Title photo credit: Allen Daniel Photography
It was the fourth and final day of Lollapalooza. My legs were sore from a weekend of stage hopping and dancing. Despite that, I got a chance to sit down and interview Jackal (aka Mikey). I had recently started following him and his music and wanted to learn more. As someone who doesn't normally perform at these diverse festivals, Jackal found this as an opportunity to bring in new fans.
“That's how I'm coming into it. I'm going to play some new stuff, and hopefully people fuck with it. I don't usually play these mainstream festivals, it's usually an EDM festival.”
Jackal might originally be from the UK, but now resides in Los Angeles. Recently he's been getting a chance to see the rest of North America during touring as well as Australia. Unfortunately, Jackal hasn't gotten the chance to tour back home in Europe, but is looking forward to that day.
I actually first discovered Jackal through Instagram. He has a unique setup that usually consists of 3 similar pictures to fill one row of his page. Jackal's Facebook page has also recently crossed the 100k likes mark. Assuming he was a big fan of social media, I wanted to know if that was the best way Jackal was able to reach out to his fans.
“I'm a really big fan of Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is such a playground where I can fuck around and write some stupid shit. It's fun for me. My Instagram isn't really towards anyone. I'm still not quite happy with how it looks. It's fun to play with the presentation and how I come across.”
Jackal also loves to connect with his fans on a personal level. In fact, after his set later that night, he jumped on the Mic one last time and said “Stick around and if you see me, give me a fucking hug!”
A huge milestone for Jackal, or any artist, was to be featured on “Diplo & Friends” on Radio 1.
“It's such a huge deal back home in England. I showed my friends back at home that and they were like ‘dude, that's crazy!'.”
Jackal also was featured in another big podcast, Dr Fresch's “The Perscription”. The two also have a track together titled “Netflix And Kill”. Dr. Fresch's sound is different than Jackal's. Jackal explained to me how working with an artist from a different genre came to be.
“That's the main reason why I wanted to work with him. We both do something completely different. I wondered what that would sound like together. It ended up being a heavy festival track! He's amazing!”
Jackal explained to me how he's been quiet with track releases the first half of the year, but reassured me that new music is coming. In fact, he did drop a new track titled “Anonymous” right before the Lollapalooza weekend.
“I've got a ton of new music dropping! The last half of this year is going to be covered in new Jackal music.”
Being the 25th anniversary of the well known festival, Lollapalooza, I asked Party Jackal if there were any past performances or memories of Lolla he had, or maybe someone he was looking forward to seeing this weekend.
“I've wanted to see some of the performances of the last few days, but didn't get a chance to. Lolla has been legendary for me. I watched an episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer goes and tours with Lollapalooza. I saw that when I was a kid, and I was like ‘One day I want to be there!'.”
Finally, the 25th anniversary is commonly known as the ‘silver anniversary'. I asked Jackal, if there was one item in the world that he could take and turn into silver to give back to Lollapalooza, what would it be?
“It's all about positive vibes! If I could materialize positive vibes, I want to spread that to the whole festival. That's what it's all about.”
The excitement of Jackal about to perform for his first Lolla throughout the interview was contagious to say the least! That excitement spread during his set later that evening, which had a great turnout. He dropped some super hype tracks along with some dirty bass to keep the fans raging on their final night of Lollapalooza. A big thank you to Jackal for taking the time before his big debut to sit down and talk with me!
Photo by Allen Daniel Photography
