A lockdown passion project turned album sounds like a very promising concept. How did that come to life?
The Big Band of Boom came out of a songwriting group, Tom (guitar) Tom (guitar) and Charlie (Trombone and sousaphone) were writing a song each every week through the pandemic. We wrote loads of music but there was one song that stuck out ( big bad voodo) and we kept threatening to write another track to go with it and record them as a single/B-side. Well that snowballed and now we have a band ready to rock and an album ready to drop for later in the year!
So how do trumpets, saxophones, and trombones play into the heavy guitars and thrashy drums of the average hard rock sound?
I grew up listening to mega riffs from the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Pantera, 100 reasons etc and those big chunky riffs translate really well into a horn section. Other bands have doubled up guitars and synths and we like to do it it with horns. It really works and can add some extra intensity to the guitars. It was actually a bit of a surprise when we looked for other hard rock bands with horns that there is not a lot around.
In “Behind the 8 Ball” you have created a unique sound that blends genres from swing hop to jazz, rock, and funk. How did you manage to do that?
Behind the 8 ball was written in collaboration with some friends of ours from a band based in Brooklyn NY. They provided the vocals for the track and that added a whole new dimension with influences from a city that had so much to do with the birth of swing, blues, rock and hip hop. Then again we never thought too hard about genres themselves, we just want to play rock music that slams and our album takes its influences from all over the place. We have songs coming that are more punk, heavy metal and even some latin influences coming too.
There’s a bit of comedic relief in both songs (most certainly from the added horn section) that makes the listening experience more than a simple rock song. What was the creative decision behind that?
We’ve all been playing in festival bands over the past years, and doing that you learn not to take yourselves too seriously. We are here to have fun, and part of that is laughing at yourself, we do everything with a smile, rehearsals are fun and we all hang out and support each other/other projects outside of rehearsals too.
Our debut gig was at a vintage festival and we managed to get a load of people who would normally be swing dancing, moshing in a circle pit at the end – and that felt amazing! We have fun and we want the audience to have fun too, some bands take themselves way too seriously,
How do you see the current Birmingham rock scene?
Birmingham is a funny old place for music, a lot of the good rock venues from the past have closed but there are some new ones opening up. There are a hell of a lot of really talented players in the city, but people don’t shout about it like they do in cities like Bristol and Manchester. Birmingham is awesome but we need to tell people about it!
How did 10 years of playing high-energy electro-swing shows help in creating this debut EP?
10 years is a long time, it’s a lot of time to make mistakes and adjust. Now when writing songs we know what people will do with their feet, and how to write songs that make people move. We want to be a rock band known for wild shows where the whole crowd is moving, and with this sort of experience this is exactly what we will do.
Your collab with Speakeasy Streets has been a refreshing addition to the EP, how did you find mutual understanding in terms of the sound that you wanted to eventually create?
We have been chatting to the Speakeasy Streets guys for ages now, working with them on some other projects with other musicians too so it just came really naturally for us. I think sometimes that the best music is made when no one is working to a brief, there’s no rules, just a bunch of people expressing themselves. We really hope to do a few more collabs with them and there are a few other guests appearing on our album too.
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Jaylan Salah
– Review: Big Bad Voodoo by Big Band of Boom
– Review: Behind the 8 ball by Big Band of Boom
