Melbourne pop/ funk/ hip hop five piece Jakubi have in recent times amassed an incredible online following both locally and worldwide.
Each of the band’s last three tracks released on Soundcloud are currently clocking in at a quarter of a million streams each, and today, with their singles and remixes combined their Soundcloud hits are clocking in at an incredible five million plays online.
It’s all pretty impressive considering the guys have never toured internationally, have no major label backing and are yet to release an album or EP. Due to the online hype (a lot of which is coming from America) the band have been given the opportunity to visit the US for their first international tour.
We chatted with the band’s guitarist/keyboardist/drummer Robert Amoruso about how their recent Soundcloud hype has given the band a chance to tour overseas, what it’s like hitting five million streams and how other indie bands can try and replicate their success.
You guys have been getting quite a bit of online love lately, can you tell us a bit about it?
“First up thanks for chatting with us. We appreciate all the love we have been getting and can’t help but feel like someone is playing a practical joke on us, haha. Just waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a bush and scream “puuuunked!”
It all started about 12 months ago. We put up our first track on Soundcloud; more than anything just for our friends to hear what we had been working on. We were so blown away with the response we received. Since then we have released three more songs. The latest one ‘Couch Potato’ is in its third week (of going live) and sitting on around 225,000 plays so far on Soundcloud alone. It’s been crazy to be honest! We just found out we are currently pushing somewhere around five million plays across all social medias, that’s including remixes.
We were not expecting those sort of numbers, if ya’ know what we mean. Internet blogs have been really great to us from the word go, that has definitely helped to get our stuff out there. We were stoked when we found our band on Google the first time – now when you search Jakubi the first 25 pages are filled. Maybe more, we stopped looking, haha.”
When did you first notice the large reaction you were getting online? Was there a particular moment?
“We really had no idea how far our tracks were spreading until people started telling us. Maybe three months after putting out our first song ‘Can’t Afford It All’, we decided to put out another one called ‘Holiday’. I think this is when something changed! Suddenly the figures on Soundcloud just started climbing, like CRAZY climbing.
I can remember the first night we were all together and ‘Holiday’ was sitting around 7,000 plays. We were so pumped about the possibility of hitting 10,000, ha, but when we woke up the next morning it was on 45,000. We started getting so many awesome emails and Facebook messages from people in countries we had never even heard of. Within two days we had gotten to No.1 on Hype Machine (blog aggregator). That was the game changer for us! Our manager was ringing us every morning with new labels who wanted to talk or agencies who wanted to tour us overseas. It’s still a bit surreal to be honest.”
You’re touring the US soon, why the US? Will this be your first lot of international shows?
“Yep this is our first time touring out of Australia. We recently signed to a booking agent in America called New Frontier Touring. They were one of the agencies to hit us up and we felt like we clicked with them the most. We spoke amongst ourselves for the next few days about different options and what we really wanted to do as a band. There was also talk about going to Europe, but word was that our tracks were really picking up in the States, so we thought, lets just pack our bags and take the leap.
We understand how rare opportunities like this are. I guess we didn’t want to sit on it for to long and risk missing the boat. Also we have been asked to hook up with a pretty sick producer in LA to record our EP. This helped to sway our decision a bit too.”
What are you guys hoping to achieve from the US Tour?
“We want to just make the most of it in every way. Play to some sick crowds, meet some cool people, hopefully have some time between dates to see some sights and get our tourist on. We also have a lot of business stuff to do, which will really help us a lot in the not too distant future. Amongst others we’re sitting down with some big management companies that want to partner with our current manager worldwide.
Pretty ridiculous to think that the people who put out one of greatest rock albums of all time could end up putting out our EP, so sick!!! I guess if I’m being completely honest, we want to achieve what every band that goes to the US wants to achieve. We want to take this as far as it possibly can go! I find it strange when you speak to some bands about this topic and they are all like “we just want to go to the states and hang out”. Dude, so much money to spend on just hangin’ out! Like, you could probably just do that at home, haha. Don’t get me wrong, we are going to have A LOT of fun. But essentially it’s a “getting things set up” trip. ”
How integral do you think the online love you’ve received has been to you decision to tour internationally?
“Online love has been so important through all this. Without all the online stuff, I don’t think our music would have reached as far as it has, definitely not this quickly anyway. And even if it had, we would have no way of knowing about it. We always wanted to tour outside of Australia but the support from other countries has just given us a little more confidence to actually do it. Also, it’s made our agents life a little easier to plan the whole tour, ‘coz online we can roughly figure out which cities the love is coming from.”
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If you could choose online one online music streaming service (Soundcloud/ Bandcamp/ iTunes etc) what would it be and why?
“For me it would have to be Soundcloud. I think times have changed and part of that change is cats don’t like paying for music anymore. Fans are different! Fans will buy your jams, but I’m talking about straight up first timers.
People find it a lot easier to press play on a free track from a new band/artist than they do gambling coins on it. I think it’s more important for people to actually hear your music, than it is to make a few bucks. Plus, these days you’ll make a lot more from filling rooms with fans that found you on Soundcloud than you will from selling your music to just friends and family. This is coming purely from the “new band” perspective of course. It’s also opened up doors for us that things like iTunes never would – so it’s give and take – you might lose some sales but what you gain is worth so much more than that.”
Do you have any tips for local acts on how to get more international recognition?
“I guess all I can say is, put your music out there. Don’t be scared to lose a few sales. Find blogs, YouTube channels, and any other online forums to post your tunes. The internet is bigger than any record label, publishing company etc; you never know who is about to hit that play button.
Don’t forget about the little things either – write new songs all the time, practice together as a band as often as possible, do your own thing and say yes to as many shows as you can. All that stuff helps even if it just seems like common sense. At the end of the day be creative and find new ways to get your music out there. No one will do it for you, so get pumped and do it yourself!!!”
Jakubi Australian Tour 2014
Friday 11th July – Beach Hotel, Byron Bay
Saturday 12th July – New Globe Theatre, Brisbane
Sunday 13th July – Rumpus Room, Brisbane
Thursday 24th July – Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Sydney
Friday 25th July – Upstairs Beresford, Sydney
Saturday 26th July – The Armidale Club, Armidale
Friday 1st August – Mynt Lounge, Werribee
Saturday 2nd August – Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Tickets and info at http://www.jakubi.com.au/
