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Melbourne-based 5 piece Jakubi recently took some time to chat with GroundSounds about all that they’ve been up to since they came onto the scene in 2013. They share some insight into their background and influences, while also touching on some of their plans for the future. Check it out below and catch them on their North American tour! For all of you LA folks, they’ll be in town at The Bootleg at the end of August, more info here.
Yo Jakubi! Thanks for chatting with us here at Groundsounds! How are things down in Australia?
Thanks for having us! Things are good, we just finished playing our shows on the Australian leg of the tour. Our show in Melbourne was sold out, so we’re stoked!
So, first off, let’s talk about your tour! How are the shows going so far? Are you excited to tour through North America?
Going really well, this has already been the most fun tour we’ve done as a band and we haven’t even hit the states yet. Haha. Seriously, so excited. It’s a dream come true for us to tour overseas. We just love playing shows and making new fans so it’s just got us so pumped.
I’ve been a huge fan of the music since your single “Holiday” was released. Your music has unearthed an overall groove that creatively combines a lot of different elements including, but certainly not limited to soul, funk, pop, hip-hop, electronic, and even some alternative jam-band vibes. For those who are just discovering your music, describe how you all met and the major influences or musical backgrounds that collide when you all play and create the music we hear.
Yea, that was our second single and it was the first one to really take off. A few of us have played in other bands together, so we knew each other pretty well already. We love that everyone we speak to doesn’t quite know how to categorize our music, hahaha, it’s great. We don’t want to be categorized either, we just want to make music that’s fun and that we love to play. It feels like we have more freedom than other bands who get locked into a particular sound. We definitely bring a mix of everyone’s influences together.
Was there a moment when it all clicked and you decided to seriously pursue music as a career? Is there history or meaning behind that name?
No real meaning to the name. We just liked it. Hahaha. From day one we wanted to take it seriously, a few of us had been in touring bands before and we loved it, we didn’t care if we were playing shows to ten people or a thousand people, we just wanted to go as far with it as we could.
I brought it up earlier, but one of the first songs I heard from you was “Holiday” and it’s still one of my favorite tracks to listen to. Tell us what the writing and recording process was like for this incredibly catchy single and how did it feel when you had it ready to go for people to hear?
We wrote that song about a year before we released it so it was really a good feeling when we put it out and got the response we did from it. A lot of the songs we write we just kinda jam in the moment. We’ve said this before but we kind of see Jakubi as a bit of a funnel we just pour all of our sounds in and what comes out is a good mix of all five of us.
For me, some of your music feels like it draws from 90’s acts like Jamiroquai, but also mixes in vibes of current soul artist Allen Stone with some influence from upbeat pop/rock artists Maroon 5. At certain points, you’re rocking the vocoder or talk box like Chromeo and it fits so well! There’s a really strong voice and theme throughout all of your music that is very welcoming, warm, dance-able, and truly contagious. I felt myself wanting to share the listening experience with people, instead of by myself. What do you think it is about your music and lyrics that have this effect?
I think because we have so much fun when we’re jamming out a new track that you can feel it come out in the song. We’re a very ‘vibes’ sorta band, if we’re feeling it we just keep going with it until it’s a song. Haha.
What are your thoughts on the more popular mainstream music environment these days, with an excessive amount of EDM artists, huge music festivals all around the world, and music consumption happening in a million different ways all the time? Where do you fit into all of that?
We love so many different styles of music and some of the guys produce beats on the side too. I think that if you’re happy and making the music you want to make then I support you 100% even if its not my thing. The beauty of music is there is literally something for everyone.
As far as artists that you admire, who are some of the current labels, artists, or musicians that you’re really into right now? Are there any producers or artists you would really love to collaborate on music with or go on tour with?
We like a lot of stuff. We’ll always love old school funk and soul. We get the Chromeo comparison a fair bit which is fine with us too. Hahaha. Chvrches, Cody Chestnutt, Lee Fields…to be honest I never know how to answer this question because we all literally love so much stuff. Hahaha. We are collaborating with someone that we’re pretty excited about actually, we can’t say who just yet, but he’s worked with people like Pharrell and Wiz Khalifa.
I want to bring up your Kickstarter campaign, promoting the goal of recording of an EP. First off, congrats on not only reaching, but exceeding your goal! It would appear (based on your online presence) that the people are behind Jakubi. What can we expect once the EP is out? Will there be follow-up music videos or another tour in the works?
Expect more of the same, we’re not sure if “Couch Potato” will be on it, but there will be at least four new tracks if we decide to include it. Our demos are done for most of them and we’re including a couple in our live show on this tour to see how well our fans connect to them. We made our first video recently for “Couch Potato” which is currently out (see below). We loved making it, so we’ll be making one for every single we put out from now on too.
