UPDATED: September 3rd
Bigelf has defied genres since forming in the early 1990s, a time when grunge ruled the game. Not all audiences have immediately clicked with the band’s Black Sabbath-meets-King Crimson-meets psychedelic circus sound, but Bigelf is about to have its music heard (and appreciated) by a larger scope of people. With an upcoming slot on Mike Portnoy’s Progressive Nation Tour, the quartet will suddenly be thrust into a very different ballgame – at least in terms of the venues. Yes, that means a few of the Los Angeles-based band’s "epic" numbers might not fit in their half-hour set, but it’s a challenge that vocalist/keyboardist Damon Fox embraces.
Bigelf’s last album
Cheat The Gallows, like their other previous releases, delivers the all-important "
wall of sound." Many of those layers come straight from
Fox himself, who integrates a wide variety of instrumentation including mellotrons,
Moogs, and other assorted synthesizers. When UG writer
Amy Kelly recently talked with
Fox, the frontman explained that
Bigelf’s style is aided by the fact that little-to-no use of Pro Tools is involved. With a heavy helping of vintage equipment at their disposal, the members of
Bigelf most certainly have captured the 1960’s/1970’s sound that inspired them to be musicians in the first place.
UG: You’ve been invited to be a supporting act on Dream Theater’s upcoming Progressive Nation tour. Are you personally excited about that opportunity or have you been a fan of the band?
Damon: I am definitely excited about it, Mike Portnoy has been very kind to Bigelf. I’m incredibly grateful to get into these larger venues that will bring us into a realm of audience that is going to appreciate our music. Dream Theater and Bigelf are both in the progressive vein.
Given the fact that your music does have a classic feel to it, I am often surprised that more people haven’t connected with it yet.
The path for Bigelf has been a hard one, we've doing this kind of music for years. It wasn’t that people weren’t interested, it was that people in high positions in the industry weren’t interested because it wasn’t what was selling. If you had a Mellotron in your band or had an influence that was Pinky Floyd…well, everybody listens to Pink Floyd, but it’s not something you hear in one’s music. We’ve toured for years in Northern Europe and people have come to support our band. The Internet has been really strong recent years and things like MySpace have really helped our networking on the web.
What do you think it is about your music that has gone over so well with the European audiences?
The audiences are great on both sides of the pond. From a commercial standpoint, bands like Deep Purple certainly are “classic” in the U.S, but they are superstars in Europe. Deep Purple is as valid and important as Led Zeppelin over there. They’re a big band, they headline festivals. Classic rock kind of went the way of the dinosaur with the 90s grunge scene and the overabundance of country and rap. It just sort of went away in the US mainstream. In Europe, people are still connected with it – and that’s a good thing because those are great bands. Even Queen didn’t really hit big until Wayne’s World here.
"It’s been a harder path for Bigelf. We were doing this kind of music for years."
It was pretty much all vintage equipment, I’m not against ProTools. I think that comment was more about when drums are lined up and then sample replaced, it is really changing the human nature of a track. I guess it’s just to make it perfect, but everything is on the beat and there’s not a fluctuation of feel or vibe or anything like that. I think ProTools is great for editing and making the best track of band takes. I think the word “tool” is great, but there has to be a limit, options are just a headache. With options, I think you get lost, “Well, let’s do this," "Let’s have 3 microphones on the guitar and we’ll blend it together when we mix it.” You know what? Just throw a microphone up, make it sound great and then print it! Bigelf is pretty much strictly a vintage group. We've always had all this instrumentation and vintage gear.
You have such a massive wall of sound on the latest record, it made me curious as to how much layering there is. Is it more stripped down than someone might expect?
It’s a combination of both, there is some tracks that seem really layered because different parts are coming in and out constantly. It’s actually more sparse than it sounds. We may have Mellotron sound and then a Rhodes part and then it goes into a synthesizer line. You might think, “Wow, there is so much instrumentation happening.” Of course, there are strings upon horns upon doubled tracked guitars on a couple tracks. Being a keyboardist, I have Mellotrons, Hammonds, and lots of things at my fingertips. Having two hands, I can have two musicians’ worth of sound. It’s definitely part of our sound, the combination of the Mellotron and the Hammond organ. Every track has that at least and more.
Deciding to play instruments such as the Mellotron or Hammond organ is a unique path to go down when you’re getting into rock music. Was there one particular musician that opened your eyes up to the possibilities of those instruments?
It definitely goes back to the early 70’s and the hard rock, psychedelic movement of the 60’s. There was a lot of experimentation going on at that time. A lot of British groups were trying out new instruments in their music, whether it was a Mellotron or a Hammond. It was a classic sound and everybody was using them...King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant. In my teens, I was really into analog synthesizers because that’s what was going on at the time, I also started playing guitar at that time. I remember one time I picked up this 52' goldtop at Guitar Center. I thought it was a 58,' which in today's market would be about a $50,000 difference. So I went to this vintage store called Voltage Guitars and asked, “Hey, what year is this?” Lloyd the owner said, “Oh, that’s a ’52.” I said, “It’s not a ’58?" I think that was sort of my entrance into the vintage world. I started working there. I’m going, “What’s that sound in The Beatles?”, “Oh, that’s a Mellotron.” “Oh, well I want one of those!” It just kind of started there. Back then, seeking out those instruments was pretty weird and out of date, it was like being on Jupiter. There a handful of bands doing the vintage thing back then that were commercially successful: Lenny Kravitz, The Black Crowes, Jellyfish, that kind of thing. It was late ‘80’s, maybe ’89. Nobody was really interested in prog rock or psychedelic rock. It’s not that there weren’t any bands trying to do it, but there wasn’t really anybody getting anywhere. Dream Theater had huge success with their progressive slant though. There’s nothing wrong with modern rock or modern pop, but what’s wrong with having something that sounds a little more vintage as well?
I’d like to talk about one particularly song on the album that has a really rich, textured sound. For a song like “Hydra,” it sounds like there is a variety of instrumentation and equipment that we hear. Can you give us a brief rundown of what you’re using?
Generally everything that we use live definitely goes into the studio. Ace doesn’t have 10 guitar heads, he’s got his two Orange stacks, and I have an Orange combo. We might grab an AC30 or something to get a different sound now and then. Froth uses vintage drums, Haymans and Ludwig vista-lites. In Duffyland, it's Ampeg SVTs and vintage Fender basses. He’s left-handed, so those are really hard to find. Keyboards on “Hydra” are, Hammond C3 organ with the Leslie 122. In the beginning of the song we’ve got distorted organ that comes in with Mellotron choir. We used a Coral sitar on the second half of the verse, doubling the vocal. In the pre-chorus there are more Mellotron strings and choir, and then there’s a Korg MS-20 synth that comes in with that snaky, dragon sound.
"Bigelf is pretty much strictly a vintage group."
It’s not too hard, the song "Hydra", the skeleton of it, is really easy. We change it up a little bit live because we started jamming on the bridge of that song for the breakdown. We sort of altered that part of it so that it would be more appealing for the progressive fans. I guess the main question is the overdubs, what part of the overdubs is not going to be able to be achieved? If you listen to a Queen record, not everything is replicated live. Brian May had 12 different harmonies going on – he’s not going to repeat those live, he can’t do it. I have to pick and choose in each song what main melody or countermelody I’m going to try and pull off or achieve live. We’re doing a shorter set with Dream Theater and that changes the dimension of what I’m going to bring out on tour. I’m trying to do things from Hex and Cheat The Gallows. I extended my keyboard rig a little bit to try and get more of the sounds on Cheat The Gallows. If we’re doing less songs, it doesn’t really make sense for me to bring everything in my keyboard arsenal. It’s not like you just plug in the guitar and that’s it.
“Blackball” has that amazing, creepy circus-like vibe to it.
That song was one of the first songs that I allocated to "Gallows". “Blackball” was going to be the underbelly, the birth, the first one. I had tons of songs in consideration but I knew “Blackball” was the one that was going to set the tone, it was the first one that I showed everybody. “Blackball” started as a three-minute song, I told the guys that I had this really cool outro riff, which is the blues jam at the end. I really like the combo of that bizarre, psychotic-sounding circus thing with the bluesy outro. And another thing, we don’t play the blues. That’s probably the bluesiest thing we’ve ever done and will do. I really like that song though, I think it turned out perfect.
Are you the primary songwriter or does each song take form in a completely unique way?
There are a lot of times where I come in with the genesis of song. Sometimes the songs are completely done, and the guys will have to struggle with the demo that I’ve done! On some songs, Ace comes up with guitar lines and melodies. There might be times when Ace is messing around with a riff at rehearsal and I’m like, “What’s that?” He says, “Oh, I don’t know.” Then I'm thinking, “I’ve got this song and that riff would be the perfect intro.” I don’t know if anybody in the band has the "songwriting bug". I can’t think of anybody sitting down and having to get those songs out of their system like I do.
It’s been a couple years since it was published, but there was an article in Oprah’s O Magazine in which Alicia Keys extolled the virtues of Bigelf.
I was completely floored when I heard that she was giving Bigelf a shout-out. And it wasn’t just O!, I saw some articles on the Internet as well. It wasn’t like she just blindly found us, I was playing on two or three songs on her album "As I Am". We really hit it off as far as friends and things of that nature. She was interested in what I was doing, I said, “Oh, I’m in a band, you don’t want hear about it.” Finally I gave her a disk and I guess she really dug it! So many people like her music, all different types of people. Of course, I’m thrilled. Not only does it make me feel good that she’s giving me a nod, but it also means that she’s giving me a little bit of exposure. I love Alicia, she’s a great soul. In the studio, we would be recording a song and I’d just look over at her and just kind of shake my head in awe. She’s the real deal. I actually sang backup vocals on a song too. That was fun.
"Classic rock kind of went the way of the dinosaur with the 90s and grunge and the overabundance of country and rap."
Yeah,there are times when I'm singing and I wonder why the hell I’m playing keys! It’s so hard to do! You have to play all the parts and change all the settings. I’m like, “Wow, I could just sing.” You can just connect with the audience. I do enjoy singing because of the emotions and thoughts that I want to convey to people. There is frustration and pain. You look at people when you’re singing, and you connect with them. That’s what I like about it.
You’re about to undertake the massive Progressive Nation tour. Will you wait until you get off the road to start writing new material?
I don’t think I’ve ever touched a guitar on a bus. I don’t think I’ve ever played a piano at a venue or at a hotel. I have a lot songs written already for the next couple records, I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas in place. Things are brewing and baking, I usually get home and thoughts just kind of come out. Very rarely will I force the song, I’m not a predictable songwriter. I think with the music of Bigelf, there is no way to be predictable. If someone says it’s predictable or calculated, that’s just total horseshit. For me, that doesn’t mean it’s not thought over. Some songs are written in three minutes. Some take three years, it just depends. “Counting Sheep” had been cooking for years, it’s something I have to think about, and then you come back to it and come back to it. I actually find the shorter songs harder to write than the longer ones. The band that has the quintessential songs for me is obviously The Beatles. It’s hard for me to even conceptualize how they knocked out all that early material with all those amazing melodies – and the song is only 2 minutes and 20 seconds long! That is concise, lean brilliance. I find I can get my head around “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.” I can understand it formula-wise, I get it. I understand “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and it's 14 minute journey. I do not understand the phenomenal, brief moment of genius. That’s really hard to accomplish. The shorter the song it is, the harder it is to write!
Interview by Amy Kelly
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2009
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. i didn't really like bigelf but DT and Zappa were really good. like really good. 
