You could waste a day trying to describe BigBigCar. Even if you found an apt term to describe its sound, you?d never be able to incorporate all its members? personalities into the mix. No, it?s best to leave it up to the people who know best: the members themselves. ?We play loud and we bang into each other and sometimes we draw blood and sometimes we fight,? lead vocalist David Adamson said. ?And our songs are catchy.? Bands like BigBigCar can only be described using run-on sentences. It?s in their blood. Adamson knows this, and so does drummer Pat Okerson. ?We use pots and pans and bang on walls and bang on each other and push over keyboards, and somehow this all translates into good music,? he said. Maybe they use such similar descriptions because they?ve been making music together for so long. You know it?s been a long time, because some of them have even forgotten how it all started. All they know for sure is that while their psychotic folk/punk might not appeal to everyone, even their harshest critics should find something to enjoy. ?Even if somebody doesn?t like what we?re playing, at least they?ll be tapping their toes,? Okerson said. There?s something inherently different about BigBigCar. Some may call the band ? and, by extension, its members ? weird; some may call them original, some unique, whatever. They aren?t getting hung up on verbiage. Just ask one of the members about the band, he?ll tell you all you need to know. ?We play loud and we bang into each other and sometimes we draw blood and sometimes we fight,? lead vocalist David Adamson said. ?And our songs are catchy.? A band of this sort can only be described using such elegantly strung run-on sentences. And it?s not just Adamson: They?re all in on it. ?We use pots and pans and bang on walls and bang on each other and push over keyboards, and somehow this all translates into good music,? drummer Pat Okerson said. Such like-mindedness is understandable. These guys have known each other since grade school, and they?ve been playing music together almost as long. So long, in fact, that some of them can?t even remember exactly when they started. Not that their musical history is particularly impressive. Okerson remembers recruiting the band?s guitarist because ?he could play guitar and actually play a full chord.? ?That?s how it happened,? he said. ?That?s basically it.? Naturally, their first few bands sounded nothing like the psycho folk/punk of BigBigCar. They were more of the standard high school fare. ?We weren?t very good then, but we thought we were,? Adamson said. Adamson even experimented briefly with his first love: rap. ?I stopped making rap,? he said, ?when I realized I sucked.? Somewhere along the way, they stopped making rap and generic alternative rock and started getting weird. Or maybe they were weird to begin with. Either way, it?s safe to say that BigBigCar is far from your average rock band. Its members go by a variety of nicknames ? ?moose,? ?2K,? ?sweets,? etc. They improvise in mid-song. Adamson spends his time off on tours ?investigating the paranormal? (i.e. looking for ghosts). And when they feel lonely on stage, they invite friends to ?play? with them who have no musical experience whatsoever. ?We needed more members,? bassist Jeff Costello said. ?We just told them to go up there and be funny.? But don?t get caught up in their eccentricities. They know exactly what they?re doing, and they do it well. The other stuff is just for fun, because this band loves to have fun. Hell, that may even be the only reason it exists. ?I love playing live music because it gives me a reason to hang out with my friends,? Costello said. The other members, well, they share this sentiment. And, luckily for us, they know how to project their fun onto a crowd. True, their music won?t appeal to everyone ? even Costello admits the band is ?annoying sometimes? ? but they?re confident that everyone can take at least something from it.
02.18.07