Great news music fans! South African rock band, Just Jinjer released a new album (entitled “Everything Since Then”) in November 2015. It’s their first release in 7 years and the word on the street is that’s a goodie.
I recently had a chat with Just Jinjer frontman, Ard Matthews about the new album and a few other things. This is what he had to say.
This is the first Just Jinjer album that you’re releasing since 2006, what have you guys been up to in the last 9 years?
9 years ago we were still in Los Angeles, signed to Curb Records who were meant to get the album heard on radio. Unfortunately it never got the kind of attention we needed or that we felt it deserved so things slowly started to dissipate from there. Eventually we were also getting quite homesick so we agreed to ‘wait it out’ in a country that had all our comforts, South Africa.
Once we came home we also decided to step back a bit from the intensity of life being all about Jinjer and we set out to start to identify ourselves as individuals. We never broke up at all but we did take a conscious step back so we could discover who we are are outside of Jinjer.
What can fans expect from the new Just Jinjer album?
“Everything Since Then” is a merely a glimpse of our current state of well being. It was completely effortless to make and we adored spending time with each other again even though to was recorded in the dead of a Joburg winter. Fans will hear our traditional upbeat message delivered in a variety of styles that personify pieces of all of us.
If you could colab with local artists, who would be on your top 5 list?
We’re not really that big in to collars to be honest. We’re not opposed to it at all, it’s just not something we’ve made a short list of if you know what I mean.
What do you think of the current state of SA Music?
The quality of SA music has really increased quite dramatically. It has become almost impossible to distinguish a locally produced track from an international track now which is fantastic. Unfortunately, our market has not increased in size proportionally to the explosion of talent we now have so it is still really tricky to make a decent living.
If you depend solely on sales you’re almost certainly going to face some challenges. The good live bands are the only bands that still survive because you cannot replicate or pirate live experience so there will always be a market for bands/acts that deliver live.
What can we expect from Just Jinjer in 2016?
We will continue to dream big and represent SA music as best as possible. We are hoping to be touring abroad quite extensively so we can continue to spread the good word about this beautiful land!
I’d like to take this time to thank Ard and Just Jinjer for taking time to answer my questions. I wish them all of them best with their future musical endeavors.
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