BIG BIG TRAIN - New naturalness

28. April 2017

Big Big Train

BIG BIG TRAIN - New naturalness

For the Big Big Train founders Greg Spawton and Andy Poole it was and is a main concern with their creative creature that the sound is constantly expanded through regular reshuffles. On the most recent work "Grimspound", as on "Folklore", a proud eight henchmen and women are at work in order to be able to implement this requirement. "Above all, they are the same creative partners as on the last album, you can talk about a kind of well-rehearsed team," says 51-year-old Spawton. "It's a lot of fun to be a member of this band like never before. Because you're always working on new ideas. Sometimes this form of uninterrupted creativity is almost spooky."

eclipsed: What's the deal with the album title "Grimspound"?

Greg Spawton: Grimspound is an archaeological cult site in England. It lies in the county of Devon in the southwest of our homeland. It is a mystical place, not much different from Stonehenge, only much less known. We love such places of worship, we love unusual nature in general. And after visiting Grimspound several times, we decided at some point to dedicate the name of our new work to such a magical place. It may not be a conceptual work, but what holds the eight songs together is their love for the archaic landscape, their passion for animals and an amazing plant world. But also for innovative scientists, for unusual artists, for people who are still dreamers and have no desire to be impressed and influenced by destructive realists. For us it cannot be that deconstruction more and more gains the upper hand in the thinking of modernity. Against this we fight with our art. This is what a legendary place like Grimspound stands for. With this album title we are setting an example for this. We deliberately call ourselves anachronists.

eclipsed: "Folklore" was something like the opus magnum of Big Big Train. Is it difficult to add a successor to this one?

Spawton: Anyway, it wasn't easy! (laughs) "Folklore" lives from the great gesture, among other things. We did it, we did this record. Now we have looked for another approach, wanted a simpler approach. Maybe something more normal? A great new Big Big Train plant? Not more, but certainly not less. For us, every further record is a creative challenge, at the same time an inventory we have to orient ourselves on. We want to set fragrance brands in the world of prog where we feel at home.

Lest mehr im eclipsed Nr. 190 (05-2017).