The Jungle Rockers

jun•gle rock•ers 1: a thick, tangled mass of dark, hot, pulsing, tropical, panty-peelin’, hip-grindin’, high-rollin’, body-movin’, down-at-the-crossroads-soul-sellin’ garage rockabilly rhythm and blues ear candy for the hot, soft, and sweet 2: your new favorite band to rock your socks off in the ruthless struggle for survival 3: you better lock up your women, ‘cause these boys are trouble
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First, you feel your booty bump, then your hips twist into a shimmy and a shake with a quiver up your spine. Before you know it, you’re grinding like a harlot and sweating like a demon to the purely pagan, garage rockabilly sound of The Jungle Rockers. Spawned in the rock ‘n’ roll capitol of the world, Cleveland, OH, these necromancers hypnotize with their molten melodies like a pack of hepcat snake charmers. Raised on heaping helpings of Chi-town blues, Ronnie Dawson rockabilly, and street-rat gutter punk, the Rockers honed their chops in the merciless maw of the American Midwest. Good-time carousers in search of a decent place to debauch, The Jungle Rockers are: Jason Leonard on guitar & vocals, Mike Molnar on lead guitar, Josh Williams on bass guitar, and Adam Buxton on the skins. Buckle your seatbelts, boys ‘n’ girls, ‘cause The Jungle Rockers are your one-way ticket to holy hell!
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"Though The Jungle Rockers hail from Ohio, they've managed to carve out a definitive spot in the Austin music scene somewhere between the familiar blue notes and twelve bar structures of Diddley-blues and the three chord thrash of bands like The Clash and The Ramones. Filling dance halls, garages, and The Continental Club with anxious fans ready to shimmy, shake and strut isn't tough for these guys -- and their devotion to rock 'n roll comes across in each and every performance.Coming around to their current sound rose out of a general frustration with the indie music scene and its sometimes icky leaning towards industry professionalism that left the Rockers with a bad taste in their mouth. This propensity to shake off the current scene ostensibly came as no surprise to those listening to their sound: their influences come from beyond records that surfaced two (or even twenty) years ago. Mixing this affection for songs written in the 50's and 60's with elements of swing, rock, pop and jazz make the Jungle Rockers' sound both unique and accessible.Hey, at the very least you'll need new soles for your shoes." -Austinist
"The Jungle Rockers are Austin's finest purveyors of gloriously ghoulish ass-shaking pagan garage rock. And yes, they look like the kind of dudes tho should be in a rockabilly band. I think one of them works as a barber, presumably specializing in pompadours, so you know they're for real." - Austin Rock 101, Misprint Magazine
"Sweating the sexualized psychotica of the Cramps and duck-walking Chuck’s blues into your pants, Austin’s Jungle Rockers have some advice for you: “Shake it like you do when you wanna get ya some.” The quartet’s self-titled EP is one of the best local releases of the summer, and the slick twang of “Hot, Soft & Sweet” (one guess what that’s about) will give you something with which to mess up your bed sheets." - Audra Schroeder, Austin Chronicle
Relocating to Austin from Cleveland, the Jungle Rockers are a natural fit for Austin’s vintage appeal, and few bands have matched the Continental Club’s rockabilly ethos so well. And while they have quickly and popularly enmeshed themselves within the local scene, it’s also tempting to see the roots of their Ohio hometown both in their Midwest blue-collar drive and as the city’s home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their unrepentant melding of rock’s most foundational sounds. The group’s debut, self-titled EP proudly wears its influences on it’s sleeve, and it’s impossible not to talk about the Jungle Rockers without dropping their very conscious debts to Bo Diddley or Chuck Berry licks. But with the energy that the quartet injects back into the sound, their songs are more of a true homage and embracing of that period than a derivative rehashing.
The five songs on the EP admittedly have more the feel of a demo than a proper release, reinforced by the instrumental re-do of opener “Shake It!” and production that doesn’t quite capture their intensity to full-effect. That being said, however, the songs are still an explosive romp of greaser rock. “Shake It!” appropriately introduces the album with a classically cool, surf riff followed by Jason Leonard’s howl of “Shake it! Like you do when you want to get you some!” But it’s the soft drop into an almost old-school R&B sensuousness that makes the song most memorable though: “There’s a moon out, something rustling the leaves. Feel it in the air, makes you quiver in the knees.”
The Rockers’ most popular contemporary equivalent would likely be Southern Culture on the Skids, though where SCotS revel in the shtick of their sound, the Jungle Rockers’ more naturally effuse an attitude of slicked back hair and leather jackets. “Jungle Man” anthematically declares the cultural constitution with punched lines like: “We got the windows rolled down with radio up, get the back seat bouncing to the good stuff. And you better check the way I walk, what I say, how I dress, I’m rockin’ black Chuck Taylors in case I want to jump your fence cause I’m a jungle rocker!” Likewise, “Hot, Soft and Sweet,” the best and most unrestrained of the songs, sweats with the unrivaled underlying sexuality of 50’s rock ‘n’ roll , fueled by a perfect bass groove and irrepressible shouts. Who needs Rockin' Bones when there is new material as fresh and solid as this?! Austin is proudly one of the few places in the nation where such a rockabilly lifestyle is capable of being lived without the least sense of irony, and the Jungle Rockers are its new champions. - Robert Darden, Austin Sound
For fans of The Clash, Buddy Holly, malt shops and the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack, the Blue Moon Saloon presents The Jungle Rockers. For a hint of Austin's rockabilly group's dirty garage sound, visit myspace.com/thejunglerockers. Clap along to "Shake It!" and shake it to "Hot, Soft & Sweet". - timesPICKS, Lafayette's best of the week's entertainment