Gigantic

September 5th, 2007 by David Williams

Gigantic InterviewThey say from little things, big things grow. No more does this hold true for WA-based duo, Gigantic, whose power-pop stylings are garnering them much-deserved international recognition. We caught up with the band at the start of something big; on the eve of their national tour…

So whereabouts are you today?
Oh, I am at the office, at work [Laughs] – day job time.

And what has Gigantic been doing lately?

Just really playing lots of shows, in support of our album here in Australia. And also, I guess, starting to let people overseas know about our album … Our single will be released shortly in the US, and we’re going over for about five weeks worth of touring. Well, early next year I’m going – in September I’m actually going on a bit of a promotional tour, and having a holiday as well! [It’s] set up by a record label over there in Barcelona; we’re signed to a label called “Bip Bip” Records.

How did that deal come about?

We’ve been lucky enough, just over the last sort of few years, to have a song included on international – I guess – power-pop-type compilations, so we’ve sort of slowly built a little bit of a … I guess a reputation overseas, and in particular around Europe. And our subsequent EP, which was put out by our Australian label, Pop Boomerang Records, was sent out with a stack of copies to different people who they thought would like our music, and we got a good response from that. And from what we hear, it gets played all around the place. And so, when it came time for the album being finished, and recorded, we sent out a few copies to people who had expressed an interest, or people we thought might like the album. And we were lucky enough to have a couple of offers come in from Spain, and we really liked the vibe we were getting from this label in Barcelona called Bip Bip, who we’d previously spoken to before. But we had knowledge of the label and so forth, and so far it’s going really well. The language factor’s been a bit of a barrier, because the A&R guy doesn’t speak English very well, and all the email will have to be translated [Laughs]. And most of the interviews so far have been done on email, so it’s hard to sort of know what people are asking sometimes in the translation process. But that’s made it quite fun and exciting for us, I think, to have our music come out in a place that … their first language really isn’t English. And even better still, we can’t wait to get over there and play some shows. We’re also going to play in Paris, Amsterdam and London, and Stockholm [it] looks like as well, and then we’re shooting across to the States for a stack of dates there, and then through to Tokyo! We’re really looking forward to that.

It’s all huge, then!

Yeah! I mean, we’ve never … other than New Zealand, we’ve never toured overseas. It’s something that we’re pretty excited about. But we’re also very excited about going back to Hobart, because we’ve only played there once before, and we had a great time. I think it’s the only place on the tour that we’re playing a couple of shows – we’re doing an all-ages show, as well as a licensed show, and we love playing those all-ages shows – they’re always a hell of lot of fun.

The band – that is, at its core – [is] just two guys; you and your brother. How do you guys truly represent the name “Gigantic”?
[Laughs] Yeah, that’s a good question! I think the recording process was kind of gigantic, in a sense. In putting together the album Gigantaphonic Sounds, we’re really quite lucky … well, we think we’re quite lucky, in that regard. We had three producers help us co-produce the album; one of those is Joel Quartermain – who plays for Eskimo Joe. The other one was Rodney Aravena, who plays in End of Fashion. And the third one was Andy … he plays in a band called The Avenues. So, it was all kind of recorded in a bit of a home studio recording environment. What started off in a shed at the back of where Rodney was living at the time, sharing a place with Kav from Eskimo Joe … then it was sort of finished off, I guess, [in] various lounge rooms and living rooms and so forth around WA.

Gigantic play an all-ages show at Hobart’s Youth Arc and a licensed gig at the Republic Bar on the 7th of September.

Listen to the full interview Below

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