SINCE returning with ‘It’s Easy Then’ earlier this year, The Big Moon’s comeback has been like a breath of fresh air. Swapping the love songs of their fizzing debut for thornier, more thought-provoking lyrical insights while consciously embracing their poppy sensibilities, the quartet’s upcoming album ‘Walking Like We Do’ looks set to feature some of their boldest and brightest work to date.
Premiered on Radio 1 this week as Annie Mac’s ‘Hottest Record in the World’, the band’s new single ‘Take a Piece’ is about as poptastic as we’ve ever heard them. Initially written by Juliette Jackson with a specific pop star in mind, it is designed to capture the vulnerability of being a world-famous performer and the scary, often isolating feeling of creating a meaningful piece of art.
Jackson said “I initially wrote this song for someone else, speculatively, but for a pop star. I’d already written an album’s worth of songs but a lot of them felt similar to our first album and I wanted to try something different.”
“I’d just watched a documentary about this pop star and seen how insane their life was and their intense relationship with their fans, and was blown away by how much of themselves they’d had to give up to have the life they had. So that’s where the lyrics came from really. It was a bit of a turning point in the writing process… like sometimes you have to pretend to be someone else to change things up and say things in ways you didn’t know you could.”
“This mega pop star’s life was literally nothing like mine but I could really identify with the vulnerability of being a performer and standing on stage every night and feeling the eyes of an audience, which can feel either grounding and unifying or – occasionally – scary and isolating, and something any performer can identify with, whether they’re playing arenas or the windmill. “It also has a lot to do with how it felt to write this second album.”
“Trying to get out of your head, figuring out which voices to listen to and which to ignore, and ultimately wanting to pour yourself into the thing you’re creating and make something honest and meaningful that might connect with someone else and mean something to them as well.
“At first, we weren’t really sure if this could be a Big Moon song, we were on unfamiliar ground… but the idea just stuck around. And we kept going back to it, and the more we played with it the more we fell in love with it, and now it couldn’t be more ours. And you know what, it’s exciting that as musicians we can do whatever the hell we want!”
The accompanying video is a more tongue-in-cheek affair. Continuing the theme of the track, it sees The Big Moon perform in the style of iconic 90s videos with nods to East 17, B*Witched and more. Check it out below.
Set to embark on a UK tour with Bombay Bicycle Club next January, you can also catch the four-piece at their own headline shows in February and March. Full tour dates below.
27th February – Bristol The Fleece
28th February – Liverpool O2 Academy 2
29th February – Edinburgh Summerhall Arts Centre
2nd March – Nottingham Contemporary
3rd March – Oxford O2 Academy 2
