Headstash

Solarium Sit-Down: Big Gigantic

Jeremy Salken at Electric Forest 2011 - Photo Credit: Jordan August

The Big Up festival graciously scheduled interviews with various bands in the gorgeous solarium of the mansion they had on site. Special thanks to Franesa Pyle for setting them up.

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Just a few years ago, Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken were opening up for acts like STS9, and fans reveled in the novelty of a live drum and saxophone electronic group.  

Now as they’ve quickly risen the ranks in the livetronica scene, they are a hot commodity, performing coast-to-coast, they are much more than a one-trick pony, quite frankly revolutionizing electronic music and bringing something fresh each and every night to a genre filled with imitators.

Dominic Lalli at Summer Camp 2011 - Photo Credit: Celeste Valladares

It seems like every show they play – as an opener for a bigger act, in the afternoon or late-night of a festival or as a headliner – people leave the show talking ad nauseam about the amazing dance party that ensued.

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It’s obvious the camaraderie between Lalli and Salken as they finished each other’s sentences and consistently lauded each other’s talents and accomplishments. With only two members, they’re still able to create a full sound due to their open communication, on-stage selflessness and intense musical talent.

We sat down with Lalli and Salken before their headlining performance at The Big Up last month and talked with them about their evolution from opener to legit headliner, utilizing all types of electronic music for their upcoming tour and album and the delegation of responsibilities between the two hard-workers.

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Headstash Magazine: Tonight, you guys are the headlining act. Other festivals you guys play as part of the undercard – in the afternoon or late-night – so which carries more pressure? Do you feel the need to impress people when you’re headlining more than when you’re a smaller act on the bill or is it the opposite?

Dominic Lalli: It's just different pressure. It's like pressure here [motions left], pressure here [motions right].

Sometimes it's nicer when you're headlining because then you can really play a longer set and you don't have to feel like you have to put so much in such a short amount of time. You can really space it out and be really gradual with your set – just get to play more of your music and more stuff you want to play which is fun. It's a different kind of pressure but also a different feel.

Big Gigantic in Baltimore in 2010 - Photo Credit: Jordan August

And then sometimes it's really fun to just do an hourlong, just boom in there and out type of set. On the other hand, it's also nice to do a two-hour performance and get through everything that is Big G – old stuff, new stuff and brand new stuff.

Jeremy Salken: When you're headlining you kind of got to bring more of your show. You get that longer set and we brought our [light] boxes and our production because we have that. We have that amount of time to do our thing. The guys loaded in early today. They've got everything setup.

A lot of other festivals where we're not headlining we literally show up, we're kicking it at the festival and we have a half-hour from the time the other band is done to the time we start to get all our shit going.

Most festivals, it's like rushed and there's all this like crazy energy and then you play real short set and then you're done. Here it's like we get to . . .

DL: Yeah, we get to do our thing.

HM: About those light boxes, what was the decision making behind using those and what’s the response been so far?

JS: It's been a great response. We busted those out in our Colorado shows in January. We had been working on a design six months before that and kind of working everything out. It's kind of a combination of everybody's ideas. We wanted to do this thing that was larger than life and have this big set behind us.

DL: And different, too.

JS: Yeah, we wanted to switch it out from what other people are doing and have a unique thing.

HM: What have you guys learned over the summer playing so many different sized events?  How has the music evolved this summer?

DL: It's been good. Every weekend has been a different situation. I think we started with The Hangout as the first big one in the summer. Then it was like Summer Camp, Wakarusa and then just a lot of different ones and we'll have different slots – daytime slots here, late-night here. A lot of different situations which kind of helps you more be on your toes and be ready for anything.

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Big Gigantic in Baltimore in 2010 - Photo Credit: Jordan August

Musically we have some stuff that we're playing right now this summer that’s going to be on the album and some new remixes and stuff like that. We’re getting those out so we’re ready when we go on tour in the fall. Still some of the older stuff, but we keep trying to move forward with all the music that we're doing.

HM: Is it tough to kind of get a gauge when you're playing new stuff to a festival crowd because every festival is so different. Do you wait until you tour to really see if the new stuff is working or not?

JS: We're always kind of gauging and feeling things out and where things should be in the set and how they work together. It's cool to play stuff before it's necessarily on the album because Dom is constantly tweaking things.

DL: You get a good feel when you play it live. When I think about it I have to really go outside of the music and think, “If I'm at a festival or a show, is this section really going to do what I wanted it to do?”

I think when you start thinking about that then it helps to play it live.

HM: Tell me about the new album then. How is it different from the last one?

DL: It's still coming together. We're still not completely sure, but I think it's still another extension of us, another extension of us growing. I'm trying to make the whole album really dancy, really bouncy, but still keep some of the rooted elements, a lot of melodic big melody stuff and still some rowdy sections.

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Jeremy Salken at Summer Camp 2011 - Photo Credit: Celeste Valladares

I'm trying to bring all the electronic styles into this new Big G style that's doesn't have any walls around it. You can do whatever, there's no genre walls. It's just electronic dance music. It can be whatever tempo – a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

HM: I think that’s definitely a trend with electronic music now is not really trying to pigeonhole themselves into a certain genre. They want to kind of want to use everything and I think that is what audiences are responding to.

DL: It's the same way with our live show. I feel like we do pockets of stuff because if you're just the same tempo and same feel the whole time, it doesn’t work as well.

HM: What kind of tour do you guys have planned out this fall?

JS: Big fall tour. We're doing a bunch of dates with Bassnectar, some with Pretty Lights and then a bunch on our own. We're going to take out our production and go big.

HM: Awesome. Is that really helpful for you guys to go as an opener with those extremely popular artists and then go out on your own?

JS: At certain markets we want to get in and play with the homies. We did it with Sound Tribe – we opened up with them a bunch of  times and got exposed to a new crowd. They took us in and helped us out at times and now we’re at the point where we could do our thing at our own shows. Now, we bring our friends out on the road with us.

HM: You guys have experienced some crazy growth in the past few years. Where do you forsee yourselves one or two more years downt the road?

DL: We're doing this tour in the fall and that’s pretty much coast-to-coast between what we're doing with them and what we’re doing on our own. Then we'll do a big New Year’s Eve show probably with a whole new production. We'll hit it hard in the winter/spring and probably release some more music some time before the summer comes out. And then we’ll go big next summer again. I don't know. I can't think past that.

Dominic Lalli Playing With Pigs On The Wing at Re:Generation 2011 - Photo Credit: Nick Rhodes

JS: Then we do it all over again. [Both laugh.]

HM: Is it tough to kind of take it all in when you're constantly looking ahead and planning the next album and next tour?

JS: It's a little bit of both like trying to be in the moment and enjoy what is happening and we definitely are. But at the same time it takes thoughtful planning and looking into the future because we want to keep it growing as much as we can.

Obviously we love playing music so we want to keep doing that no matter what. Just keep building this thing. [Dom’s] production skills has gotten out of control. The new album like sonically, quality-wise with everything is going to sound like fucking amazing. [Dom laughs.] You put it on a system and it's going to bump.

HM: Have you been incorporating any new software?

DL: Not much man, I’ve just been really learning the stuff I have and learning how to manipulate it. It's a whole new world because I'm a sax player. I come from this harmony and melody world not like what frequency this particular note is.

I was thinking about it the other day – I think the reason why I loved the production so much is I love to write music. If I wasn't playing electronic music and doing jazz like I was when I first started, I would be writing a lot.

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Dominic Lalli at Electric Forest 2011 - Photo Credit: Jordan August

For me, I just love writing music and the cool thing about doing it with Ableton is you get instant results. I used to sit down with a piano and I was like, “The bass is going to do this and right there is the chart and hopefully it sounds good. Here we go to rehearsal, here's the sheet music, let's read this thing down.”

Whereas in the computer you can put it all in and then be like, “This is going to be cool. Let's go play it.”

HM: And you handle a lot of the business side of things, right Jeremy?

JS: Yeah, and that's been a fulltime job. I think that's one of the reasons why we're doing as well as we're doing – aside from the fact that the music is infectious – is that all these responsibilities that go into having a band naturally get split up so everybody's doing something.

When Dom's away just working on shit, I'm doing a whole separate side that comes more naturally and just hammer all that out and then we bring it together.

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It’s the little details that you would never think of that make a difference. I used to tour manage us, too. It would just be the two of us showing up making sure everything is there and talking to all the production guys and the hospitality.

DL: And then of course live, the stuff that he does making the music move is just so instrumental to the whole sound.

JS: The music already has life but it gives it that much more life. He and I start communicating while we're playing.

HM: I definitely think that comraderie on and off stage really shows. And I think the fact that you guys are responsible for so much within the band demonstrates how passionate you both are and probably keeps you humble, too.

JS: Yeah we’re so pumped to be doing what we’re doing.

DL: You gotta have a good team because if the music was straight, but this shit wasn't straight then it sure wouldn't be like this. Same with our manager. We started out more like a three-person team so he would do it all. They would they rely on me to make sure the music is straight for the show because they did all the work to get the show right and get the people there.

Dominic Lalli at Summer Camp 2011 - Photo Credit: Celeste Valladares

Then playing live is obviously a whole other job but leading up to that's the pinnacle and then we get to actually go out there and just play. [Laughs.]

JS: It's easy to forget when you're doing the other stuff, what's it's about because a lot of festivals you show up and it's like rush, rush, boom, boom, boom. You have this much time to get the other band off stage and for you to get on stage, get your shit set up and get comfortable.

We've played so many festivals where we're literally plugging shit in and doing all this and we'll both look at each other and I'll be like, “Alright, let's go.” We won't even walk off stage to come back on. Then, we'll just pound through it.

HM: Then you have like two songs in the set and it’s a blur.

JS: Yeah it goes by quick. It's like the minute that you sit down and we start playing I'm like, “Oh yeah this is why I do it.”

HM: Alright guys, good luck with the set tonight. Thanks a lot for the time.

Both: Appreciate it.

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Big Gigantic is hitting Fayetteville, AR, Tulsa, OK and Lawrence, KS later this month before playing two nights at Summerdance at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in Garrettsville, OH. Find more information and tickets on their website.