Music
XL’s soul collective talk about their biggest videos and the fancy footwork that made them hits.
Their debut album was nominated for the Mercury, their live shows are magnets for critical hyperbole, and their four singles (Platoon, Busy Earnin’, Time and The Heat) have somehow made ’70s funk into one of the hippest vibes of the past two years.
But the most compelling thing about Jungle is their music videos, all of which carry a sense of unaffected self-expression through dance. As Jungle’s Josh Lloyd Watson told us, the decision for him and co-founder Tom McFarland not to feature in their own videos contributed to a hefty backlash, with the media baying for biographical details and some listeners feeling conned. But it was never a difficult decision: “Me and T just can’t dance.”
Watch the video for Jungle’s Busy Earnin’ in the player below.
Was video always going to be a key element for Jungle?
We were always very concerned with the aesthetic of Jungle. We were mocking up the logo when we’d written two songs. It was all about building this world that everybody could escape to – and we wanted to make something that didn’t look like it was ours, that it didn’t feature us, so that we could escape to it too. We built up imaginary places and imaginary characters in our minds, and we had a load of romantic ideas about American culture. My friend Oli [fashion photographer Oliver Hadlee Pearch], who directs the videos, had always done photography, and I’d always done music. Video brought us together when we were younger. We used to run around making little films, covering sheds in tin foil, with that blind naivety that you can just produce a feature film.
How did you find the different dancers?
Often through friends of friends. For the first video, Platoon, we wanted a kid doing body-popping. This six-year-old B-Girl Terra sent us a video of herself doing a headspin in her house in Wolverhampton. After that video we thought, ‘Oh sh*t, how can we top this?’
Me and T used to rollerblade when we were younger, so we wanted to feature rollerbladers in The Heat. We went back to Hyde Park quite awkwardly, just standing around, trying to make eye contact with these cool skaters, asking around. In the end it was another friend of a friend who knew Icarus from High Rollaz. The two older guys in Time are Brett Jones and Earth G, and they could represent me and T and our friendship in the future. Julia was supposed to be one woman dancing with a group of guys, but in rehearsals this backing dancer Jordan [Melchor] just moved in this incredibly, animated, genderless way, so he became the centre. And that’s ultimately what the videos are about: talent, and true emotion.
Dance music has become so disconnected from dancing – simple, joyful, un-self-conscious dancing, anyway. Were you trying to reunite them?
The reason the videos work is because the dancers have real personality, and we went with it. We didn’t spend millions of pounds, we worked within our constraints, and adjusted our grand plans to what life presented us with. Even making the record, we had to stop caring, we had to let go of who we thought we were. Worry is rust upon a man’s blade. It just screws you up. You overthink life. Before there was any money involved, we wrote a list of ten very simple rules to keep us on the right track. One of them was, "Are you having fun?" Another was, "Does it feel right?" The closing shots show we’re not taking it too seriously. The Heat is my favourite ending. You expect High Rollaz to look super cool, and actually they just smile and wave.
Julia, your latest video, ends with a tableau of previous cast members. Is it a final curtain call?
It probably sort of is. There was a lot of deliberation. We wanted to get everybody back because they’ve all become part of the Jungle story. I’d love to have these dancers on stage with us all the time, and for Jungle to be a musical – a cool musical. But they have their own lives and careers. Let’s just say we might have something special lined up for Brixton Academy.
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