No Hit Wonders

Rip It Up, Issue 208, 1 December 1994, Page 8

No Hit Wonders

People presume Big Chief are from Seattle simply because they had their 1992 album Face out on Seattle label Sub Pop. So what if they are? Fact is they aren’t. They’re from Iggy’s home: Detroit, the motor city. Platinum Jive is Big Chief’s latest concept album. I say ‘concept’ because this is what Big Chief do, as opposed to records with 12 songs on them. Platinum Jive is Big Chief’s piss take ‘greatest hits’ alpum. Of course, Big Chief have never had a smidgen of a hit, and this fact does not perturb them in the slightest. Most of the songs on Platinum Jive are very, very new. The album is a wild pot pourri of songs, from hissy jazz numbers and punky stuff, to soaring retro anthems and some raps as well! Drummer Mike Danner takes up the story: “We think it’s so absurd that we can make a living outta being in a band. It’s hard to be real

serious about it. We’re having as much fun as we’ve ever had in our life. Our last album was the soundtrack for a fictitious movie. We just decided we don’t want it to be like: ‘Here’s our new Big Chief album with our 12 new songs on it,’ so we came up with this Greatest Hits idea, just to make it not so boring. It just gives you something to look at and to read about. Even though it’s not true, it makes it funny.” As well as the actual concept of the album being unusual, the way the band operates is rather unusual too. Mike admits they hardly ever practice and only have a handful of songs ready when they go into the studio, most of which they've only played a dozen or so times. “ It’s like a jazz thing, we know what we want to do when we go in there and it’s kinda like unspoken. We know what we want to accomplish and what kinda songs we want and we

just go in there. The timing was just really good [for Platinum Jive] and we just came up with some really good shit.” Mike says the band make enough money to “live comfortably”. They’ve toured with the likes of the Beastie Boys, the Cult and Soundgarden. These days they are usually the headline act. Nevertheless, Mike and the band have no delusions of grandeur about their chosen profession.

“It’s just rock, just entertainment, just ear candy," says Mike. “Politics and music don’t have anything to do with each other. You listen to rock and you don’t wanna sit around and like contemplate what the lyrics are about and have an intellectual discussion with your friend at the coffee shop about a rock band. It’s just something you put on and you drink beer to. Ear Candy."

SHIRLEY CHARLES