UK Alt-Indie duo Big Special released their third record O’JOY! this year. We caught up with them to find out a bit more about this release, how they navigate song-writing as a duo and how it feels putting very British music out to the rest of the world.
Big Special met in college. Callum explains:
“Well, we met when we were teenagers originally, as the love story goes. We were in college in Birmingham doing a BTEC course, which is sort of that one level above secondary school thing*. And it was in music performance. And it sounds really dry, but literally from day one the tutor said, “Right, you play drums, you play guitar, go off and have a little jam.” And then from that moment onwards, that was Big Special really.” *For those of you reading in Australia, BTEC is basically TAFE.
The band underwent several evolutions, swelling to a six piece funk/soul ensemble at one point, but ultimately Big Special was always destined to be a duo. The friends also took a break for a decade before reuniting in lockdown:
“Joe called me up and was like, “Yo, do you want to start a band?” And I was like, “Nah, bro. Like the whole country’s shut down. What a shit idea.”
Thankfully Joe persisted and by the time lockdowns were over they’d written 25 songs. Callum continues:
“And then when we started taking them live and the energy from the live show built up, this whole new beast had arrived really. I think we found the sound of it then in the live gigs, it started to grow into this bigger, harder, punkier thing.”
As they rebuilt Big Special there were a lot of firsts. A ‘mate from the pub’ managed the band, the producer had never worked with a punk band, and both Joe and Callum had to develop new skills to make the project more cohesive:
“There were no experts in the room and sometimes that’s not what you need. You need a bunch of people just willing to give it a try for the fun of it.” Callum adds. It’s an idea that resonates with me. Sometimes projects do need a steady hand, a guiding light to get them in the right direction, but so, so much magic in the music industry has been built just like this – on the back of a little bit of self-assurance and people giving it a go.
Of course, Callum and Joe weren’t without skills, and they’d been separately honing their musical craft in their time apart, but no one came into this with a clear idea of where it would end up. Three albums into their journey, the conversation turns to looking back at each of their releases
Joe shared:” Well, the first one was the culmination of years and it was being built together, whilst we were also trying to figure out the sound. The second one was reflecting on the challenges that we’d had and we were doing it on the fly, in the middle of touring.”
“And then the third one was kind of a reflection on the stuff that was left behind from the first two. We just scooped up the eggshells of it basically, and then tried to stick them all back together into this thing that had its own kind of narrative”
Both Joe and Callum note that the biggest change as songwriters has been their growing confidence as they’ve become more established. Joe adds:
“It’s also the perspective in which you’re writing. I feel like anyone who’s really good would write anyway, regardless of the business side of it. But it’s funny when you spend your life writing music forever and ever with hope and then you get somewhere and then you’re still writing with hope, but it’s from a different perspective then.”
The band recognise their considerable success has led to a change in what they’re writing about too. As well as becoming more introspective, Callum explains:
“It’d be very easy for a band in our position to carry on trying to write about dole queues and waiting for work and stuff. But it’d be from a completely false perspective now that our lives are changing. I think the artist’s job is always to write about the world that you’re living in currently and write about your perspective of that world.”
We’d already established that Big Special only works as a duo, but I was curious how this impacted their song-writing. Joe acknowledges that it depends on their intentions, and it’s deeply rooted in how the track will be performed live (although they do admit that they love mixing in an odd acoustic gig or two to keep things fresh):
“When we’re doing stuff for the track and we know that this song is going to all be on track, there’s a lot of freedom in the sense that we know we haven’t got to recreate this on stage with four other people or I need to be able to play this riff whilst rapping in this other rhythm and stuff like that. So we kind of can just throw the shit at the wall and see what sticks. And then it alters, like if we’ve got a song where we want more of the organic guitar and stuff like that, we’ll record a full guitar take and plan to use that on stage.”
Callum affirms this, adding:
“I think that’s where all the openness of exploring all the different genres that ended up becoming a big part of our sound, that was from knowing it won’t matter that we can’t do that bit. It won’t matter that none of us can play saxophone. We want a saxophone on it, so we’ll put a saxophone on it. I think it’s that sort of punk ethos in a way. It’s still us creating it”
There was something else I was curious about. Big Special, are VERY British and I wondered how they found people related to their music when they’re performing overseas. Callum confesses he was convinced people in non-English speaking countries wouldn’t ‘get it’ continuing:
“But it’s definitely made me realise that the language is definitely the second most important part of music really. We played in Thailand and India and the emotion of our music travels. And I think that’s what people pick up on more than anything.
When we play in America, where they don’t understand the references. It’s the exact same thing. Like they don’t understand half of our lingo, half of our slang. But they can understand the energy that we’re putting across and the emotion that we’re putting across. I think that speaks for itself a lot of the time.”
Joe sums it up nicely: “Who in the world doesn’t work hard and get depressed? That’s what it’s all about, really. It’s just hope and desperation.”
We get back on to discussing O’JOY! Their self-described ‘mishmash of stuff’ where they revisited tracks culled from the previous two albums. Some songs date back to 10 years ago, others are a lot more recent. Joe explains how the record came about:
“So the main thought was, let’s underline our first era of releases with what we’ve got left in our pockets. These songs that we still loved and wanted to see the light of day that we knew we wouldn’t go back to in a year when we put out something else. So we just wanted to give them a bit of spit polish and see if they can find a place together in their own piece of work.”
Some got more of a spit polish that others. The Wake remained unchanged from its previous incarnation and Plaintive Native, only written in February, underwent ‘about 500’ remixes, but its basic formation was unaltered. Whereas others had the dust solidly blown off and reworked into something that fitted with their vision of what Big Special sounds like today.
Both Joe and Callum agreed that it was one of these older tracks, album closer Hotel, which was their favourite to rework:
“It’s more of a different kind of traditional song-y song, like with a big middle eight in it and stuff like that. And it could have very much been like a guitar, bass, drums, or like an acoustic tune. So that was very fun and interesting to be like, “How do we give this song a lot more of the Big Special language? How do you turn that into that sort of thing?” And that was a fun recording experiment really to do that.”
Our chat then turns to the future and what’s next.
“Writing, writing, writing” Callum shares.
The band are now full time working musicians and after a heavy touring schedule over the past few years this year has been their first chance for a breather. Joe has also picked up the guitar again so they’re excited to see the impact this will have on their work. They’re enjoying the chance to experiment a little
“We are in our research and development stage now.” says Callum.
You can listen to O’JOY! here.
And find out more about Big Special here.