On Thursdays Del Osei-Owusu has a chat with artists on the FOTN radar over a cuppa and biscuits. This week BIGHEADMODE brought shortbread and choco liebniz.
Congratulations on the release of Return! Of The Hellcat! how does it feel?
(Robbie)
Thanks! Now the dust has settled a bit it feels so good to have this music out there, I guess there’s a certain amount of uncertainty and trepidation around any release, but everyone’s reaction either online or at gigs has been amazing. We’re both really proud of these songs and humbled that people have taken the time to listen to it and say such nice things.
It’s a nine track project. What were the challenges and breakthroughs in recording it?
(Ewan)
We started working on it in 2020, so it was a really disjointed process because of the limitations of the pandemic. A lot of the tunes were pieced together over a long time, worked on independently and sent back and forth remotely which wasn’t super fulfilling. It also meant we had to create the structures for the tunes in the DAWs using dodgy demos which took a LOT of imagination. Once we were able to get into the studio and spend a couple of days properly tracking drums and keys, that was extremely fulfilling, getting to see the whole thing come to life and realising all the ideas you had imagined.
What’s your favourite track?
(Robbie)
They’ve all got their place I think, but I keep coming back to Marvin the Martian, especially the second half. It was great fun to record and feels really wild. Nye Banfield’s soprano sax and Richard Foote’s trombone conversation in the breakdown feels like a real moment. Even now I get really excited when I know it’s coming up.
Tell us about BIGHEADMODE. What’s the story behind the band?
(Ewan)
We are brothers and have been lucky to share a love of music forever. Weirdly even though that’s the case and we both studied our instruments and played music as adults we only started writing as a duo in 2018. We didn’t have a name for ages and went through plenty of family, wrestling and game references until we finally settled on BIGHEADMODE because we liked the name. It’s also cool that it’s a cheat code on GoldenEye but more than that it just sounded good.
What did you listen to starting out?
(Robbie)
Being brothers we were both very much at the mercy of our parents CD collection as kids. Luckily it was a lot of Motown, Beatles, Dusty Springfield, Blue Note jazz stuff. Also a lot of British prog stuff like Yes and Genesis, which was definitely a bit of a gateway drug to heavier stuff later on.
Your sound is quite a mix. How does a writing session usually begin for you?
(Ewan)
We both have a huge amount of shared musical influences but also some things that are unique to each other. It’s fun bringing all of that into a room and creating as just a duo of keyboards and drums. We’ll sometimes bring small ideas and workshop through them together and other times create stuff just through free playing together. A lot of work is done just taking small voice notes of jams, ideas or sections and then imagining what the rest of the tune could sound like or how we could augment, stretch and strengthen what we have.
You use analogue synths. What’s been an essential part of your set up for you?
(Robbie)
My keys setup is a MK2 Fender Rhodes and a DSI Prophet ‘08 for bass in my left hand. I track both keyboards at the same time with the drums to try and get a ‘live band’ feel and because that’s how we rehearse and play at our shows. My Rhodes goes through a Moogerfooger LPF, Warped Vinyl and a DOD rubberneck delay. For a few tracks we overdubbed a Prophet T8 that I inherited from my uncle who played keyboards in The Skids. It’s a real unicorn of an instrument and always adds a unique vibe thats hard to replicate on anything else.
You’ve both done some incredible things. What’s been a real ‘pinch me’ moment for you?
(Ewan)
Doing big capacity gigs is always quite surreal but I think any time you get to share an amazing gig with an audience that is connected and you’re all sharing the ‘thing’ is the biggest ‘pinch me’ moment. I think we had a lot of that when we did our formative residency in Four Quarters basement in Peckham.
What are you listening to at the moment?
(Robbie)
I’ve been listening to the new Mk.Gee and Saya Gray records a lot the last few months. I feel like there’s something very vulnerable about what they both do production-wise whilst being backed up by some serious pop songwriting and killing playing. I’m always going back and digging around especially when it comes to improvised music and jazz stuff. I’ve been re-listening to a lot of Magic Malik and also some of the solo Fred Hersch things. They both have super unique melodic voices that I find really transportive and emotive.
What’s next for you?
(Ewan)
We’re going to announce a run of vinyl for the record that is ready to go and we’ve just finished a tour for the record which has been great. We have a project called BLACKSABBATHMODE with singer Plumm [which has] got a gig at Glasgow Jazz Festival and The Festival of Voice at Wales Millennium Centre coming up too.
