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Music

Biig Piig on music, language and vampires

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Biig Piig is back on the big stages and readying herself for some massive releases later this year.

Biig Piig is in Australia and getting ready to play Splendour in the Grass so we thought it would be nice to catch up for a chat.

The Irish singer/ rapper/ genre-bending delight told us all about how she writes as a bi-lingual artist, what has inspired the gorgeously gothic music video for Fun and how she’s getting ready to launch a crazy amount of music.

biig piig interview

HAPPY: Hello! So, you’re about to go off to Splendour, that’s so exciting!

BIIG PIIG: Yes, it’s so exciting.

HAPPY: I guess I just wanted to know where you’re at at the moment, what else are you up to?

BIIG PIIG: So, I’ve just been making loads of music, as of the last… what feels like forever really. I’ve got so much coming with that so I’m ready to release loads this year.

HAPPY: That’s awesome!

BIIG PIIG: Yeah! And then kind of working towards an album hopefully next year.

HAPPY: Yeah okay cool, so it will just be a bunch of singles this year?

BIIG PIIG: Yeah, like a project basically. So I’m really excited for that and just basically getting a live show together.

HAPPY: Of course.

BIIG PIIG:I mean, these are my first headline shows since 2019, that I’m doing in this run.

HAPPY: Oh my god!

BIIG PIIG: Which I’m so excited for! Cause I’ve been playing festivals and support shows, which I love and have really taught me a lot about how to be on stage and how to just immerse yourself in it and just not care, you know? About people listening to your deepest darkest secrets through a microphone. But yeah, I feel more ready than ever for these shows and just, having fun with it I think.

HAPPY: That’s so good! You just dusted yourself off, now you’re ready to go.

BIIG PIIG: Yeah, proper!

HAPPY: Since you’re working on so many tunes at the moment, how do you navigate the selection process? I would guess that while you’ll be releasing a bunch, there would be a lot more that you’ve written right?

BIIG PIIG: Yeah, a hundred per cent! There’s like a whole vault and it keeps getting bigger.

HAPPY: Yeah look, if you’re ever uninspired you could just pick out of that.

BIIG PIIG: Haha yeah, maybe if I could just put some demos out that’d be sick. But I think like, it’s kind of mad because I go through a lot of different genres and kind of hop into a lot of different musical worlds, I’m hearing so many different sounds in the one place. And it’s something I love but it’s also just trying to find the string between those, that’s kind of been the process.

HAPPY: Oh yeah okay, that makes a lot of sense. So, what are you looking forward to getting up to most while you’re in Australia and New Zealand?

BIIG PIIG: To be honest, we did all of the tourist-y things in Sydney the first day we landed, we were like straight out, went on the ferry, that was pretty sweet. And then, I feel like it’s pretty jam-packed, I’m really excited for Splendour to see a lot of people there. Then just hit up some bars, some hotels you call them? I didn’t realise that till recently.

HAPPY: Haha, like pubs?

BIIG PIIG: Yeah, the driver I got was telling us there’s like loads of hotels but they’re not hotels, they’re bars, cause back in the 60s, something about how they used to be hotels. And I was like, ‘that’s so cool!’ 

HAPPY: Haha yeah, I gotcha. 

BIIG PIIG: So yeah, we’ll hit some hotels up, just see the spots.

HAPPY: That sounds great. I think hanging out at the pub is maybe the most Australian thing you could do. What kind of touristy stuff did you do? You went on a ferry? Did you see a koala?

BIIG PIIG: I went on a ferry, I walked the Harbour Bridge, people kept talking about a seal? I don’t know.

HAPPY: A seal?

BIIG PIIG: Apparently there’s a seal where the ferry is.

HAPPY: I don’t know either.

BIIG PIIG: Well we didn’t see it haha.

HAPPY: If you find it, let me know! So you’ve lived in a few countries, you grew up in Spain, Ireland and England, how do you think being around so many different cultures has affected your musical influences? Like do you think having a number of different cultures has influenced you?

BIIG PIIG: Definitely! A hundred per cent. I think like with Spanish, it creeps its way into my music a lot, it’s something I don’t consciously do but when it comes out like that it’s like… maybe an inner child talking cause it’s like, I don’t know a language back then. And I still speak it but not as much as I used to. And then with the Irish thing, growing up in an Irish home and everything… Stories are the main part of the way people are with each other. It’s like you live on memories.

HAPPY: Oh that’s so nice.

 

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BIIG PIIG: It’s really sweet yeah, and I feel like, I don’t know. Throughout moving to different places, I guess it’s always been a little bit isolating but the thing that has always made me feel like there isn’t really a difference anywhere is music. You know? It’s something you can bring anywhere and then you can find home in that all the time.

HAPPY: Oh yeah, that’s really beautiful, I’ve got goosebumps haha! Wow. So, you spoke Spanish before you spoke English right?

BIIG PIIG: Yeah, spoke and wrote…

HAPPY: Yeah, right. Do you know what language you think in?

BIIG PIIG: Well I think in English most of the time but sometimes, Spanish will come. It’s either when I’m really pissed off or like just hit my leg on something or if I’m daydreaming sometimes. And then it creeps into my dreams sometimes.

HAPPY: That’s so fascinating, it’s like that primitive part of your brain that’s developed a child.

BIIG PIIG: Yeah! And you don’t really notice it, like it’s going on and then you’re like ‘oh yeah’.

HAPPY: That’s awesome. Is there anywhere else in the world that you want to live?

BIIG PIIG: I want to live everywhere to be honest. I think I have this FOMO of wanting to live every kind of life there is to live and just see as much of the world as I can. Which is a nightmare for anyone trying to manage me haha they’re like ‘can you just stay in one place?’

HAPPY: Haha oh yeah and for friends and family.

BIIG PIIG: Yeah fully! So um, yeah I don’t know, I’ll just go where the wind wants to take me.

HAPPY: Just live 6 months in each country for the rest of your life.

BIIG PIIG: Hahaha yeah!

HAPPY: That sounds good. So, your new music video for the track Fun, it’s got this vampire style going on. What was the inspiration behind that?

BIIG PIIG: Yeah! So, when I made the track, it was a pretty song to be honest, it’s just about a toxic relationship and the arguments and that and the energy of those drums as well, the jungle drums, just felt so impactful in that cause it’s like the adrenaline that you get where you almost feel like you can’t tell the difference between anxiety and passion, do you know what I mean? That kind of world that sometimes you fall into if a relationship’s not right or it’s going through a really rough patch. So the song is based around that then I just had this idea that I really want vampires in it. I want to make it a little bit fancy.

So the whole thing of just sucking the life out of each other just became a whole thing, kind of the overall idea for it. Then I came to Milo, who was the director for it, Milo Blake who I’ve wanted to work for ages with. He works with a lot of my friends in the scene in London. And he was like sick, let’s get a blood driver involved, let’s make a whole chase. I was like, I’m down!

As long as we have the scenes that I really wanted with the vampires in it, the toxic love situation, the car… Initially, there was like a whole… Sometimes I go mad with ideas like ‘and I wanna do doughnuts in the car and I want to be running off a cliff’ Like let’s tone it down a little bit haha, we don’t have the budget. But yeah it was sick, we just kind of brainstormed together for a bit. He’s got a great eye for references and it just came together really smoothly.

HAPPY: It absolutely did, it is stunning. Really cool! Vampires are the perfect metaphor for a toxic relationship.

BIIG PIIG: Haha yeah fully.

HAPPY: Can I ask, out of all of pop culture, books and everything, who’s your favourite vampire?

BIIG PIIG: Oooh, I think maybe, Buffy?

HAPPY: Hahaha, Buffy is a vampire slayer!

BIIG PIIG: I love Buffy! She looks cute as fuck!

HAPPY: Hahaha yeah she does.

BIIG PIIG: The vampire slayer isn’t she though.

HAPPY: Hahah yeah that’s okay, you can like the slayer, it’s the same world.

BIIG PIIG: Haha that’s so bad.

HAPPY: Maybe one day she’ll be turned!

BIIG PIIG: Maybe haha. We’ll work on it, that’s part two.

HAPPY: Okay so there was also this video you posted on Instagram with a lightsaber battle in New York. What was going on there?

BIIG PIIG: Yes! So that was just a big night, we went out and ended up in that bar and it was a really weird place. There was a lot going on. You know when you’re in a place and it feels like everyone’s tripping out or something. Then halfway through I was having a drink and this music came on and the lights went out and then ‘bang bang’ someone was like ‘I’m going to strike him down!’ Like ‘what’s going on?’ I was all for it. Haha yeah, it was just kind of chaos. It was New York in a nutshell.

 

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HAPPY: Love a bit of dinner theatre! So one of your 2020 singles Don’t Turn Around, that was featured on FIFA 21, are you a big football fan or video game fan in general?

BIIG PIIG: I feel like I haven’t been into loads. Since that came out though I’ve been a bit like yeah understood it a lot more. My brothers, they’re kind of massive on it. That was a big moment for them cause they were literally just like… through the whole thing just said ‘get a real fuckin job’ and I’m like ‘It is a real job, I do it all the time, I love it and it’s supported me’ and they’re like… But then FIFA they were like ‘Oooooh! Siiick, okay!’ I got points for that haha, that’s cool.

HAPPY: Yeah it is huge. Did you start playing it? If it was me I’d just be like oh I guess I play FIFA now haha.

BIIG PIIG: Haha yeah!

HAPPY: That’s so cool! Okay, so just one last cheeky question left. If you could have any artist cover one of your songs, which artist would it be and what song?

BIIG PIIG: Oh my god, okay! Which artist and what song? Hmm. I’m gonna need a minute on this.

HAPPY: Haha, I should’ve sent you this question before I arrived.

BIIG PIIG: Haha I feel like it’s just so difficult.

HAPPY: It’s a tough question! I don’t think we’d actually be able to organise is though. You never know, I can try.

BIIG PIIG: Hahaha!

HAPPY: Well, that’s all from me, thank you so much for your time!

BIIG PIIG: Thank you!

 

Check out more music from Biig Piig here.

See Biig Piig’s tour dates here.

Interviewed by Chloe Maddren.

Photos supplied.