"Big Scary"
"Big Scary"
Big Scary is an Australian musical duo formed in Melbourne in 2006, by Tom Iansek and Jo Syme. The pair began playing songs together in the living room of Jo's parents' house. After a break, the two reconvened in 2008, and began releasing songs after incorporating a broader range of instrumentation—namely electric guitars, drums, piano, mandolins and ukuleles—into their music.
The pair have released several EPs, along with one named after each of Earth's seasons in 2010, which were then collected into a release titled The Four Seasons. Big Scary released their debut album Vacation on 7 October 2011, and it debuted on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart at #37 on 16 October.
What began as a few rainy day acoustic ballads in their first incarnation soon grew into an all-encompassing, genre-defying sound. Before long, the newly named Big Scary were writing anything they pleased—fuzzed-out garage rock; piano-led pop; intricate, pastoral instrumentals—each imbued with an effortless pop sensibility and lightness of touch that would quickly see the duo attract a strong following.
These gifts translated onto the stage where, from the outset, Big Scary proved themselves a remarkably fluid and compelling live act, capable of not only bringing their songs to life, but also of adapting their set to suit the moment.
In late 2008, the band headed into the studio for the first time, laying down six live tracks in a single day. Another quick-fire recording session soon after resulted in a four-track mini-EP, led by the towering single "This Weight". Featuring Iansek's huge distorted guitar and high-wire vocals backed by Syme's thumping drums, "This Weight" quickly caught the ears of the press, who hailed this "talented and fearless" new duo.
Inspired by a wave of severe weather that hit the country, Big Scary went on to release the six-track At the Mercy of the Elements EP. Ranging from rousing, piano-led ballads ("Falling Away"), to thumping, distorted numbers ("Hey Somebody") and intricate, sonorous instrumentals ("At the Mercy of the Elements"), the EP was a full-to-bursting showcase of the duo's vital, dexterous sound. "Thoroughly excellent," raved The Australian. "Packed with anxiety and bravado," Beat said.
With a growing national profile, Big Scary embarked on a period of heavy touring, with a diverse list of supports that reflected the duo's eclectic output: The Vasco Era, Florence and the Machine, Midlake, Little Red, Editors. Soon enough the duo began headlining their own shows, first in their hometown of Melbourne and then all over the country.
Big Scary remain endlessly fascinated by the natural world. In 2010, the duo released four seasonally themed, limited-edition EPs, which were eventually collected as The Big Scary Four Seasons. A rich, thrillingly diverse set of songs, The Four Seasons showcased Iansek and Syme's uncanny ability to translate the vagaries and glories of the elements into utterly compelling music. "Four Seasons proves to be the defining turning point for Big Scary, for they are no longer the next best thing in Australian music, they are the best thing," Beat magazine said of the LP, while the AU Review hailed "the versatility and obscene… talent of the players."
A national tour followed, with the band playing to packed houses all over the country. Several months later, as the band began to ready their new album, Autumn, one of the standout tracks from the Four Seasons, was placed in a high-profile AT&T ad in the US, introducing the band to American audiences for the first time.
The vision for the new record came together on a small island farm, where Iansek and Syme holed up for several weeks after a run of successful summer festival shows, writing and demoing songs. "We knew we had a lot of songs that we liked, but they were all so far from each other on the genre scale—super bratty garage, really poppy piano stuff, epic guitar songs, folky acoustic stuff," Syme says. "The album will still have elements of all that, but we've got some really strong tracks that we think tie it all together."
Instead of painting themselves into a corner, on the new album Big Scary celebrate the diversity of their songwriting. "We write songs with completely different feels and vibes," Iansek says. "In the studio, we thought that we should try not suppress this too much, and just roll with it."
By their own admission, the two worked "a lot harder" in putting together the new album material than they had before, re-writing parts and lyrics until they were satisfied. This process continued into the studio, where every sound was carefully considered and experimented with—often for hours at a time. Layers were added to some songs, while parts were culled from others, as Iansek and Syme sought to make each song "as strong as it could possibly be."
The new album, which was released in October, promises to be another startling document from a band whose only constant seems to be their capacity for invention, their desire to keep moving forward.
Discography:
EP's:
- The Mini EP (2009)
- At the Mercy of the Elements EP (2010) - Independent
- Autumn (2010)
- Winter (2010)
- Spring (2010)
- Summer (2010)
- The Big Scary Four Seasons (2010)
Singles:
- "Apple Song" (2008)
- "Tuesday Is Rent Day" (2010)
- "Mixtape" (2011)
- "Gladiator" (2011)
- "Leaving Home" (2012)
Albums:
- Vacation (2011)