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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Big Deal
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 23 August 2011
East London-based duo Big Deal formed after Alice Costelloe, formerly of frenetic tween-pop outfit Pull In Emergency, was introduced to American-born guitar teacher Kacey Underwood by her mother. Burying speculation regarding their personal (and purely professional) relationship in a haze of retrofit guitar rumbles and overheard lovers’ tête-à-têtes, they began releasing a string of singles on Moshi Moshi towards the end of last year.
With their debut album ‘Lights Out’, along with new single ‘Chiar’, due to be released via Mute on 5 Sep, Big Deal’s next non-festival live date will be a free show at Falmouth venue Toast on 31 Aug, with more tour dates throughout September.
In preparation for more pressing engagements at this weekend’s Reading and Leeds festivals, we suggested Alice and Kacey limber up with a strenuous round of our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Kacey: We started making music because we had to really. My band was falling apart and I was tired of holding it together. I had known Alice for a year or so and we just found ourselves in that old idiom, one door closes kind of thing.
Alice: We just sang together and something clicked. That sounds really cheesy but that’s me.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Kacey: It’s mostly our lives this past year mixed with our dreams for the future…
Alice: …along with a summer filled with lots of playing together, eating ice creams.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Kacey: We write together in our bedrooms then try and record straight away so we can hold onto what it is that works about it.
Alice: I used to have a bit of trouble working Garage Band, so my process involved a minute silence at the beginning of each track. I pretended to Kacey it was a stylistic thing.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Kacey: Any art that is made honestly, that could just as easily make you cringe. That’s the stuff that hits me the hardest…
Alice: …especially bands that can make both heavy big songs, but also can have just one guitar and voice and the song still shines through.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Kacey: Stop waiting for the drums to kick in…
Alice: …it’s never going to happen.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Kacey: I think we are ambitious in the sense that we want to make the best music we possibly can, and make it for as long as possible. Hopefully enough people will like the record to justify us making another.
Alice: And to continue to enjoy what we do. That’s important.
MORE>> soundcloud.com/big-deal
