As part of our What’s to Blame? interview series, Benny McIntyre, lead vocals and guitar of Rum Jungle, discusses creating band names, their first album and their growth since 2017.
Talk to us about your band name - who’s to blame for its inception?
Originally, it was just me (Benny, vocals and guitar), Josh (guitar) and Maje (bass) who were mates from school, pretty much just finished and moved out into my first shared house with the classic dirty walls and carpet and I was one of the first to move out in our group of mates and we were looking for a reason to hang out and played on a bunch of acoustic guitars. We found ourselves writing some songs and then in the studio, recorded a couple of tracks with a session drummer, and the first EP then did some gigs. I think we entered one of the songs in a songwriting competition but we lost! We had a gig that night and needed a drummer so I talked to the only drummer I knew which was a 15-year-old kid I worked with at a burger shop and that was Frazer and he’s been with us ever since. That was pretty much how we kicked off as Rum Jungle.
We put the band together but we didn’t have a name yet, we were going to call it something crap like something “street”, which was not ideal. My dad was in like four or five bands back in the day. We were looking for a band name and I was looking for some music gear in my dad's shed. I came across this old poster of some meditating wizard thing with like five arms and underneath it said Rum Jungle and it was a band my dad used to be in. I asked if we could use the name and he said “Yeah band’s not happening anymore is it, so you can carry on the legacy”.
What would you say is to blame for your music career?
To be honest my Dad is very much to blame. He told us to go and record the song and knew someone with a studio in Newcastle where we are from and got us in to record the music. Growing up there was a lot of music in the household, my Dad had been in bands and my older brother was in a band when I was really young so I was always surrounded by it. Also, I was never one of those kids who was always smashing it in high school, so when I got into the music a bit late, I got one thing recorded and wanted to spend every minute of every day doing that.
Who are the biggest musical inspirations for the sound you’ve curated?
Yeah, that's such a difficult question because all four of us have such massively different tastes. I think we just threw a heap of references into this album, Flaming Lips and Phoenix, even Charli XCX ‘Brat’ album I was bumping a bit. The first song on the album is the auto-tuney kind of sh*t. That’s an example of where we went a little bit too far with an idea and realised we had made a club tune and thought we should probably pull it back to sound like a band again. But yeah, listening to a bunch of rap too. Lots of staples that me and Josh listen to like The Beatles, The Strokes, The Arctic Monkeys, all the classic Brit Alt-rock. It’s a big mixing pot that ends up coming out as whatever the hell our sound is!
How much influence does your hometown have on your music?
We were talking about this the other day because we thought it would be sick to do some music that represents Newcastle as a place. It's really interesting that places like London, LA and New York are mythologised to us, the idea of these places is so cool as well as places like Manchester and Liverpool which have distinct musical scenes. It would be cool to be able to make people from your area think “How sick does Newcastle sound”. In terms of how it shapes our sound, I don’t know if it did too much. There is an underground scene but it was more avant-garde or heavier rock and roll so when we were coming up there weren’t really any other alt-rock or reggae-inspired bands. We were in our own lane which meant we were slightly outside the circle. But the fact we are right next to the beach means we have written beachy songs you know!
What are you most looking forward to in your upcoming tour?
Just playing the new songs, to be honest. We have been rehearsing for the last couple of weeks and added a bunch of stuff into the set, not only structurally but sonically. We have figured out how to create the sounds in our head and make a set sound way better than we ever have with new gear and the way we structure the set. Yeah, most keen to do that and hear first-hand from people, we like chatting in the merch stands, and listening to what they have to say about the album. There are so many different sounds and I feel like every song almost can't be equated to another song on the album so I'm interested to see which ones pop-up as people’s favourites. And obviously seeing all places we haven’t seen before.
Your debut album comes out February 21st, how was the creative process different in working on a full album compared to singles and EP’s?
There is so much more weight behind it, you go wow this is an album. EP’s are sick and they are great but they feel more like what you are working on at the moment rather than a mega body of work. I’m sure there are some iconic EP’s out there, but you never really hear people say “Remember this EP” They say “How sick was their first album”.The fact it's an album makes it hold so much more gravity. So I think that meant all of the songs were more thought out, so much more thought went into tracklisting and making it more cohesive. I think the process felt much more serious but still fun and experimental. We had done so much on the EP’s and we had learnt how the four of us work in a writing situation.
If I was to give you a short answer, we realised we wanted to share everyone's ideas. What happened this time in the studio is any idea you had, big or small we were going to explore it, meaning we would have the full idea that someone was thinking of and we could actually make a proper decision and decide “Yeah this is sick” or “no we should leave it”. Sometimes I would work on an idea for an hour or two and at the end we realised it was shit. I think it meant we came out with something that all four of us were happy with and something that we all worked on together as a collaboration.
Do you have any dream music collaborations?
Honestly, and I know he does a lot of collaborations, it's Lil Yatchy he’s so good, and I know he does so many different styles of music. Like recently he did a song with Faye Webster, her most recent album ‘Underdressed at the Symphony’ is incredible and the Lil Yatchy song on that is great. And he has done a couple of other songs that really stretch across genres that I think are all unreal. If we could make a song with him either get him on as a feature or get him to produce, I would be absolutely stoked.
Your first EP came out in 2017, so how do you feel the band has evolved since then?
We thought we were some cool, groovy reggae band and we are the least equipped to make that kind of music. Don’t get me wrong we still try to infuse it a bit in our songs, but we feel like a completely different band. I only really started playing guitar after school when I was 18 and writing songs when I was 20 so I didn’t really know how to play a chord or, well I still don’t know scales now to be honest, but we all know now more how to create the sound that is actually in our heads. Our first EP has some heart and some spirit, but the way I remember hearing it in my head is completely different to how it turned out. These songs, I think we are at a point where we can go, I want to make it sound like this and we now have the skills to actually be able to do it. Turns out there are guitar pedals we can use to make the chorus sound good rather than having the most dry-sounding guitars ever!
What kind of atmosphere do you like to create when recording, is it laid-back and relaxed or a more structured session?
I think the whole atmosphere and vibes are really laid back, we recorded most of the album with Simon Dobson at Lakehouse Studios which is a sweet little studio between Newcastle and Sydney. His studio is like a shed in his backyard converted into a studio and it's a pretty small room so you are all really in it. The atmosphere feels like you're hanging out at home because you are just in his yard with his chickens and cats. That was an atmosphere we really liked, especially while we were recording that chunk of the album we were touring at the same time. I think we would have gone insane if we toured then came back to a big clinical studio, it would have been a bit too much but this atmosphere was really homely and nice.
‘Rocketship’ is your latest single and first of 2025, can we expect to hear more of this indie, surf-rock vibe in the album and what genres do you draw upon when creating your music?
Kind of yes, hearing a beachy vibe, there is one other song that hits the same vein slightly. The thing is with us being four people collaborating but also being four really different people with really different tastes means pretty much every song on the album feels different.I feel like I think that because I am so invested in every single song. Someone coming and listening to it might think “Oh every song sounds the same!” but I don’t think they do. There is a hyper pop autotuned, electric rock anthem and four songs later a really heartfelt ballad and two songs later a song like ‘Rocketship’.
To answer the question, I want to say yes but I’m not 100% sure, to be honest! If you love that sound, rocketship is right there. I hope it comes across as cohesive without too many different things going on.
Isabel McDermott
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