Jungle Boogie - Plantlife

Writer: Scott Wright

Originally, KTL was due to interview Plantlife’s flamboyant front man Jack Splash at the end of November 2004, a few days after their first London show. At the concert Jack was a real livewire, all big hair and sunglasses, styling, wilding and profiling as the 12-strong band ripped through their funk-fuelled debut album, The Return of Jack Splash. However, appearances can be deceptive. The next day Plantlife’s manager called to cancel the interview, as he would the remaining dates of the tour. Jack Splash spent the next week in bed. Not, as his libidinous lyrics would have you believe, because of some sort of depraved sexual decathlon, but because he had the flu. Bless him.

A couple of weeks later, KTL witnessed the actual return of Jack Splash. Well again and back in London for Radio 1’s Worldwide Awards (where Plantlife would win ‘Best Album’ for TROJS). Jack was on fine, but croaky, form. Here’s what he had to say...

To start out Jack, have you enjoyed the UK?

Oh man, I love it. Every single show that we’ve done out here - we did one in Bristol, one in Leeds - they’ve just been the best shows. People were so enthusiastic. It bugged me out.

At the gig you played at Cargo, there were a lot of you on stage: eleven, twelve people. Who are the permanent members of Plantlife?

When we actually record it’s just the four of us: there’s myself, Panda One, Dina Deadly and DJ Rashida. But when we take the show on the road, we like to take a full band.

And how long have you four been recording together?

Since ’96. It started out with just me and Panda One and, you know, we kinda messed around, not knowing that we were going to be doing this different shit. We started out trying to do some new hip hop stuff and it kind of just metamorphasized into this. Dina came along around ‘98 or ‘99 and started adding some of her vocals. Rashida moved to LA from Atlanta a couple of years later. Yeah, and we’ve kinda just been in the studio making songs.

Earlier I was trying to describe your stuff to a friend of mine. I ended up saying you were a bit of 70s funk, a bit of 80s electro, a bit of hip hop, a bit of disco…you’re not easy to explain. How would you describe your sound?

We like to call it tomorrow music, because it’s really hard to explain. Everything you said I agree with We kind of just put that all in the pot, you know? For example Rashida she was in a group with Tricky and they were doing almost like punk rock sounding stuff. And then Dina, she was in a group with DJ Muggs from Cypress Hill and they were doing stuff that’s a little bit darker. Like, almost trip-hoppy, dark rock and stuff. Me and Panda One, we’ve always been into soul and fun k- the pretty stuff - you know what I mean? So when we brought in other people we were like: alright, we’re not going to make too much dark shit, we’re going to try and make this fun.

Everyone hears something different when they listen to you guys. Who are your influences?

It’s funny, I haven’t listened to their records for a little while, but man, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were one of the first groups outside of hip hop that blew my mind. I was like, damn, these motherfuckers are doing something different. I used to love the Ohio Players. I even like just looking at their album covers, you know what I mean? I think we like a lot of different stuff, you know, and so we try to include as much of the different stuff as we can. We have a lot of different styles of songs and we’re lucky enough with the label we work with, that they were cool enough to let us put all of that on the album. Rather than trying to make us stick to one sound.

Yeah, a lot of the reviews for your album pick up on the eclecticism. In relation to that, Outkast get mentioned a lot, specifically The Love Below. How do you feel about that?

I take it as a compliment, you know, because I think what Outkast is doing is great. And I’ve always dug Andre and where he’s been taking it. Same thing with Cee-Lo from Goodie Mob, same thing with Mos Def, and just a lot of the hip hop artists that I really dig. I mean, I personally don’t think our music sounds similar to any of those artists, but I understand why people would make the comparison. I’d rather be compared to them than some shit I didn’t like, though [laughs].

At the concert you gave “a shout out to hip hop”. How do you feel about hip hop at the moment? What I mean is, for a group that started out making hip hop you’re quite a long way from that at the moment.

Yeah, I don’t know it’s weird. I still love a lot of hip hop. Kanye West’s album was just incredible. Jay-Z will do some things that will just blow my mind, you know? God, I think Ludacris is funky as hell. And some of the underground dudes like Madlib, you know, Jay-Dee from Slum Village… So there’s still tons of hip hop that I love, you know, but I think it definitely feels a little bit different from when I was a little bit younger. You know when everything that came out was just so new and different. You know, De La Soul was so different. And then LL Cool J was so different. And then here comes BDP and Public Enemy. So I still love it, but there’s just a lot stuff that comes out that I don’t like. But every now and then something like Kanye West comes out and I’m like, this motherfucker is really about it. You know what I mean? But I listen to lots of different types of music.

OK, what other stuff do you listen to? What’s on your stereo right now?

Honestly I listen to mostly a lot of older stuff, you know. I have like really weird taste. I’ll listen to stuff like The Knack. Or, like, I like to listen to a lot of The Cure. Or I listen to the Cardigans. You know the really weird and interesting stuff. It just depends what kind of mood I’m in. I’ll listen to a lot of Marvin Gaye or a lot of Prince. There’s some contemporary stuff I dig. I was really into the Franz Ferdinand record when that came out. I just couldn’t stop playing that. You know cos in America no one knew who they were, but when I heard that I was like, fuck man, this is a badass record! So I was tripping off that. And I can’t wait for the next Coldplay record to come. I don’t know, it’s just a really weird wide variety of stuff. Just whatever comes out that I feel is heartfelt.

So back to your album. You wrote all the lyrics, right?

Yeah, I wrote the songs.

You cover a lot of stuff that doesn’t often come up in hip hop.

Yeah, I don’t know. I think I wanted to be honest. Well first of all, I didn’t think we were going to put any of these songs out. That definitely helped [laughs]. So I wasn’t shy to talk about honest things. The songwriting process is a real personal thing for me. Although to be honest, most of these songs I actually didn’t do any writing. I kinda recorded them in the studio; I’d be vibing in the studio and just had them in my mind. Kinda freestyling. Most of the stories on there are just honest stories about things that I was going through, you know, or things that I was feeling at the time. It was a free experience. Cos I didn’t have to worry about the label cos there was no label at the time [laughs]. I didn’t have to worry if people were going to like me cos I didn’t think anyone was going to hear the songs [laughs].

On Love For The World you say things like “he’s black/he’s white” and “he’s gay/he’s straight”. Are these things people have said about you?

Yeah, definitely. I’m glad that you picked up on that. A lot of people don’t listen, they dig the groove but they’re not really listening. But, yeah, that’s definitely some personal stuff that I’ve gone through. And on a deeper level I just think it’s so silly to hear all that stuff. I’ve always heard that about other people too, not just myself. You know, people are trying to figure out, you know, is this artist gay? Who gives a fuck? Do you like the artist or not? That’s all that’s important.

That seems to happen with anyone that comes with something slightly different.

Yeah, exactly. So I just thought I’m going to say these things and if people want to have their own impression about it, who gives a fuck? Maybe we need to say those things. The discussion needs to be had.

It certainly something that doesn’t get spoken about much. I don’ think I’ve ever heard the phrase “homophobic insecurities” on a hip hop record before.

[Laughs] Well you know my thing is like there are so many things that we have advanced on over the past 15-20 years, it’s beautiful. It’s so great that you can go to any major city, you know, London, LA, New York, anywhere, you know, and there are all these beautiful ethnicities, everyone together. But then there’s still so much more that needs to change, you know. And I feel like some of that change that happened, happened because there’s a lot of beautiful souls - like Martin Luther King, Marvin Gaye or John Lennon or whoever - that spoke with what was in their hearts. So yeah, there are some issues that people are scared to talk about. I think it’s hard for heterosexual artists, some heterosexual artists, to talk about those things. Cos they get scared to talk about them. But I’m like, fuck that, you know what I mean? Be honest.

There are also a lot of songs about relationships and sex on the LP. Like all great soul and funk albums, it’s about sex and politics.

Yeah, totally. Those are two things that have definitely inspired me my whole life, you know, I can’t lie about that [laughs]. While working on this record I was going through a lot of, er, of, er, dating [laughs]. So there were a lot of experiences that I was going through. You know, there’s a song on there called 3am, where the last line I say, “you said I’m just a friend so why you fucking me?” Which is like, you know, it’s funny because it’s usually vice versa. And the girl is saying that to the guy. You know like, “wussup!?” But that was a real situation…

So you were just a booty call then, Jack?

[Laughs] Yeah, but I wanted it to be more than that. I was like, “damn, I know we’re just friends but you feel like my girlfriend.” And she was like, “nah, we’re just friends.” And, you know, she just wanted to fuck. I was like, daaamn [laughs]. So I decided to get out of that situation. I felt like I was being used [laughs].

You seem very idealistic too. As you mentioned before it’s a very positive album. Is that a Los Angeles thing?

Um, you know what, I don’t know that it’s just an LA thing but more a dreamer thing in general. It’s like, there are definitely times where I get depressed about what’s really going on. But I think I’m lucky that both of my parents, especially my mom, instilled that in me when I was little. Just believing in the good. And I think that’s what helps me be idealistic, you know. At the end of the day I do believe in beauty and that things will work out. I don’t know if that’s an LA thing, though. The sunshine, I’m sure, does not hurt it, but you know there are dreamers out here in London, you know. Look at John Lennon, you know what I mean?

For a relatively new band, you’ve had a lot of good press. People like Pharrell, Kanye, Mos Def; they’ve all said nice things about you. How does that feel?

It’s crazy. All that stuff is such a compliment to us. You can never fathom that shit. Especially because we were doing stuff that I thought was like way out there, you know, that I didn’t think people would get. The fact that those artists were digging what we’re doing that really made us feel so good. And it definitely inspires us to keep doing what we’re doing.

You’ve created quite a buzz over here. How are things going for you in the States?

Yeah, it’s going really good out there too. We’re supposed to be doing this tour with Mos Def when we get back out there, which will be really great. And the press have just been so nice to us. I know that comes and goes but it definitely feels good that people have been supportive of what we’ve been doing.

The album’s called The Return of Jack Splash. Why? Where have you been?

[Laughs] Well at that time - I was in LA, I never left LA - but it was more of a spiritual thing for me, you know? While I was working on this record I kinda had this epiphany. That I hadn’t been really been following my destiny, the way that I needed to. And so what kind of tripped me out is I realised how many people in the world kind of do that, you know? Where they start off with intentions, and they know what they want to do in their heart, but life has its own plans for them [laughs]. Instead you end up working on something else and trying to pay rent or whatever it is. And I kinda fell into that for a little while and was just kinda doing other things. And I guess working on these songs just really reminded me of who the fuck I was, you know what I mean? So I now have a really strong sense of self, through the songs. I felt, well, you know: I’m back! This is where I need to be at.

And what can we expect next from Plantlife?

Early next year, probably like January/February, we’re going to drop Dina’s solo album. Dina is the female vocalist that’s on the Plantlife album with me. So she’s on Beautiful Babies with me. She’s on When She Smiles. We’re really excited about her album because it definitely feels like Plantlife, but, whereas this album is more funk and up-tempo, hers is real soulful. So hopefully we’ll be dropping that next year. We’re also working on the new Plantlife album. And we’ll just be touring. And just playing the best music we can. Come and see us! All of you reading this cool website, come and see us.

RELATED LINKS:
The Return Of Jack Splash - our review
Counterflow - label home to Plantlife in the US



Buy Plantlife's The Return of Jack Splash album at Amazon UK (CD) US | (CD)



PUBLISHED: 16 January 2005

More Reviews