I also think it’s interesting that in an era where many artists are so cautious about leaking new material, you’ve adopted such a free and open form of distribution. For example, at the Thumpty show in Ithaca last year, you played most of the tunes from the new album and allowed that recording to be openly released 9 months before A Place Behind the Moon dropped. Could you elaborate on this type of business model that you’ve adopted for Big Gigantic?

Right around a year before that show, Radiohead had just started to do the free thing and then Derek from Pretty Lights did the free thing and that was really successful. So much music is being traded back and forth right now, and we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t do it. And just because it can get around so freely, my main objective, what’s important to me, is I want people to hear it and I want people to come see us live. So I’ve just been like, “Let’s just give it away, get people excited about it, and ask questions later.” And I think what we did on this last one, it’s really interesting because in the world of “we want to get on Pandora,” or whatever, we want our music on Pandora, people ask us all the time, but it’s like you have to officially sell your music through Amazon to be able to do it, it’s so tricky, there’s so many loopholes and things like that.

So what we’re trying to do, we’re still working on this whole model, but you know I still 100% want to give everything away, but what we did for A Place Behind the Moon, is it’s available anywhere. You can get it any way you want. You can pay for it, you can not pay for it, you can do anything you want with it, but that’s my new thing I think is I want to really make it available in every venue through iTunes, through Amazon, you know, if you really wanna buy it, go on there and buy it. Or you can buy it from our site. Because it’s all about accessibility, it needs to be easy, whatever it is, simple. You know, ‘cause when I’m buying music, I just wanna go boom, click twice, and have it come as opposed to “Sign up, do this, you gotta do that.” So we just want to have it everywhere. I know there’s a bunch of kids that can’t afford it, and I want them to have it, so go get it for free. And if you want to donate a dollar, donate a dollar, or whatever. Most importantly we just want everybody to have it, and then come see us live because that’s where you can really see us in our element and we’re having a great time playing together.

I think another contributing factor to the freshness of your live show is the musical sophistication the goes into melding the live drums, sax, and keys with the electronic elements. Can you take a tune like “Sky High,” and detail all the different things that go into the live execution of that tune?

Well what I like to do live is I like to work in different tunes and transition different things, so we’ll be transitioning from something and then we’ll come into that first hit…It depends, I’ll look at Jeremy, and we’ll start the tune, I’m playing my part, Jeremy’s doing his thing, and then I have a bunch of effects set up on my midi controller that can do different DJ style things, so I’ll do some stuff like that while I’m playing my sax or when I’m playing keyboards.

And then it breaks down and we get into the open section, and I start soloing a little bit, and that’s when I usually sort of turn to Jerm and really we just start trying to react back and forth off each other, and really just take the music where it couldn’t be taken DJ-wise. And really transcend the tune and build it and get it really cookin’ at the solo. So then we’re building, and building and building and building and then pretty much the cue out is that ‘be-de-de-de-de-de-de bomp’ (the song’s opening melody). So once I start soloing we know that we can do all kinds of different stuff, like I can drop out the bass and then we can build it a little more and then come back in and build it a little more, but we know we’re building to that line, the big ‘be-de-de-de-de-de-de bomp,’ and then we end the tune, and that’s kind of the breakdown.

It’s impressive how you’ve infused so much improvisation and spontaneity into a largely electronic-based project. How much variation goes into your sets from show to show?

You know, man, it’s crazy. Me and Jeremy just have a really good understanding about phrasing and flow and I have a couple little hand things that I do that he knows. And we’ve just been getting pretty good. We’re playing a lot of stuff from A Place Behind the Moon right now stuff but what I’ll do is switch up how we move in and out of that stuff. So I pretty much look at Jeremy, and we play through stuff and talk through stuff at sound check and then I just…give him that look, and…he knows (laughs). I’m so glad he’s my drummer.

During our last interview two summer’s ago, Big Gigantic was being featured as one of Relix’s On the Verge artists. I think it’s safe to say that since then you’ve crossed the threshold into broader success, and I wanted to know what’s contributed to your growth in those short few years and how you plan on continuing to develop in the future?

Well, our success is based on a lot of things. Obviously the fans have been incredible and super supportive and everyone’s really just tried to get our back and help us out and that’s been amazing. We have a really great team, and you know my main thing is I just try to work… endlessly. And I feel like everything I put in, I get back. If I’m not putting anything in, I’m not getting anything back so my motto is really just working super hard.

And really just trying to keep it honest and nice and loving, just the whole vibe in general. And obviously luck too. It’s luck and timing, and we’re just super fortunate for being on this end of it, being able to tour. Touring has obviously helped a lot because we get to keep coming back to places, and getting new fans. And playing festivals has helped a ton, that always is huge. So I’m just flying by the seat of my pants and trying to work as hard as I possibly can and I hope that everything keeps it up so that when we get to the gig it’s fresh, and new, and exciting for everybody.

And as far as the future, we’re just going to keep up what we’ve been doing. We’re going to try to step up our production and get our live show to where you really feel transported to another place. And we’re going to really start hittin’ that pretty hard, and then in terms of the music, just keep developing our sound more and try to get into some things that really haven’t been touched on yet that’s really going to be new and exciting for people.

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