We told you duos are the new hot thing.And to demonstrate that, we hung out backstage with Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken of Big Gigantic at Coachella and got the 411 on how they became the popular livetronica, hip-hop and jazz duo that they are today. Check out the 5 things you should know about them.
5: Dominic and Jeremy met in the music scene in Boulder, Colorado. "We used to play jazz and punk gigs before the electronic thing kind of really happened. We were playing with different bands, he worked at a coffee shop and I worked at Domino's," Jeremy told us. "Dom got a computer--we lived together at one point--he started making beats on it and was like, 'Man, you should play drums over this and I'll play sax.'"
4: Music festivals are like a second home for these guys, but this was their Coachella debut. "We never even visited the festival to hang, it's a whole first time experience," said Dominic. "It has its own vibe and ecosystem because it's so big of a festival, everyone tries to outdo each other. You get all these amazing collabs," added Jeremy.
3: Ready for a shocker? Big Gigantic doesn't charge anyone for their music. "We've always put our music out for free," Dominic said. "We also have it on iTunes. We don't really push to buy our album, but we want everyone to get our music and listen to it, pass it along to their friends and come see us live."
2: After playing more shows than they can count, they still remember the one big game changer. "We did this festival, Camp Bisco, in upstate New York and we had a daytime set, but it was one of the bigger main stages and it was right before Wu-Tang. They showed up half an hour late and they were like 'Keep playing! Keep playing!' and the crowd got bigger and bigger. We didn't have booking agents yet at the time so booking agents came out to see us and we crushed it. We were like, 'I think we're going to be okay!'"
1: Their fifth album, The Night Is Young, was just released earlier this year, but they're not sitting back. "We're always working on new music," the guys said. "It's hard to say at this point [when the next album will be out], but it'd be great to do a short EP sometime beginning of next year."
Check out all of Big Gigantic's music here.
