Peter: Chris,
James, Jonny: I am so rapt to finally meet you after my introduction to your
work through a tweet by @AnneEstellaRock. Anne he asked her Twitter audience what
we were looking forward to most in 2020, to which you replied “Our new album!”
That’s where I pipped in. Having listened to and thoroughly enjoyed what you
guys have done to date, what can we expect from the upcoming collection?
The Big Dirty: Thanks, Peter. The new album shows a much
more matured sound from us, at least in terms of song writing and production.
We’re still playing fun, energetic and sleazy rock n roll, but we’ve honed our
craft quite a lot since Sex Rock City.
We have a better understanding of how we each think and operate, which has
enabled us to write in such a way that really puts our individual talents to
use like never before. As such, the music we’ve written is much more concise and
coherent. We’ve got big anthemic choruses, gorgeous melodies, smutty lyrics,
face melting solos, and some surprising twists and turns in our songs.
Chris (C Diddy)
has also really been working hard on his production and engineering skills, and
as a result the album is sounding bigger with much more depth and clarity than
any of our other releases to date.
PG: And that hard work is certainly
translating itself into your music. I can hear Guns n Roses in James and Chris’
work. Chris also gets into AC-DC/Angus Young from my listening. To whom else
did each of you listen whilst you were growing up?
C Diddy: We’ve all got quite a broad musical taste, and
we each listen to a wide variety of artists. I was a huge Ozzy fan as a kid.
Zakk Wylde was my guitar idol but I also really enjoyed blues guitarists. I had
a period of being massively into Stevie Ray Vaughan and these days I’m really enjoying
Eric Gales’ work. I know Tobi was, and still is, a huge Fleetwood Mac/Stevie
Nicks fan and J.C liked a lot of iconic rock from the 2000’s. Jonny was too
drunk throughout his teenage years to remember any music!
PG: Well, rock and
roll is always about sex and drugs and, obviously, drink was J.C.’s drug of
choice and, from your spot with Anne recently, it’s something you all have in
common. But what was it that first brought you guys to Northampton, and what brought
you together?
J.C: We all grew up in Northampton, apart from Tobi. Jonny
and I went to school together and played in a few bands before starting this
one. We met Diddy after he did some work on our music video to Rhythm of My Drum, and shortly after he
joined us when our old guitarist left. Tobi moved here about 6 years ago to
join a band that are no longer together and moved into session drumming after
that. When our old drummer, Dave, left the band, we recruited Tobi and now we’ve
kind of cemented our sound, style and Identity as The Big Dirty.
PG: So a Big Dirty
family tree would have a few branches in it. It certainly sounds like we have
the core unit now. And I’m just as certain that I’ve heard “Rhythm” on the
radio in Australia. I listen to @TripleJ, @DoubleJ, and @SWR999 and am definite
that the hook has featured on one of these stations. Are you getting much
support from radio, either locally or around the world? How much do bands rely
on radio nowadays? With Bandcamp, SoundCloud, iTunes, Spotify, and the
Interwebs in general, is it as important as it once was, do you think?
C Diddy: I think unless you’re in a bigger, more
established band with lots of people pushing your music from behind the scenes,
then it’s quite tricky to get some serious radio play. We’ve had a few tracks
on some local stations but are yet to get onto more mainstream stations,
although, with our music that might be difficult. At this early stage in our
career, streaming is the best platform for reaching new fans. And while it does
have disadvantages, for example how little you earn from it, it’s still widely
used by consumers so you’ve got to adapt to it and exploit it as best you can.
PG: And that’s the
biggest let-down: you can’t make a living doing this unless you’re big. I just hope this happens for you soon! Now, on
the last album, you covered Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”. I have to say, I was
knocked out by your version. What led you to choose that song to include on the
album? Can we expect more cover-versions on the new record?
Jonny: I just love that song and have always thought it
could be a great track to make a bit ‘rockier’. It’s got a lot of raw emotion
in the lyrics and I thought it would be cool to translate that into the music
as well. I think people really enjoy hearing it in a new light, and it’s always
popular when we play it at gigs. Unfortunately there aren’t any covers on the
new album, but we do play a few other covers live, which are always fun to do.
PG: That’s not a
bad thing: fewer covers means more room for your own original material. In your
interview with Anne Estella, you mentioned support of our recent bushfires
through your outgoing merch at local gigs. Would this gear be available online
as well for those gigs you would be streaming online?
TBD: When the new album is released we’ll also accompany
it with a load of new merch. We’ll look at ways of getting this distributed
worldwide. At the moment we’re kind of doing this ourselves, which is quite
time consuming, so we definitely need to look at a more streamlined approach.
PG: Guys, it’s
been an absolute pleasure. I am so looking forward to the new record and will
be writing it up for sure!
TBD: Thanks dude! Appreciate it! Can’t wait to hear what
you think of the new material!
