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Monday, 26 May 2008 |
 Towards the end of 2005 I wasn’t really interested in being in a band any more. I’d been in one called Two After The Curry for the past 5 years or so and band practice meant an hour long drive through the back roads and myriad villages of inner Switzerland to a practice room in a trading estate just outside a place called Hünenberg. Quite frankly, I’d had enough.
I didn't need a band for my musical dabblings. I was the proud owner of a new 12-string guitar on which I was quite happily learning the complete works of Noel Gallagher in my cellar.
I remember meeting Alice (Mrs Phil), on the train to Zürich. We were on our way to Moscow and she was on her way to a cave to look for jewels. She told me I could expect a call from Phil some time as he had taken up the guitar again and was very keen on playing with someone again. I can’t remember exactly when I decided to go for it, but I knew my old next-door neighbour, Mark, might be interested as his band had split up recently as well. He'd played once with my old band Two After The Curry as a guest performer at the last ever gig we did, so I knew he could handle the pressure of big time public appearances. Anyway we decided to give it a go. It took quite a while until we finally got together to play in Phil’s cellar. The good news was, he virtually lives around the corner so it only meant a 5 minute drive through the back roads and only one myriad village of northern Switzerland.
We started off playing a few covers just to see what it was like and seeing if our tastes co-incided anywhere. We eventually found a few songs we could all agree on playing. By this time my drum machine "Small Box", had been drafted into the band. Phil came up with the idea of doing a trial gig in his cellar. It was during the world cup of 2006. England were playing badly against some South American team. Ecuador or Paraguay I think. We played a few songs for Phil's friends and a bunch of screaming kids. I wasn't prepared for that gig at all. I remember it being the one and only time I ever played with the lyrics in front of me. The one positive thing that came out of it, was that the songs people liked the most were the two original songs "Kill me" and "Good time". This gave us the incentive to go ahead and write more of our own stuff. I was really glad about this, as my old band had concentrated mostly on covers. It was great to have someone to write songs with. That is what I enjoy most about music anyway.
There followed a song writing frenzy which saw us produce 21 songs between May and November. All of them absolute class! Big Onion had arrived. We released our first CD, "Bunker" and it sold like hot cakes to all of our friends who felt sorry for us, or too embarrassed to reject it when it was thrust upon them. The first real gig followed shortly afterwards in the cellar bar in the Vehgass in Nussbaumen. We played 20 of our own songs in front of a sell out crowd. The barman "Chrigel" was very happy as we played for free and he sold loads of beer to our alcoholic friends. Lots of people told us we couldn't do a gig playing just our own songs that nobody knew, but we reckoned the songs were catchy enough. Anyway it turned out to be a big success, although I think the only song people could remember the next day was "Drinking". That song has since become our regular show finisher.
The next release was "Binge", a three track Geordie EP celebrating the rich cultural heritage of North East England. Drinking was a bit rough to make it onto an actual Big Onion CD, so I had the idea of finishing off two songs I had written years earlier and making a Geordie special. I was very happy to finish it. It is available on iTunes.
Considering all of the songs for the next CD "Brew" had been written by the time we played that first gig in December 2006, it took ages to bring it out. Lots of things got in the way. I moved house to Freienwil. Mark got their lass pregnant. Phil changed jobs. I changed jobs. etc. etc. Now that it's finally been released in April 2008, we have written all of the songs for our 3rd CD and started writing the 4th CD. We have a few more gigs under our belt and basically the band is going from strength to strength.
The next target is to finish the 3rd CD "Belter" this year.
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Press
Release:
Big Onion are an unusual band, considering the fact that they are based in a country not particularly noted for it's musical creativity. Switzerland is full of very accomplished musicians, but can they write a song? A song that doesn't sound like a poor man's version of an American standard? A song that isn't intended for the sole purpose of showing the technical accomplishment of the performer? The answer in most cases is unfortunately.... No!
So it is strange that this background has spawned a band like Big Onion. The band is formed around the song-writing partnership of Dave Corbett and Phil Roberts. They may not be the most complicated songs ever written. They may not be the most musically challenging songs ever written, but they have a quality that is all too often forgotten nowadays. They have a melody. They have lyrics which are written in English that everyone can understand and don't be surprised if you find yourself humming the tunes to yourself. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 06 August 2009 )
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