The Big Push Rebranding Rock N Roll

Brighton based newcomers are going from the bustling streets of the South to the roaring ears of UK listeners and even the world.

Credit: Brad Lewis

Brought together by the love of rock-roll from four different lifestyles, band members Ren, Romain Axisa, Gorran Kendall, and Glenn Chambers draw elements from classic heavyweights The Beatles and The Police with the unique yet irresistible soundscapes of their craftsmanship.

With their EP Can Do, Will Do now in the hands of their fans and showing no signs of slowing down - the four-piece rockers are ready to storm the stages of the UK with their sold-out headline tour this August/September.

As they continue to wow even the most surprising listeners, The Big Push are buzzing through millions of streams and ready to take it to the next step.

In the meantime, of their busy musical life, Vibez caught up with the band to talk more about their EP, how it all started, what the future holds and everything in between.

Hey, let's get straight into it! You’re about to release your EP Can Do, Will Do - how excited are you for your fans to hear it, and what can we expect?

The response to everything we’ve released so far has been amazing. Our fans are so passionate about our music, and we couldn’t feel any more highly esteemed by all the love and support that we receive on a daily basis. This EP has been a long time coming, and we’re thrilled to have finally finished it and can’t wait to see what they make of it. The songs on the EP are the amalgamation of a variety of different influences each of us bring to the band. It's our attempt to bring back a bit of British rock and roll into the charts.

Bringing a new taste to rock n roll, what was the creative process of this highly anticipated project, and how do each track entwine with each other?

Haha, thank you very much! During the first lockdown, we played together every day and wrote about thirty songs. Because there are three songwriters and quite different stylistic elements coming from all of us into the writing process, this batch of songs was quite diverse. Though we loved every track, we narrowed it down to six that we felt sat alongside each other very well. I couldn’t say exactly, what it is, but all of the songs have a similar thread running through them. It’s in the riffs, the melodies, it's how all the parts work together in the arrangement, but stylistically as well, it is a good, infused kick of gritty guitar-led rock and roll.

From the soaring 'Watch Out' to the anthemic 'When She Goes' - what is your favourite track and why?

If we had to pick one, I think it would probably be 'Watch Out' because it is so much fun to play. It has some great riffs, and the bridge especially, from those back-and-forth guitars, where it keeps building in momentum til Romain’s guitar solo explodes at the end. The lyrics are kind of nonsense, but we had a lot of fun writing those too, that's the thing I think - this track captures the fun and excitement we feel playing and writing together.

As we talk about each track, what was the hardest and easiest song to create and delve into?

‘When She Goes' was probably the easiest song to write. We wanted to do something that bounced and felt a bit like a smack in the face - Ren came up with the chords and ran with the lyrics - it all came together pretty quickly. As a result of recording, this song was pretty straightforward - it has a very much plugin and play feel, which is what we wanted, the kind of thing that anybody can jam along to or crank up on the sound system and enjoy.

'All My Heroes' started with a guitar riff Romain had held onto since the very early days of the band, and it grew from there - but it took a few different sessions to get this almost five-minute track together. As each section of the song is always a little different from the last, every part is quite specific in the arrangement, so making sure the right sounds were used in the studio was an important part of the process.

Looking back at when it all started, busking on the streets of Brighton - how did you all meet, and what influenced you to start The Big Push?

As individuals, we were all busking before we met in the streets and then began playing together. Ren was looking for a fellow musician to live with because he likes to play the piano whenever he feels like (2 am, 8 am) and was having trouble with the people he lived with. So he put a post on an online music page. Romain had more or less just arrived from France with not much more than a guitar and a suitcase, saw Ren’s post and responded. Gorran was busking every day to make a living and met Romain shortly after he started playing in the streets. Gorran convinced him to quit his job and start doing it full time as well. Glenn was playing bass in a band but dabbled in drums playing half a kit/part-suitcase in the streets with a mutual friend. Once Gorran, Ren and Romain had started jamming together, they met Glenn and convinced him to join. We were asked so many times what our name was that we decided to form a band.

Now amassing nearly 5 million streams on Spotify alone and gaining over 28 million views across YouTube, did ever see yourself reaching these heights at the beginning, and what do you dream to happen next?

The other day we found a page in an old notebook from one of our first ‘band meetings’. Our old housemate made us sit down and write things out properly - on the page was a kind of reductive process written out and in the middle was our grand target of ‘500 followers’. This was probably the first step we ever took to taking the band a little more seriously than messing around jamming in the streets (then again, when I put it like that, I don’t know how much has really changed? haha). We began to take things more seriously, and we worked incredibly hard since then, but at that time, we never thought we would amass hundreds of thousands of followers across a worldwide fanbase, have sold out our first national tour and have our original songs total streams in the millions.

On the other hand, you are also planning to tour the UK this August and September. How excited are you to get back out there, and what do you miss the most about live shows?

Live shows have been especially fun for us so far because we have only ever done two properly ticketed shows. Both sold-out venues at the Islington O2 and one thousand capacity Chalk in Brighton were preceded mostly by playing in the streets and packed dingey bars of Brighton - so it was a bit of a jump. We love playing live and feeding off the atmosphere of the crowd, it’s a different experience playing live on stage than playing live on the street busking, but we love it.

With the world returning to normal, what is next for The Big Push, and where do you hope to see yourself in five years?

We have a whole host of new videos we want to create, as well as too many songs we want to record. It’s difficult to choose what to do next because there are so many things to pick from! As well as producing more stuff to share with the world, we have plans to get out and play some more gigs. Ahead of our first sold-out tour this summer, we will surely be securing some more shows in the future, hopefully playing to more and more people in some larger venues. It’s all very exciting, and whilst we look forward to growing the band and our audience, we will always stick at the busking too, as it’s where we started - the street performances are getting a little out of control, which is how we like it. Five years from now, I’m sure we will still have the same level of enthusiasm as we do now, but hopefully, we’ll have the resources to realise even more of our creative potential. I guess it would also be nice to be a little bit more secure financially, as even though we are doing very well artistically, we still struggle a little to make ends meet pursuing music as a full-time career.