FEATURE: Spotlight: Big Joanie — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Big Joanie

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FOLLOWING the release…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ellie Smith

of their 2018 debut album, Sistahs, there was a lot of excitement and anticipating around a second album from the marvellous Big Joanie. One of the most important and inspiring groups in the country, Big Joanie are a sensational Punk trio formed in London in 2013. Its members are Stephanie Phillips (guitar and vocals), Estella Adeyeri (bass guitar and vocals), and Chardine Taylor-Stone (drums and vocals). The reason I have not spotlighted Big Joanie before is because I was waiting for some new (2021/2022) interviews to surface online. This week, they announced a new album, Back Home. They put out a brilliant new single, In My Arms. I am going to finish with a couple from this year. First, I want to go back to 2019, when the trio were already turning heads. Being Black, female, and queer, Big Joanie tackled this in their music and personal politics. Prior to me discovering Big Joanie back in 2018, I was not aware of many acts like them. Formed because of a real lack of intersectionality in the scene, a sensational and vital musical force was formed. The Quietus spoke with the trio back in 2019:

“Big Joanie formed in London in 2013 around the core of Stephanie Phillips, Chardine Taylor-Stone and original bassist Kiera Coward-Deyell (Estella Adeyeri joined in 2017), in order to play the self-explanatory First Timers gig event.

They have since dropped the SistahPunk EP (2014) and their 2018 debut studio album Sistahs on the Daydream Library series. Merging funk tendencies, with grunge power chords, Sistahs has a range of political, feminist messages. Being your third and fourth generation of black Brits, Big Joanie are reclaiming the ideologies surrounding the means of punk.

Individually putting a shift in their involvement with political poc activism, drummer Chardine Taylor-Stone has been keeping busy with herself established movement London Stop Racism Campaign. While vocalists Stephanie Phillips and Estella both devote free time to panel talks, articles and staying very much involved with today's media coverage.

Is black feminism something that’s always been a part of your lives?

Stephanie Phillips: I don’t know, I think I’ve always thought about feminism but I wasn’t brought up knowing about what it was. I thought about those different aspects [of life] and didn’t really realise there was a word for it. It wasn’t till I was a teenager and learnt about riot grrrl that I learnt about feminism. Then later when I was in my late 20s, I joined a black feminist group, I learnt about the wider ideas about black feminism and what that meant, and how it was a proper practice and what it involved. But I think it takes a while to learn those histories because it was never really taught in the UK, or anywhere else.

Chardine Taylor-Stone: I think I'm sort of the same really. I mean I’ve been involved with activist stuff since I was very young. It’s an interesting question, because you’re aware of yourself and your status as a black woman anyway, so then, when you start reading black feminist work, it’s just articulating what you already know. So, I think in that sense, yes? Because we’ve always had that thing in black women's empowerment in our culture.

Estella Adeyeri: it’s very much the same for me. When I came across black feminist texts, that was when I found there were a lot of women who had written extensively and put names to things that maybe were experiences, I’d recognised but hadn’t really known how to talk about. But I don’t think I came across the term or the concept until I was about 18 and went to uni. I was studying politics and philosophy and we did a module on women’s movements, we looked at a movement that was about women in Nigeria, that was the first thing that got me into looking at other texts in the library. At the same time, it was around the time black feminists were becoming prominent on Twitter. I started following people and learning that way, and reading these discussions of issues that I hadn't heard before, it was kind of putting a name to something I [only] knew a bit about.

What movements other than punk do you think are giving people of colour a place of freedom of expression?

SP: I think there are a lot! I think there are a lot of different ways [for us] to express ourselves and express our politics. I think a lot of people are being more political, a lot more honest about what’s going on in our lives. Big Joanie isn’t one band in a scene, it’s a lot of different bands. Also, it only started because there was [an absence of that type of voice] in black feminism so we thought we have a right to do something about this. There was a lot happening in the black feminist scene so we thought, 'Oh why can’t we have this in punk?'

CT-S: Well it happens in waves doesn’t it? What’s necessary at that time to express ourselves in that way. We’ve always done different genres of music, jungle, grime, etc. But I think what tends to happen is things get commercialised, then they get lost and next thing you know we’ve got some white version of Dizzee Rascal, or something.

SP: I won’t name names, but there’s a very popular white rapper that’s basically Dizzee Rascal.

CT-S: Exactly! You know I think it’s just the time for black punk at the moment and there’s plenty of reasons for that. You know we’re like third or fourth generation black Brits, so in terms of what we’ve grown up around and what we can claim as ours is quite significant.

Has punk always been something apart of your lives?

EA: I got turned onto alternative music when I was around 12 or 13, I got my first guitar at 13 because I had been introduced to that music by my older sister. I had always been into music because there was music being played by my family. But since then it’s just been ten years, getting interested into different alternative scenes, identifying with something angsty or rebellious as you’re growing up.

SP: Yeah, I had a similar upbringing from going from Destiny’s Child to riot grrrl and feminist punk... but obviously not in one week.

Yeah from a time period you explored these different angles?

SP: Yeah, I didn’t understand why no one else was listening to punk, at that time I felt like I really needed it, I really needed that mode of expression. Now looking back, growing up as a black girl going to a very white school and having to use punk to express myself so I could let things out in that way. Since then It’s kind of continuedly stayed in my life for those reasons.

CT-S: Yeah, I feel very much the same really, I think I went to a French exchange or something and someone was playing Nirvana, I remember being like, “Oh what is this?” It was literally a week, we went away and came back and was like, I don’t want this anymore, this thing of being dressed in black all the time.

At point did you realise you could mix the principles of punk with feminism?

SP: It was just a shining moment. It wasn’t an immediate idea, it was a slow progress of thinking, maybe this is something that should happen, maybe it’s something I should do. I guess you’re always thinking someone will do it before you. But yeah, it was suddenly realising, if we wanted that space to happen, I’d have to do what I want to do. But when we saw the advert for First Timers (the event we played our first gig in) It was Rachel Aggs from Sacred Paws, and Trash Kit that shared it, then I thought, why not? Give it a go, you can only fail.

The group’s most recent single is absolutely brilliant. I am looking forward to hearing the new album, Back Home, in November. I did wonder whether we would get a Big Joanie album this year. As you can see from when The Rodeo spoke with them in March, they were putting the finishing touches to their highly-anticipated sophomore album:

“So Big Joanie have just finished recording their second album. What can you tell us about it? What can you give away?

S: Oo, what can I give away…I think it sounds really different to our first album, is what I’d say.

E: I think it sounds bigger. If that’s any sort of clue. It’s a bit more ambitious than the last record. We’re experimenting more in terms of our set-up for particular songs, and with different instruments that people maybe haven’t heard us play before. But yeah, “big” seems to make sense to me, haha.

Really putting the “big” in Big Joanie?

E: Yeah, we’re putting the “big” in Big Joanie haha.

S: Yeah, we wanted to have a sound that matched our live sound. We recorded Sistahs like a year before it came out, so even in that year, before the album came out, our sound changed. Throughout the last couple of years of touring, our sound has completely changed and got a lot bigger and more dense and aggressive, I think? That’s something that we really wanted to put into the new album. We want to make people feel a bit scared. You don’t want to be liked, I think haha.

You’ve cited people like Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, and FKA twigs as artists you admire and are inspired by because of the way they approach the album as being an entire, complete body of work. I wondered if when you approach the writing of your own albums, whether you go into it with an initial concept, but perhaps key components that you wanted to achieve so that by the end of it you’re like “Yeah, that is the record there.”

S: So our latest album is made up of a lot of songs written across completely different periods. Some songs were written quite a few years ago and developed recently, whereas some songs were written during the pandemic. So there is that kind of claustrophobic vibe, you know, talking about isolation and that feeling of being separated. But I think when we were bringing the songs together, for me, one of the most important feelings that came from it was any feeling of wanting to be safer at home. That was a big idea that I kept trying to link from each song to another. We don’t always start with a big, expansive plan, but it builds along the way, I think. Would you say that, Estella?

E: Yeah, definitely. Having experienced writing and recording the first album, we realised that we weren’t limited to just our own specific instruments; being in the studio there’s almost limitless possibilities. Therefore we were thinking more broadly in terms of instrumentation, songs, and even structure, being a bit more experimental with it all.

It’s as though the claustrophobia, and the dense and compact place we found ourselves in has resulted in quite the opposite.

S: Yeah, because I guess the last couple of years has taken over every aspect of the way we think about things. You couldn’t not have these thoughts about being confined and being restricted. I think we want to find big, big ways to let it out. We don’t want to have our voices dulled in any way. Even if it’s a sad song, it should be a big sad song.

You just announced that you’re playing Grace Jones’ Meltdown in June at Southbank Centre. How did it feel when you first found out that you were playing a lineup curated by Grace Jones?

S: It’s really amazing that she wanted to bring us along for this festival. I’ve been following Meltdown for years and seeing the different people they bring in so it’s amazing to see a Grace Jones created one. I mean, it looks so amazing they’ve got Peaches and Skunk Anansie playing. There’s so many amazing artists, it’s just like a bit surreal to be part of that as well.

E: My sister and I actually got tickets for Skunk Anansie so I was planning to go anyway, so it’s quite nice we ended up being on the bill as well! The idea of Grace Jones even having us on her radar is quite exciting, especially for something we’d be wanting to attend anyway. It’s just really exciting!”.

I have dropped a few Big Joanie songs into the mix. I am ending with their social media links etc. I wanted to source some interviews, as it gives more context about them and how they have progressed. Having gained support from stations like BBC Radio 6 Music, their music is reaching a large and very supportive audience. Even though they have been playing together for a while, they are one of my big recommendations and tips for this year. I want to finish with this interesting interview from last month. Big Joanie were interviewed ahead of their appearance at Grace Jones’ Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre:

“Tell us about your newly released song ‘Happier Still’ and its relation to depression. What does it mean to you?

Steph: To me ‘Happier Still’ is like a chant or a mantra you can repeat to yourself when you feel unhappy or if something goes wrong. Repetitively saying “I’ll feel fine” seems like it could do something in the moment. It also seems kind of funny to me to be so desperate to feel happier that you try and trick yourself into it by saying you feel fine.

You have lots of gigs coming up in iconic UK venues including at Southbank Centre, Eventim Apollo and De La Warr Pavilion. What are your favourite venues and crowds to play to?

Estella: We really enjoy playing at Brixton Academy as Brixton is the area where the band formed, where we rehearsed for many years, has been Chardine’s home for years, and Brixton Academy is the venue I grew up going to see some of my favourite bands in. The crowd always seems pretty interactive and welcoming there whichever artist we’re playing with there, though our favourite crowds to play to will of course be those who come to our headline shows – it’s always a diverse audience in terms of gender, race, sexuality and age, and they usually share similar values in terms of looking after each other while still enjoying the show.

What message do you want your audiences to take away with them?

Steph: I think I want our audiences to be inspired to make their own music by watching us. The band started at an event called First Timers that encouraged people to play new instruments and perform their first gig together to encourage more marginalized people into music. I really hope that when people leave our shows they feel like they could do what we do, because they definitely could”.

Go and follow Big Joanie and listen to their music. The rest of this year, no doubt, will see them play more gigs and put out this incredible and anticipated album. It is an exciting time for, genuinely, one of Britain’s most important groups. They are going to be talked about for many more years to come! In spite of the fact their careers started years ago it is clear that, when it comes to their music and dreams, it has only…