Big Boy Bloater - 'The World Explained'
Release date: October 1 st 2012
Label: Azan Records
Format: 1CD & Digital Download
Cat # AZAN 112
THE ELDER STATESMAN OF THE VINTAGE R&B SCENE RETURNS WITH NEW ALBUM
On October 1 st , 2012, Big Boy Bloater & The Limits will release their new album ‘The World Explained’.
After 20 years of hard gigging, Big Boy Bloater has truly paid his dues. A charismatic performer, much-admired guitarist, powerful singer and creative songwriter, he has been described as a cross between Seasick Steve, Imelda May and Tom Waits, with a little Ike Turner thrown in for good measure.
Already well-established and loved by the music community, Bloater can count the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Imelda May, Jools Holland, Mark Lamarr and Craig Charles amongst his ever growing fanbase.
As if Bloater’s credentials needed any further verification, he has also been immortalised under the section ‘R&B Guitar Icons’ in books such as ‘Billboard Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Music’, ‘Rock & Pop – The Complete Story’ and ‘Blues – The Complete Story’.
Big Boy Bloater’s first ‘solo’ album, entitled ‘Big Boy Bloater & The Limits’, was released March 2011 and featured guests Imelda May on backing vocals and jazz-funk legend Snowboy on percussion, as well as members from Imelda’s band and Richard Hawley’s band.
With the release of ‘The World Explained’, Big Boy Bloater continues to showcase his own material with his uniquely flamboyant sound, as he explains, “As with all my albums, ‘The World Explained’ is a very personal album. Its title comes from a line on the second track and sums up the album’s subject matter: life, love and loss. There are songs about relationships, ambition and where I am right now; some fun, some not so fun - but that’s life. That said, I think the songs can be interpreted by people in different ways. I know the stories behind the lyrics and who the songs refer to, but I probably won’t ever tell – well, not the whole story!”
Bloater will be promoting ‘The World Explained’ with a headline UK tour in October & November 2012. Not that he is sitting still in the meantime, “I have already scheduled the release of the album’s first single, entitled ‘Leonard Cohen’, for 30 th July. I also have a heavy live schedule over the summer at some fantastic festivals.”
“Things are great right now, I love the band I have, I love the fans and it’s great to be out there playing my own songs and really being myself. It’s been a long-time coming.”
“I’m a massive fan of Big Boy Bloater, he’s a charismatic boy with a big voice” - Imelda May
“One of the great blues men of our time” - Jools Holland, BBC
“Bloater is a phenomenal guitarist!” - Mark Lamarr, BBC Radio 2
“I love this guy…he has a voice that sounds like it’s been soaked in turpentine for the last decade!” - Craig Charles, BBC 6 Music
Big Boy Bloater’s track-by-track guide to the songs on ‘The World Explained’:
1 – Leonard Cohen
“During a tour last winter 3 out of the 4 band members (me included) got really bad food poisoning about an hour before we were due onstage. The weather was terrible outside and a lot of people hadn’t been able to make the gig because of really heavy snowfall, so we felt we had to go on for the people that had battled through the elements to be there. After the show we were all really feverish in the dressing room and throwing up in buckets, the loo, a bin – everywhere! For the rest of the weekend we were still feverish and my abiding memory of the whole experience, apart from just wanting to go home and get better, was a Mojo Magazine cover on the dashboard of the van with Leonard Cohen’s face on it. As I drifted in and out of consciousness all weekend, Leonard Cohen was always staring at me.”
2 – Lifetime Money Back Guarantee
“This is quite a dark song. It was actually written about someone I know who is not a risk-taker. They need to have everything justified and explained to them in detail before they will take a chance. It can be applied to relationships as well, though. The sentiment is the same, in that there is no money-back guarantee on life; you just have to jump in sometimes and see where it takes you.”
3 – I Can’t Forget About You
“A more fun song, I had this vision of a celebrity stalker who’s trying to be good but they keep seeing the person on TV, even though they are trying to get therapy and stay away. But again, it can be applied to any relationship break-up; the person is on your mind all the time and you see them everywhere you look.”
4 – She Gets Naked For A Living
“We once did a gig where they had a burlesque dancer/stripper as one of the warm-up acts. She was terrible, really terrible. It got me thinking about the gap between ambition and talent and the sadness that must bring. I wanted this song to start quite clumsily to reflect her act, but it builds towards the end of the song with strings and guitar, highlighting the emotion of thwarted ambition and bitterness towards more successful rivals.”
5 – Double Whammy!!
“A shameless re-record of a song I wrote and recorded especially for Mark Lamarr as the B-Side to a vinyl single he produced for me called ‘’Whammy’. I’ve never released it in digital format and it is a favourite at the live shows, so we wanted to be able to do an up-to-date version. It’s a simple dance-craze ditty and a lot of fun!”
6 – Stop Dragging Me Back
“This is a very personal song. I am a forward thinking person, I don’t revisit the past and I have always wanted to innovate, but when you play roots music there is a large faction of people that don’t want you to do that, they just want you to stay the same for them.”
7 – Evil Twist
“I had the title first, and for some reason the phrase popped into my head and wouldn’t go away, so I wrote a whole song about it! It starts á la The Twist, then becomes about betrayal.”
8 – Black Sambuca
“The only instrumental on the album, this song was almost called ‘Soho’, because when we were writing it I had visions of all the great basement bars and music clubs I go to in Soho, and the many late night drinking sessions I’ve had there. I’m not sure when it started but recently me and the boys in the band have been chasing our drinks with Black Sambuca shots, so it seemed an appropriate title. All those nights where the Sambuca comes out definitely have this soundtrack when I re-live them in my mind!”
9 – Insanely Happy
“This is an unashamedly anthemic song. My wife moaned that I was writing dark songs and asked me to write a happy one, so the title was in my head first. I sat down with the intention of writing a song that people would sing-along to at shows. I don’t know if it will succeed, but I hope so! My wife was really cross when she heard the lyrics because it’s actually about breaking-up with someone that was making you miserable and now you’re happy. I don’t think the song was her idea of a happy song, so I got in a bit of trouble for it!”
10 – Hey Funky!
“This is a simple and fun song about letting go of your inhibitions and having a good time. You’re out for the night, so why not just let go and go for it?”