Bigfoot is a hard rock band from Wigan, England, with a penchant for putting a musical boot up your…..well, where the sun don’t shine, as they say! Bursting onto the scene in the spring of 2014, the outfit consists of powerful vocals from Antony Ellis, dual lead guitars from Sam Millar and Mick McCullagh, and a thunderous rhythm section with Matt Avery on bass and Tom Aspinall on drums. With influences ranging widely from the likes of The Eagles to Pantera, this band knows how to R-O-C-K! After two successful EP releases, the self-titled debut and ‘Stone Soldiers’, the band caught the eye of Frontiers, whom signed them to their roster as fast as they could. This Bigfoot is no myth, but they are about to become legends! We caught up with guitarist Sam Millar and (when we found he was listening in) Antony Ellis to talk about the new album and potential global sightings…
Mark: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today, what can we say? We’ve been listening to ‘Bigfoot’ all week now, it’s chock full of great songs and a damn fine listen if you love your Hard Rock! You must be pretty happy with the production? It sounds huge!
Sam: Yeah, yeah we’re really pleased with how it’s come out. We’re just waiting for the release now.
Mark: For those people I guess a little further away from the UK who aren’t familiar with the band and haven’t had a chance to catch you live, can you recap how it all started and how you got to where you are today?
Sam: Well we got together in 2014 from several different bands on the circuit and we wanted to make a band that was a lot stronger than some of those other groups and we pulled in a few favours from venues and promoters, (contacts that) we’d accumulated over the time in those other bands and we started from there. Then bigger and better things kept coming up, sell out shows and here we are just before our debut album gets released.
Mark: And you had a couple of EP’s out prior to the album?
Sam: Yeah we had two EP’s that were entirely self-released, a four track and a five track.
Mark: How would you describe your sound? You’ve got a little extra in there it’s not just your straight melodic Hard Rock though that of course underlies it all.
Sam: Well for me personally anyway, and I’m sure the lads will have their own personal opinions on it and that’s what makes our sound what it is. We’ve got a lot of influences in Bigfoot, one of my big ones is The Eagles but one of Mick’s favourites is Pantera and so we try and get it as versatile as we can so a lot more listeners can enjoy us then.
Mark: I think one of the things I like so much about the sound is the guitars and having that twin-guitar sound is a real nice aspect that you don’t hear often enough
Sam: Yeah I think this is the first thing we’ve ever recorded where I’ve been genuinely 100% happy with the guitar, there’s always been something where I thought “I wish I’d done this, or mic’ed it up differently or something”. But I think on this record it’s captured mine and Mick’s sound perfectly.
Mark: And where did the name come from? There’s not that many ‘Bigfoot’ in Wigan are there?
Sam: (laughs) I don’t know when you look at some of the people! (laughs) Seriously though we toyed with a lot of names, there was a list of about a hundred names and Bigfoot was on there and we narrowed it down to about ten names and we ended up with ’Bigfoot’. We had a lot of names though, some more metal names, some softer names but we felt that ‘Bigfoot’ had balls and we could reach out to all the different genres of rock and still cover it with that name.
Mark: It’s a great name, it sticks in the mind which is the key I suppose. How long have you been writing the tracks for the album, I notice that none of the earlier tracks from the EP’s have been reworked, are they all new?
Sam: well two of the songs have been knocking around for a while ‘Forever Alone’ and ‘Freak Show’ which were already in our set when we released our second EP. We’d been writing for a while it’s just that we never specifically said “Right let’s sit down and write an album” it’s been a long term thing where we’ve gone through maybe 20, 25 songs before we narrowed it down to the 11 that we thought were strong enough to be on the album.
Mark: One of the things that struck me when I got about four songs in and I think it was that big ballad ‘Forever Alone’ was how much Antony’s style reminds me of our good mate Danny Vaughn from Tyketto.
Sam: (laughs) it keeps coming up this! Anthony’s actually here.
Antony: Hello!
Mark: Danny was actually down under a little while ago with The Ultimate Eagles, so it’s funny that you mentioned them earlier too, Tyketto of course are actually your label-mates now also.
Antony: They are, we’re actually doing two dates with them in November. I don’t hear it myself, I’ve been a Tyketto fan for a while and I don’t hear it myself.
Sam: Even the label said that at one point and it still eludes me.
Mark: I don’t think it’s the voice especially, for me It’s more that the phrasing is very similar especially on that ballad.
Anthony: OK I’ll give you that.
Mark: But that ballad ‘Forever Alone’ – wow! If you’re gonna do a ballad, do a great one, and you have.
Antony: I remember when I wrote it and I showed Sam a few lyrics and we put it to the lads after that…
Sam: It’s one of those songs that was in our live set long before we recorded it and it was one of those songs that fans asked when we were recording it.
Mark: ‘Tell Me a Lie’ is another song that made me sit up and think, wow, this band is absolutely on fire! You open up the album beautifully with ‘Karma’ and the new video ‘The Fear’, both class songs, but when that one hits and the hook kicks in you know you’ve got a great album on your hands!
Sam: Thank you very much.
Mark: ‘I Dare You’ though is the bold move, adding that bit of reggae in there, it’s something that normally doesn’t work, but I think you nailed it there. Where does the reggae come from?
Sam: Well there’s not really a reggae influence in the band, we just like experimenting, we try and be as versatile as we can and when the idea came up we jumped on it. When we were jamming it out originally that reggae section wasn’t there but it just seemed so perfect when we did it, you know what I mean? (laughs)
Mark: I do, it works really well, it’s great when you get a nice little ‘extra’ like that. And the album just finishes as well as it started with that epic track ‘Yours’. The only way to close surely?
Sam: Yeah you can’t bury that track in the middle of the album.
Antony: Yeah, it’s too big of a track and I think it’s the furthest out of our comfort zone on the album for me, so it just made perfect sense: take people by surprise.
Mark: Yeah, and it nicely pens up the possibilities of what might happen next. The UK has a wonderful rock scene at the moment and there are a number of great new bands playing the sort of music we love that seem to come out every week. Does it feel like a special time at the moment? Can you feel Rock rising again? I know you played ‘Hair metal heaven’ in Hull a short while ago, a great line-up but I think the organisation was a little off, what was that like for you?
Antony: There were a lot of teething problems with it, I feel sorry for the guy, it was his first time putting on a Festival and he’d got a great line-up and all the best intentions and to be fair it was a great Festival. Sure there were a few bits of organisation, but just go and drink some beer and enjoy yourself!
Sam: He was running round after bands all day, he definitely wasn’t having a great time, but it was a great Festival though, the atmosphere was good, everyone was having a great time, a few lessons to be learned but we had a great time. I think that actual gig was pretty good to us we were a bit nervous about playing first up, but when we got up and set off even our fans that had been with us a long time had not heard these songs and we were trying to win everyone over as well as our fans. And it all went OK, a memorable gig!
Mark: I feel sorry for the guy, I think he lost some money on that and something that big is a pretty tough ask first time, especially doing it on your own. Tell us a little about your influences, what did you listen to growing up?
Sam: When I was growing up my Dad introduced me to Deep Purple and Sabbath from an early age, s that’s my introduction to music. My Mum’s favourite band was Slade
Mark: Wonderful band!
Sam: (laughs) Then later on I started getting into pop punk and bands like Blink 182 when I was really young, then I started listening to a lot of Aerosmith and Guns ‘n’ Roses
Antony: A lot of the bands I’ve listened to mainly came from playing in bands, so the lads will show me a band and I’ve never even heard of them! A lot of my family are Country influenced, Folk and stuff like that so it’s a little unusual with myself.
Mark: It’s great to have that diversity though, I think that’s where all the new stuff comes from. Take it all the way back for us – what was it that made you realise that music was going to be your life? Was there a defining moment or a gradual realisation? Thinking back to your early memories of music, what was it that firs made you decide you needed to be in a Rock and Roll band?
Sam: The guitarist that made me pick up the guitar in the first place was Ritchie Blackmore, but I don’t think I ever really knew what to do with it for a long time. It was only when I started gigging probably when I was 13 or 14 or even just playing with bands in High school, I think it was then that I realised how much I really enjoyed playing live, that’s where it all came from.
Antony: I’m funny, I’ll be honest with you mate (laughs) it’s a really unusual one, what it was, was when I was at school we had this class, like a choir sort of thing… My sister did a bit of singing I knew that, but I didn’t think for a second I’d be going anywhere near singing. And I started singing in that class and I enjoyed it and then only a few months later I watched Nickelback and I thought to myself, actually I think I want to get into a band.
Mark: well I think Chad will be very pleased to hear that he’s inspired someone rather than put someone off!
Antony: (laughs) He will with those silver suits!
Mark: If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened what would it be and why? What’s the album that really resonates with you?
Sam: For me Hysteria by Def Leppard. That’s a long time that buddy! It took four years to make and it’s just perfection the production and if there is any studio album that’s perfect for me it’s that. And Mutt Lange is just incredible, everything he touches is just great. I would have loved to have seen that, it’s one of my favourite albums and it just took so long I’d want to know what the hell they were doing! (laughs)
Mark: Playing football I think as well as moving from Holland to the UK.
Sam: (laughs)
Mark: And the last question is always an easy one and I’d love an answer from you both if we can: What is the meaning of life?
Sam: (laughs) drink beer? Fuck? Have a good time? And try not to get caught up in everyone’s affairs and just smile! (laughs)
Antony: I’m gonna be depressing and say I don’t think there is a meaning to life. I think we’re just here by coincidence, we just got plonked here, no meaning, so we might as well enjoy it hadn’t we?
Mark: So you might as well get on with the stuff Sam mentioned while you’re here!
Antony: Maybe.
Mark: Thanks you so much for talking to us today guys and best of luck with the album and tour.
Sam: Cheers we appreciate it
Antony: Have a nice day Mark, see you later.
BIGFOOT LINKS: www.bigfootband.co.uk
