There is nothing wrong with Big Red

Photography by Kit Vickers None of us is the same in every room. Not through lack of virtue, or because the lifelong preachings of being yourself have fallen on deaf ears, but because growing up means learning that being yourself looks different depending on who you’re with. Conversations with your boss are far cries from chats with your friends at the pub, which bear little resemblance to the natters at the dinner table with the in-laws. Little adjustments here, omissions there, lovely weather we’re having, right? But there’s a fine line between wearing different hats and making yourself smaller to fit them, and lately, Joe Scarisbrick has been thinking about what gets left behind in those edits. The driving force behind The Orchestra (For Now), the seven-piece maximalist ensemble at the heart of the Windmill scene, Scarisbrick is no stranger to the tensions of intricacy and excess. But with Big Red, a close-knit side project formed with two of his Orchestra bandmates, he is seeing how much he can strip back without holding back: fewer moving parts, a different approach to songwriting, and room to try on another hat. And on that note, when I call him on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, ...