “I want to recreate this (and) I feel like I can express myself in the same way.” I think that’s just what ended up happening with us. We were like, “I love this music so much that I want to make my own version of it.”
