Spontaneous combustion
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday March 5, 2010
London duo the Big Pink take a dash of soulful indie rock and add electro beats, writes George Palathingal. Tales of excess follow the Big Pink almost as closely as the hype that has stuck to the east London duo since the arrival of their mind-blowing debut single Too Young to Love in late 2008.No yoga and herbal tea for these guys - guitar noise-maker Robbie Furze and electronica whiz Milo Cordell are wholeheartedly embracing the rock'n'roll lifestyle."Yeah, I guess, to a certain point," Furze says."But we have always been like that. The fact that we started a band didn't change our lifestyles."It wasn't like we suddenly did the classic 'get some money and, y'know ... explosion of white powder'." Furze giggles mischievously. "It's always been a problem."The Big Pink's breathtaking debut album, A Brief History of Love, is as epic and potent as its title suggests: all skyscraping melodies and choruses, backed by walls of synth and guitar. It's soulful, psychedelic indie rock with a healthy dash of brain-frazzling electronica."We became friends when we were sort of 17, 18," Furze says."We used to go to raves together [to hear] digital hardcore and techno and we love hip-hop and early industrial stuff. We always talked about music and I think the Big Pink was just a kind of big melting pot of everything that we'd ever been into."Each of the pair was in his late 20s by the time they decided to make this beautiful music together. Until that point, Furze had been playing guitar for other bands while Cordell busied himself putting out now-classic seven-inches on his label Merok Records (including Klaxons' Atlantis to Interzone and Crystal Castles' Alice Practice). Didn't they feel a bit, well, old to be starting a band?"I think what's nice about us and maybe what people pick up on is the honesty in what we do," Furze says. "When you get to a certain point in your life, you can be totally honest because you get the freedom to not give a shit about anything; y'know, you accept life for what it is and you stop whining and you stop bitching about hating your mum or your dad or sort of crap like that. Y'know, you love the good and the bad in life."I think that you can only get to that point when you reach a certain age. Maybe some people get to that earlier - maybe me and Milo are immature - but I don't think we really got to that point until only a couple of years ago."We just decided we wanted to make a band together. It wasn't even 'make a band', really; it was more just get in a room and make some noise ... and the songs just came out."THE BIG PINKSunday, 8pm, Metro Theatre, city, 9550 3666, $46.
© 2010 Sydney Morning Herald
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