We mark the release of new single ‘Dull Ache’ with a quick Q&A with bandleader Ben Wyborn about long songs, big bands and basketball.

Rather than introduce the band on the usual terms you might to a music insider, how do you explain Baggio to, say, an uncomprehending aged relative?

“It’s me and a dozen or so of my best friends making music we love. I write some usually quite simple, quite sad, quite long songs then all these amazing musicians I’ve befriended over the past decade make them really fun and loud. We have a really good time doing it, and we lose a lot of money.” 

Do you have a favourite 6+ minute (primarily) two-chord song? Do you consider track length as part of a track’s artistic meaning?

‘‘Hit The Ground Running’ by Smog. We covered this at a gig a while ago cos we realised it was the same two chords as one of our songs, but way better. My friend Gabriel and I have a theory that all songs should either be less than three minutes or more than seven minutes. Who wants a five-minute song? Too long to be fun, too short to go crazy. I’ve just started recently recording some demos of new songs and they’re all like five and a half minutes long, so might need to scrap them, I think. Or add in some more solos.” 

On a similar note, could you name a few artists/albums/songs that directly influenced ‘Dull Ache’?

“I honestly don’t think that as a band we think about tangible reference points or influences that often when making music; I think the beauty of having such a big band is that everyone has different tastes and touch-points which definitely, probably subconsciously, seep into the music we write – but we never really have had a conversation of ‘we want to sound like this band or that band.’

“I’m definitely always influenced by people like David Berman and Bill Callahan – particularly lyrically and vocally – but in terms of songwriting I think what we do always feels very natural to who we are, and the decades of obsessive music consumption we have as a band definitely bleeds into that. Musically I’m probably influenced more by my friends than anyone else. Whenever I watch Robbie play guitar in nudista or Toby play guitar in Leather.head, I’m always astounded by their playing and looking for ways to be as good as they are.

“Saying all that, there is a little 3 second break towards the end of the song which our producer, Joseph Futak, said he wanted to make sound like ‘Metal Knight’ by Christopher Lee.” 

How did the instrumentation on ‘Dull Ache’ develop? On the final piece, the track goes on for a long time mostly just you playing before the full sound kicks in. Does that map onto how the composition of the song evolved, from bedroom to rehearsal room?

“I tend to write the structures of my songs to fit around the lyrics, which quite often leads to weird arrangements, I guess. The first 3 minutes of Dull Ache, lyrically, all came to me at once and it was a kinda stream of consciousness, a blurting out of words. So it always made sense for me for them to form one section of the song. The journey of the song came together pretty naturally when I was writing it, but the instrumentation happened more slowly over many, many months of playing it and recording it with the band. We had loads of sessions when Joe, Helen, Anna and Robbie would come in individually and record synths, violin, trumpet and lap steel and we’d play about with different parts in different places. It’s a bit of a “your turn, my turn” song – everyone gets their moment – in many ways I suppose it’s a bit like the promising but ultimately ill-fated 2015 Westbrook / Durant OKC Thunder offence.” 

Could you talk us through the artwork for ‘Dull Ache’ and why the design felt suited to the track.

“We collaborated with one of my favourite people and favourite artists, Lulu Bennett, for the artwork. She’s incredibly talented and a big supporter of Baggio – so I was keen to not give her any direction or notes, but rather let her create whatever she felt from the song. I love what she produced.”

In Lulu’s words: “I felt the song to be about the sadness of the passing of time. ‘It’s been like that for a while now….’ This portrait of mother and child, a classical motif, gestures towards ageing and the pain of loving. The space between the two faces is a short distance, but it’s also endless. Decades, heartbreaks highs, the things we can remember.”

Baggio play live a lot. Like, A LOT. Do you find a virtue in doing so/is it part of the band philosophy to do so?

“I think primarily we play live a lot because we love playing shows. It was never a conscious philosophy of the band, we just always wanna play together. It’s definitely helped form the sound of the record though. Many of these songs were kinda worked out on stage; it’s hard for us all to get together and practice too often – so a lot of the time we’d run a new tune a few times in practice, do it at soundcheck the next night then play it in the set. Usually by the third or fourth gig of doing this, we’d have it down.

“Robbie and I were chatting recently too about how playing gigs is how we do most of our socialising nowadays; it’s too expensive to go out and do stuff very often in London, so it’s great when you’ve got a gig where you don’t have to pay to get in and probably get a couple of free beers. You get to hang out for free for a few hours, then get up on stage and play some tunes. That’s kinda the best part of it.”

On that note, you can catch Baggio twice in London this week. Tonight (Thursday) they headline The Cavendish Arms and tomorrow they’re at The Ivy House, Nunhead.