Push Baby Unveil debut dynamic-pop album 'Wow, Big Legend' via AWAL/Wow, Big Legend

Today - Friday 18th June, Jake Roche & Charley Bagnall (formerly UK pop-outfit Rixton) unveil their expansive debut album as dynamic-pop duo push baby - ‘Wow, Big Legend’ via their own label of the same name & AWAL.

‘Wow, Big Legend’ is Jake and Charley’s representation of themselves and the music they’ve always wanted to create. Free of the label constraints of their pop-past, the pair candidly discuss the toll that the mainstream music industry has taken on their mental health and how easily major managers and labels can chew up an artist and spit them straight back out.

Entirely self-funded and recorded alongside some of push baby’s closest friends, ‘Wow’ Big Legend’ is more akin to alt-pop artists like Easy Life, COIN and Biig Piig than the pair’s commercial pop past. Craftily hopping from lo-fi bedroom pop to lowkey spoken melodies and bolshy, vibrant hyper-pop - it’s a record loaded with experimental electronic textures, witty honesty and a true breath of fresh air.

Delving into the process behind each of the record’s twelve tracks with that same honesty and wit, Jake Roche offers a track by track explanation of the album’s creation.

Wow, Big Legend: When I was a kid I would always mess around and make ‘intros’ for shows - usually ending up theatrical and big. This was that. We liked the idea of the album having a feature but not necessarily what you’d expect. As a passing remark to Charley I said “It needs someone like Eamonn Holmes” and we both laughed it off. Few months later we were sat listening to him read out what we just sent him on a whim. Mad. I think with the internet you can potentially have access to anyone you want to feature. It felt very push baby to have Eamonn Holmes. But not only that - his speaking voice is so powerful and narrator-esque.

Romantic Garage: We combined what to us feels like romantic chords with a garage beat. As well as the context as to what I was writing about was from the perspective I was in - finding love from my mums garage. Usually our process starts with being silly or daft because your subconscious takes over. This was that with our producer friends PH4T SCR4N. It’s my aunties singing at the beginning too who are the Nolan sisters. That was an amazing feeling. But my harmony knowledge at the time was ‘bad’ as in ‘wrong’ as we used to rely so heavily on others in the Rixton. So I have Irish singing sensations in the studio probably thinking ‘What the fuck? He’s not one of us’. But they were just amazing and the fact I only had to make them tea’s all day really helped the kitty. We also got the amazing Taura Lamb to do her thing over the top at the end.

Man In His Bedroom: Spoken word can cringe me out. But that’s just because maybe I think it lacks sincerity and as British folk we can be rather cynical. But it felt uncomfortable and I think that was a good thing. My feet weren’t touching the bottom.

That Boy: We took a break from the studio one day as it was one of 'those days'. I went and had coffee with a friend who was surprised that a guy she was seeing had been unfaithful. Yet it was obvious the whole time in just his demeanour and who and what he affiliated with. I came back and we bashed this out. Sounds like a badly recorded One Direction B - side.

Wanna Go: Drunken silly dumb process. Just mumbled my way through it in one take and then filled in the phonetics. This was a few months before lockdown about the struggles of wanting to go out but not necessarily being able to, unaware of what was actually around the corner.

Claire from Ohio: This started as a jam between us and our manager Jack. I really really love simple 2 chord song structure, probably because of my limitations as a musician - I’m not intricate when it comes to the placement of the chords. We usually record it stripped back and then Charley takes it and put absurd noises and sounds over it. A few F1 cars whizz past in this I think.

Cry / TALK ABOUT IT: It's rather abrasive. Listened-to-Yeezy-once . Joyless studio “trickery” masking the hole where the song should be.

Coming Over: This is the first I produced on my own. It was a GarageBand ‘idea’ that I brought to Charley and he did his thing with it. He sent it back but didn’t recut the guitars or anything, which I expected he would through nothing but my own insecurity in my recording technique or lack of rather. He just added a few special moments. Added a bit of him into it. The ‘drop’ at the end is from a song we didn’t finish but really loved that section -so we took it and glued it to the end of this.

Wasted Love: We wrote this in 2017 under rixton with Sam Romans and Danny (who was formerly in Rixton/push baby). The original was amazing. Straight up number 1 lauv/Maroon 5 bop. But just didn’t feel like myself and charley at the time. It lacked authenticity of where push baby were. Plus the old label owned the original master which ensured the idea that it had to change anyway.

Aegean: This took a few years to finish. Just couldn’t get there. Didn’t have the confidence as a songwriter at the time. But Jack, our manager heard the first pass of it and said ‘Finish it’. So I did. We recorded it with Stefan Abingdon Aka STFAN at his flat in London. He recorded it live on tape and then we went over it and manipulated it. It was our first taste of ‘When is something you’ve created ‘finished’?’. We could have done a million different variations but the important thing was serving the context of the lyrics.

Wishing We Were More Than Friends: Charley wrote this and sent it over on a Friday. I was on my way out when he sent it and literally cancelled all of my weekend plans. It was a song that landed in our laps and we needed to just tap it over the line. It wasn’t meant to be on this album, but we thought it’s fresh out of the oven so just put it in the shop window.

Holding On Is Holding You Back: The whole album was done. We recorded and paid for the process ourselves with the promise from a label of reimbursement but we got dropped and then the world went to shit. We started push baby as a four piece and financial label backing with the biggest management company in the world - and then all of a sudden we’re down to 2 members and no one wants to pick the phone up anymore. So we wrote this. A few years ago I’d have probably shit myself and run around screaming and calling people out and probably being slightly bitter - but I knew there was something they couldn’t take away from me, and that was my ability to rap horrendously about ’sucking industry d*** until your knees start to bleed’. It’s push babys ‘f*** you’ song but with the message of ‘keep going’.