In the span of just a few years, Big Gigantic went from opening up for Sound Tribe Sector 9 side projects at the Fox Theatre in Boulder to touring with electronic heavyweights Pretty Lights and Bassnectar. Saxophone player Dominic Lalli got his start in the Boulder, Colorado based jazz band The Motet, where he spent roughly six years before joining together with his roommate and former Motet merchandise vendor Jeremy Salken to start Big Gigantic in 2008. Recently the band entered the studio for the first time in over a year to record Nocturnal. Big Gigantic sits down with Jambands.com to discuss their experiences in the studio, their sudden rise to fame, and the state of the electronic music scene today.
Justin: Dom, you started off as a member of the Colorado based jazz band The Motet. What inspired you to pick up a laptop and start experimenting with DJing?
DL: Well, I actually started getting into the laptop thing with The Motet when we started doing a little bit of more housey electronic stuff, and that’s when I first started picking it up. When me and Jeremy were roommates living together, that’s when I started working on making beats and all that kind of stuff. That was probably five years ago.
Justin: And what about you Jeremy, how did you get your start?
JS: I’ve been playing music since I was a little kid and I moved out to Boulder to try and get involved in the scene. I heard there was a real big music scene around there. It was actually kind of because of The Motet, I met those guys and I was a big fan, and Dave [Watts] is a badass drummer, so I thought coming out here I could get tied in with some good dudes and I actually ended up doing merch with The Motet, just selling merch and stuff like that back in the day, and then Dom and I lived together like he said and we started playing together a little bit locally, doing funk and jazz gigs and stuff like that. Then once he got the computer and started making beats we started coordinating and he asked me to be a part of the project, and it went from there.
You both talked about the connection between jazz music and electronic music, and how Dom started doing house influenced music with The Motet. Do you feel that there’s a stronger connection right now after you guys have done both projects?
DL: Well I mean, certainly. Everything we’ve done, where we’ve been coming from musically, our backgrounds and what kind of music we sort of grew up on definitely has a factor in it. But I think we’ve just been playing together a lot and gigging together a lot, and playing together really starts to bring that connection between the two musicians together and everyone starts phrasing together better and it just lifts the live show to a whole new level.
Justin: What are some of your musical influences? It seems each of your songs shifts genres rapidly, and it’s hard to classify one of your albums under a single category of music.
*DL:& So many different styles of music. Everything from funky jazzy Herbie Hancock kind of stuff, to even all the beatmakers who are doing stuff right now. Anywhere from Flying Lotus to Bassnectar to Pretty Lights to a lot of the dubstep producers and the drum and bass producers. Obviously tons of saxophone players for me are a huge influence and I know for Jeremy a ton of different drummers as well. I think we’re pretty influenced by everything, everything that’s going on musically today and a lot of the stuff that’s happened in the past, we’re drawing from everything and trying to come up with our own version of what we’re hearing today.
Justin: And what about you Jeremy? Are there any influences for you that stand out?
JS: Dom and I actually share a lot of the same influences, ranging from Herbie Hancock to Radiohead, and it’s all kind of blended together to make up what we are as a band. We share a lot of the same musical interests, from hip-hop to electronic music, and I think that one of the reasons why we get along so well musically is because we share the same common ground.
Justin: Absolutely. So it’s been a little over a year since you last entered the studio to record A Place Behind The Moon. Now you’re in the studio recording Nocturnal. I’ve listened to “Rise And Shine,” it’s got a big jazz and break-beat hip-hop influence with some samples thrown in, “The World Is Yours” has a big dubstep influence, with an emphasis on the drop. Can you guys describe the songwriting process, how do you decide who writes what?
DL: Well I do most of the writing, and in terms of Nocturnal, “Rise And Shine” is going to be the single, we get into some drum and bass stuff, a little bit of sampled stuff and some sax solos. I think we’re definitely trying to come up with a Big Gigantic sound, one sound that is our own that isn’t necessarily confined to one style within the electronic genre. I think we’re trying to get a little dubstep in there or at least some dubstep influence, nothing on the new album is going to be like “that’s just a dubstep banger right there” or something like that. I think all the stuff on the new album is really a step different from the past, but with some newer sounds. I think it’s very bass-heavy but very melodic and a lot of different chords, harmonies, all that sort of stuff. It’s another new, updated Big Gigantic sound that we’re growing and developing and that kind of thing.
Justin: At what point in the recording process does Jeremy come on board?
JS: It’s mainly done through Dom’s laptop so I’m technically more there in the live setting, we just kind of found it a lot easier to make the tracks on the computer rather than spending a ton of money and a ton of time to make the drums sound as good as they do on a laptop, just because sonically you can just make drops sound way better than we could in the studio I think.
DL: It just makes more sense. Jeremy definitely influences all the grooves in terms of his drumming and our communication in terms of drums and sax and that whole thing. It’s much easier for me to go in and sort of make the drums from samples, like from Jeremy’s kick sample or from Jeremy’ snare sample and then add some claps to it, as opposed to him playing over everything in the studio. So it sort of works best to do that sort of style and then when we play live he’s playing over the tracks and stuff.
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