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You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them. This month, we nab Callum Moloney from Big Special.
7am → Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Snooze. Alarm… Panic that I only have 10 minutes left to get ready before my taxi to the train station turns up. Despite years of early starts working as a van driver, I’m still completely useless at mornings. Anything happening pre-10am is an affront to my human rights and shouldn’t be allowed by law.
I jump in the taxi, and as he pulls away, I realise I haven’t brushed my teeth. Luckily, big man Sadiq has a piece of gum for me.
8:30am → After a healthy and dignified sprint through the busy station, I make my train by a gnat’s bollock and throw myself into an empty seat. I’m meeting Joe in London today for a photo shoot and some secret little meetings. It’s all been kicking off like mad in the run-up to our debut album, ‘POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES’.
All this stuff is completely new to us both, so after a few coffees, the tiredness makes way to nervousness.
I distract myself by making a gig poster on my iPad to promote our hometown gig in May and chuck it on social media.
11am → Me and Joe rendezvous at the photo shoot location. He tells me he saw “the evil ginger guy from the TV show Traitors” getting into a cab near Euston while talking to an old lady, and how he wanted to yell out to her, “DONT TRUST HIM”. I agree that he shouldn’t be trusted, and I’m surprised he is still showing his face in public.
Joe’s wife, Mini, has baked us some banana bread to get us through the day. The punkest of all fruits AND breads in one. It’s 10/10.
We get in and meet the team who are all lovely and professional, but I can tell we are both a bit on edge still.
Having a camera pointed at you, which isn’t a speedometer, is weird. I Irish up our coffees to try to loosen us both up, and quickly, we are back to our normal daft selves, prancing around and having our photo taken. It’s a hard graft, this rock’n’roll business, but someone’s got to do it.
1pm → We wander ’round in search of a pub lunch. For some reason every single place we go into isn’t serving food, so we settle for a £7.80 Guinness. We moan about the price of pints, discuss the north vs south divide and how the midlands has its own cultural identity and is always undeservedly left out of the conversation, and how we have more canals in Brum than Venice. Thus fulfilling the top three “Midlanders in the Big Smoke” stereotypes.
Eventually, we realise we have to dip to our next meeting.
4pm → After more meetings in edgy little rooms with cool music playing (yep, proper comfy in all this cool stuff… Not out of our depth at all), we’re back to the pub for another £7.80 pint.
6pm → Realise we didn’t have time for another round and move our trains back a little bit so we can chill.
7pm → Realise we’ve fucked it again by getting a third round and rush to navigate the tubes. We talk about what a mental feat of engineering they are as we make our way deep underground, thus fulfilling the fourth “Midlander in the Big Smoke” stereotype. We’ve got the tram in Brum, but it’s a bit wank, and it stinks of piss.
7:30pm → Me and Joe part ways at Euston. It’s emotional, as it always is.
8:30pm → Without thinking, I grab myself some salmon sushi to scran on the train. Probably the biggest prick move I have ever done, and I’d like to take this moment to apologise to all the passengers on carriage D. I also farted… Glad to get that off my conscience.
I do my Spanish Duolingo and read some emails from our producer Mike and sound guy Stu about our upcoming tour in South America. I realise that I can’t really speak Spanish or “sound guy” at all… I think I’m fucked.
I quietly eat my nigiri and try to ignore everyone’s laser beam eyes.
11:00pm → After delays in Swindon (bloody Swindon), I’m finally home to play fight with the dog and hear about my fiancé Billie’s day. My angels.
12:00am → Try to get an early one because I’m up on the vans tomorrow. This new life of music is class, but it’s basically just living off credit cards and tick, so I still have to hold down a normal job. It’s like living two separate lives or having an alter ego. Just like Clark Kent and Superman, if Superman’s only power was transporting vans up and down the motorway, and Clark Kent was in a punk band.
Taken from the April 2024 issue of Dork. Big Special’s debut album ‘POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES’ is out 10th May.
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