Long Read // Joseph Scarisbrick reveals the stories behind his latest project Big Red
After an unprecedented rise to the front of the new “Windmill” scene, Joseph Scarisbrick reveals the stories behind his latest project Big Red.
Having ridden the sweeping wave of excitement engulfing The Orchestra (For Now), who have grown to be one of the most exciting new bands coming out of the London art rock and progressive music scene, Joseph Scarisbrick arrives ashore with his own project: Big Red.
Originally a keys player, Scarisbrick found the time in recent years to learn the guitar, a goal he had set for himself for quite some time. And it did not take long for inspiration to hit: “I just began writing straight away, from day one”.
“I knew I needed to create something which was more direct and less focused on collaboration in a big group, and more focused on a smaller band playing together”.
Written between London, UK and Santa Cruz, California during the first months of 2025, their debut album Big Sur has already made a big impression on listeners with its tender-hearted, yet stupendously thrilling rock sound.
The album explores the concept of an imaginary journey to the cliffs of Big Sur in California, the songs drawing from the narrative instincts of country music while rejecting nostalgia and sentimentality.
Scarisbrick tells of the moment he realized the songs he’d written were ready to be taken to the next level: ”I knew it was worth exploring when I noticed how easy it was to churn out a massive catalogue. Of course a lot of it was undeveloped, but the songs were all there”.
Joined by two of his bandmates from The Orchestra (For Now), with Charlie Hancock on drums and Millie Kirby on bass, the chemistry between the trio was already hard-wired through the years they have already spent together.
Scarisbrick claims the simplicity of the songs allowed the two of them to fill in with their own interpretations of the parts he’d written for them, turning his original ideas into fully fleshed out compositions, teeming with “flair and creativity”.
“They were integral in these recordings. I was just writing the chords, words and melodies, but they gave the songs life as an excellent rhythm section”.
Kicking off Big Red with a few “pretty rough” gigs, an initiation many young projects tend to suffer through, Scarisbrick recalls a particularly difficult moment: “ I did this horrendous cover of Sam Stone by John Prine where I completely blanked on the verses and had to apologise”.
Despite the teething pains they experienced in those early days, the trio soon felt ready for the challenge of recording.
With a time-limit of two-and-a-half days for the upcoming sessions, their plan was clear: record as much material as possible.
And so they did, in spectacular fashion, by committing to the minimalist approach of recording together in a live room, whilst resorting to a very minimal amount of overdubs.
“We ended up recording 14 songs. A lot of the songs were roughly nailed in parts-wise, and the structures were watertight, but we did make some spur of the moment decisions such as a drum machine on Lost (and Found) ... just because it was there and awesome”.
This seven-minute long track offers a spectacular glimpse into the new world of Big Red: a delicately layered and soft acoustic melody carried forward by the straight drum-machine pattern, before rising to a powerful crescendo with undeniable vigour, with the distant sound of Scarisbrick and Hancock bursting to tears at the end of the take.
Asked on what the future holds for Big Red, Scarisbrick doesn’t shy away from their high ambitions: “Two new albums”, he confesses, offering no further details.
It is this certainty of the group’s direction, and the trust they show in each other’s abilities, that solidifies them as an act that can’t be ignored for very long. A rising tide of honest, instinctive, and raw creativity that is sure to leave no stone unturned in their unrelenting approach.
Words by Jay Cohen
