Bigelf – 18-10-2009

Interview with: Damon Fox
By: Nina Mende

After Dream Theater was done, my evening was not done yet. I still was meeting up with Bigelf for an interview. I had it with Damon, the singer. He is a wonderful person and a great interview partner, very talkative and smart.

My first question was a general question about the band, since not many people know Bigelf. I asked Damon to say something about Bigelf. Bigelf is trying to bring Rock’n’Roll back to the masses. That, at least, is the center theme among various other things. He also says that, that is definitely needed. There’s a lot of metal going on right now but not much classic stuff. “We’re on a pretty good wave right now.”

Where is the name coming from?
“Well, a lot of things happened with the name. Originally… For some reason, in the beginning I just wanted “elf” to be in the band name since I am a big Dungeons and Dragons fan, which was a big role playing game in the 70s. And Lord of the Rings and all kind of stuff, but as I looked at it, we were thinking about the names and style, the sound and everything. We wanted to work with a kind of oxymoron. So Bigelf just came out. The name is fitting to the band very well, what it is about and the sound and such. There is the Submarine Terminology ELF. We got the ELF which is “extremely low frequency”, which was always kind of cool. Everybody keeps on spelling it wrong though: Big Lef, Big Elk, Big Ulf … There’s legendary stories. I don’t know why, but there’s been so many different typos. But it’s a cool name. Stuck with us for a while now. Never thought of any other name. That was just it. Everyone assumed that Lord of the Rings came out and then we came out, but we have nothing to do with them. Elves are cool though. Really cool. Everybody loves Lord of the Rings and Legolas, right? He’s the super star in the movie. *laughing* ”

How’s the tour going so far?
“The tour in Europe has been pretty sensational so far. Honestly we have all been battling a flu. It’s been a test of endurance. The shows are amazing. It is a lot different than on the US tour. We were on the US tour as well, there it was theaters, so everyone was kinda sitting. Of course nobody is sitting for Dream Theater, but besides that, the audience was just sitting there with their arms crossed waiting to get impressed. And here it’s pretty much standing room only, and maybe some arena bleachers. But it’s quite nice if they are some thousand people standing ready to rock. But you do have to convince them, because there is only a hand full of Bigelf fans among them.”

How does the European crowd differ from the US crowd?
“The Europeans are more outgoing. They are a little more crazy. It’s hard to say. They wanna rock more. At the American shows they were mostly sitting. Nobody sits for Dream Theater, but here they are more active. It seems like people in Sweden, England, Germany, France, they just still love real rock like Deep Purple, Van Halen and so on. People are still in love with that sound. It’s easier to connect with people here.”

How did you get to tour with Dream Theater?
“Now that’s definitely an interesting story. …. Let me get this straight…. You know Serge Tankian of System Of A Down? He put out our second record “Money Machine” back in 2001, we shared a really close friend, our tour manager Ray. And Ray has been working a lot with the Dream Theater guys. And I’ve been talking with Ray, because our sons are friends … very weird story. And Ray has just said to Mike when they were working together “Well, you gotta check out Bigelf”. Mike checked us out, was stunned about it and blogged about it. Then I saw the the blog and contacted him. We were just on a club tour … We played in New York so I asked him if he wants to come done… so a sort of likeminded individuals drawing to each other. Pretty weird, like sort of magnets gravitating to each other. You kinda find each other. Like kismet.
And then just out of the blue, like a light bulb, came the question “You wanna come to Europe on the Progressive Nation Tour?” That was phenomenal. For a band having been working so hard for so many years to finally get something bigger going on and have things go your way. We were amazed. In the summer we were getting ready for the fall tour, and two bands dropped out of the US tour for financial reasons. So we got asked two weeks before: Hey can you guys jump on our US tour. It was a karmic blast, but yeah we are getting a serious payday going here. It was pretty amazing. I am a big fan of him and he’s a big fan of Bigelf. And we wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t such a gracious individual. We call him the ambassador of Prague. He’s doing an amazing job bringing out bands that need more visibility. I’d like to do the same thing if I ever have the opportunity to draw this kind of crowd. That’s another thing about him: It’s about the art, not the money. They could do bigger tours with bigger bands and sell out. But he wants to bring new music to his fans.”

Do their fans accept you too?
“Yeah, they do. You can’t please everybody, because Bigelf is not medium ground. It’s very much in a certain direction. Not everybody likes you. Some people don’t like my top hat, or not like the make-up. There’s a lot of rock and roll in there too. Most times people seem to be able to connect with us.
Dream Theater has a lot of amazing riffs and a lot of keys, we have a lot of keys too. It’s similar territory. We are just a little bit more a vintage version of them. People seem to be liking it and we are getting more fans. It’s been an amazing tour.”

Alicia Keys was blogging about you as well that she’s liking you. Are you gonna be working with her soon?
“Well, actually I have been working with her. I was working with her on the “As I Am” record. Keys and organs and things like that. It was going pretty well. We just were talking about stuff. She’s a really amazing person, a good soul and amazing singer and an amazing talent. She asked me what I do. And I was like “Well, this is not about me, it is your session and so on”. She was always bugging me about my top hat: you have to do something. You don’t just wear a top hat.
So eventually she caught me one time at the studio and she was like “you have an iPod with your music on, right?” And Linda Perry knew, my music was on the iPod. So we played it and she was very impressed.
I was shocked, it was in Oprah magazine. A friend called me at the airport telling me that she’s reading the magazine where Alicia Keys is talking about Bigelf. It was amazing. I couldn’t believe it.
We would love to work with her. Bigelf and Alicia Keys: anytime. She’s amazing. But I think I just missed my chance.
Well, next time.”

Where do you get your inspiration?
“For Big Elf? Struggle, Pain, The machine, the inner working of the music industry keeps me inspired as being such a desolate and worthless place right now. It’s such a sad state. It’s pathetic. I was saying it ten years ago. But now everybody really says “Yeah, it’s pretty bad” It’s a bizarre combination of lack of the art of music and commerciality…The art in music is lacking right now. Big commercial music, the big pop issue is getting weak. The Beatles were commercial, Judas Priest was commercial, but now commercial music is only blending into a merchandising product. It definitely inspires me to try to make it better. Show people that it can change. This digital world is so fast, nobody can catch up. It’s all about live music now. Nobody knows where it’s all gonna land. Not many people are buying CDs anymore. There seems to be no need for the physical things anymore. You know things are getting weird when vVinyls are coming back. You know, vinyl’s are getting popular again. More artist are selling vinlys at their shows. It’s a pretty big thing. You have the nice and big artwork, you have an A and a B side, which is an artistic expression itself. It is very interesting. Because you keep on listening to one side and the other side can be completely different. Or it might be a story that continues. It’s something I have never got to do. But hopefully we will make one some day.”

What is it about your top hat and your style?
“Well to me when I grew up rock and roll was all about a show. It was something spectacular and grand. It totally blew me away and it always was a fantastic journey, something that can’t be described. It was almost like a church. You’re going to the church of Rock’n’Roll in this arena. When you’re a kid, you know, I was twelve years old when I was seeing AC/DC in the school boy outfit, or Jimmy Page…. You know that was a big thing. And it’s just gone now. It doesn’t seem to exist anymore. This thing comes natural to me, fortunately. It’s a part of what we do, to just have a show. Either people hate it or say like “Hey man, that’s cool”. That’s a show. And you feel like people actually are getting their money’s worth. It’s cool. Well, there are bands now that still look cool.
Pink Floyd, of course Pink Floyd looks cool but they really were more an anti-image band, they were more of a visual band. It was more about the big bands that didn’t have a visual image themselves.
Look at the Beatles. They changed their image twice a year. It was phenomenal. Black Sabbath looks so dark. But you know, it wasn’t just the 60s. Guns’n’Roses look kick ass, Mötley Crüe look kick ass and still do. Korn looks cool. It’s a band. As long as it looks like a band… you know, they don’t have to have a top hat on or a velvet jacket looking like Willy Wonka. As long as it looks like a band…
You can’t tell the roadies from the band members anymore.
That’s my opinion. That’s why we do what we do. That’s my world. And I can do whatever I want.”

After asking all the questions and getting a ton of information in return, I asked Damon if there is some final last words he wants to share with our dear readers. And he did. Very proud he started telling this:
“Yeah, I tell you something about what I’ve been working on in LA. There’s the band called Paper Zoo. That’s a very young band, about 19 years old. They gonna be the thing. They are the new breed of rock and roll. Their album is out now. They are actually touring with Roger Daltrey. I’ve been texting them “You lucky bastards”. They are touring with the biggest rock legend. Amazing.
They are pretty cool. They are like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, it is very modern and fresh. But it’s really amazing. If you brought the mid to late 60s to the future, that’s the sound. It’s pretty fresh. When they grew up they had Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Nine Inch Nails and so on. As they became musicians their passion grew towards Jimi Hendrix , The Doors and all the older influences. Of course a little of my influence as well. But their brains process it differently. I actually grew up on Uriah Heep, I saw Black Sabbath in concert when I was a kid. I was little but I saw them at that time. Those guys, they weren’t even old enough to see Nirvana. They weren’t even born then. So it is weird. But it eventually gives me hope that future generations will come and music can still be great by teenagers. When was the last time you listened to a teenager? Like a young Eddy Van Halen?
You know, it’s just not there anymore. I hope they do well. Check them out.”

That was the entire interview. And I have to say, I was already impressed as I saw them on stage. But talking to Damon was even more impressive. He is a very generous person, very smart and thoughtful A true musician with a lot of passion. And that’s what’s reflecting in Bigelf. Check out Bigelf and Paper Zoo as you are going and keep your ears and eyes open. I am convinced we will hear a lot more about them.

Thank you guys so much for the interview.

And for those who don’t know what an oxymoron is:
1. A figure of speech in which two words with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.
2. (loosely) A contradiction in terms.
3. A paradoxical juxtaposition of two seemingly contradictory words

Links:
Bigelf MySpace
Bigelf Official
Paper Zoo MySpace