After the 2010 release of their debut record, Stories from the Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina based band BIG Something traveled the country to appear alongside national acts including The B-52s, DJ Logic and Robert Randolph and the Family Band. Comprised of Nick MacDaniels, Doug Marshall, Josh Kagel, Casey Cranford, Jesse Hensley and Ben Vinograd, BIG Something has created a virtual patchwork of sound, woven and threaded by pieces of jazz, rock, pop and funk. A 2013 self-titled album and its 2014 follow-up, Truth Serum, saw them further expand on dynamic verse that highlights an evolving ambition and scope. And since becoming a staple of live music festivals, the band has recently undertaken the launch and development of their very own. Located in Mebane, NC, the band’s The BIG What? Music Festival has sold out two years in a row, cementing BIG Something’s reputation as a rising band with BIG plans. Though just as their studio albums suggest, BIG Something is a group that mines inspiration from a diverse collection of records and performers. In a conversation with Pancakes and Whiskey, guitarist/vocalist Nick MacDaniels spoke about the wide-range of influences that populate his earliest influences and his favorite records.
“The first thing I remember my parents getting me into when I was younger, growing up like listening to in the car and stuff on cassette tapes, was the Beach Boys.” Although this early interest in music soon lead him to the guitar, MacDaniels only recently began collecting vinyl. Referring to it as “a small vinyl collection,” MacDaniels spoke warmly about the records that define his past and present tastes.
“I just started collecting them, but I’ve got some of my favorite stuff in the collection…Bob Marley Legends, I’ve got the Guerilla’s Plastic Beach on vinyl which I love, it’s one of my favorite records. I’ve got Thriller on vinyl, which I love as well. I’m a big Michael Jackson fan. I’ve got Talking Heads Remain in the Light on vinyl, which they’re definitely a huge influence.”
Thriller
And while he was always a fan of Michael Jackson, one of his biggest influences didn’t initially appeal to him. “Talking Heads was more of an acquired taste. I really didn’t like them when I first heard them when I was younger. And then I watched the movie that they made with Jonathan Demme, Stop Making Sense, and it just blew my mind. Ever since then they’ve been one of my favorite bands and one of my biggest lyrical influences for sure.”
R&B singer Charles Bradley is another favorite, as well as the LA based band, Vulfpeck. Describing them as “really chill, awesome and laid-back,” it was the band’s 2013 headline grabbing streaming stunt that initially introduced him to the group.
“You may have heard of this…they’re the band that put out an album off Spotify where each song was just thirty seconds of silence, and it was called Sleepify. And they ended up making $20,000 off this album from Spotify, basically encouraging their fans to stream the album overnight while they were sleeping. And that was kind of a gimmick and I thought it was really funny that they did that, but their music is actually awesome.”
Sly and the Family Stone and The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl are additional favorites, but it’s a particular record from the Grateful Dead that has made a significant impression on his own approach to composing. Specifically citing Jerry Garcia’s decision to work with a lyricist, MacDaniels refers to 1970’s American Beauty as one of his favorites.
American Beauty
“I’m a pretty big Dead fan, I listen to a lot of their stuff. That album in particular, the songs on it are just so great. And then like you said, it’s got more of a folky, almost storyteller, Americana vibe to it. “Ripple,” is such a great song, “Friend of the Devil,” and then “Sugar Magnolia.” Even Attics of My Life is a really cool one. I love the combination of Jerry and Robert Hunter writing the lyrics. I think they’re just such a great songwriting duo. And that’s kind of carried over into what we do in the BIG Something- we have a lyricist as well. He and I sit and write out all the songs…that style is definitely a big influence of mine.” Although in terms of formula, MacDaniels is quick to acknowledge that their songs come often come together in very different ways.
“I would say for the most part, we have a few different approaches. One approach is let’s say the band already has the music- like a rough, raw form recorded from practice. Maybe we’ll have a couple different parts, like a verse part and a chorus part and just kind of jam on it, improvise and then record that. And then the lyricist and I, who is my buddy Paul, we’ll sit down and find words that go well with the music itself. And then the other way is to just create both the music and the lyrics on the spot, right there in person. I feel like that’s kind of the best way to do it, but it’s also not easy to do it that way, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But if you can get both coming out kind of simultaneously, I feel like some of our best songs have been written that way.”
“Truth Serum has a couple songs like that. The first song, “Megalodon” was written on the spot. I just kind of came up with that intro part on a loop pedal, I came up with the bass line, the ‘dun dun, dun dun’ (hums the bass line) and then started layering guitar parts on it. And then we came up with the two different parts through the verse and the chorus, and a lot of that was stacking the layers and building the loop on a loop pedal.”
“The lyricist was sitting right there in the room with me and he felt that it kind of reminded him of Jaws or floating in the ocean being circled by a giant shark. So he started working on the lyrics and it just kind of came together simultaneously like that. So “Megalodon,” and “Love Generator” both kind of happened like that where we both were there in the room and wrote the music and the lyrics together in one place. “Capt. D,” is kind of different, the band had the music for a while. That was one that we had been working on for a long time and didn’t have lyrics for and then our lyricist, Paul, came in and started writing about a Captain of a ship. It just seemed to fit really well with the music. So that’s kind of Truth Serum in a nutshell.”
And while MacDaniels can appreciate a host of different approaches within the studio, BIG Something has never tried to emulate another artist’s way of recording.
“We kind of just like to do it our own way, and what we feel works best for our instrumentation and the natural flow of the band. We did this one live in the studio, which is different from how we did our first two. The first two, we’d record the bass and drums together and then stack everything on top of that. Whereas with this project, with Truth Serum, all six of us were in the room together, with headphones playing live together. So it’s pretty much everything you hear, especially in the foundation of each song, is all us playing together, playing off of each other. And so I think that worked out really well just in terms of just the energy that you hear, and the communication between the band members musically.”
Visit here for BIG Something tour dates and information on their latest album Truth Serum.
Article by: Caitlin Phillips
See another “My Favorite Records” here.
