The return of The Big Pink in September

After returning earlier this year with their new singles “No Angels” and “Love Spins On Its Axis,” The Big Pink have announced third studio album The Love That’s Ours, their first in a decade, due Sept. 30, alongside new single “Rage.”

Marking their first full-length release since 2012’s Future This, the new album was produced by Tony Hoffer (Beck, Air, Phoenix) and features Jamie T, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Ed Harcourt and more.

Speaking about the new album, frontman Robbie Furze said, "Getting to this point has been one of the craziest journeys in my life. I truly thought this day would never come. I got so lost, so confused, went down so many rabbit holes, at times running completely blind, so much so that I nearly lost everything that was ever important to me, everything I ever truly loved. This record symbolises so much, it's my flag on top of the summit. It shows that I finally understand what is truly important. This is the soundtrack of my journey to get here. It was frightening, but beautiful at the same time, full of fun, but hand-in-hand full of terror and sadness. The outcome is that I'm incredibly proud of this work that came out of all of it. I think these may be the best songs that I've ever written, they're certainly the most honest. I would love to thank everyone who was involved in this record because without them we would have never got to this point and maybe I would have not been here at all."

Pre-order The Love That’s Ours here. Listen/share “Rage” here.

“The first album was that classic thing: is this actually happening?” says Robbie Furze, the sole founder member since his musical partner Milo Cordell left in 2013, of The Big Pink’s 2009 breakthrough A Brief History of Love. “There were no expectations, just two best friends working on music together, and to us it felt like an explosion. Then came the second record [Future This, 2012], which we thought we could bash out because we were now so busy on tour, but we soon realised that it didn’t have the same romance or importance of the first record and that affected Milo deeply. I remember doing the first gigs after Future This and thinking: something doesn’t feel right here. We were trying to get the songs written as quickly as possible and we neglected the essence of The Big Pink in the process.”

After a tour of Asia that, in Furze’s words, ‘finished us off,’ he and Cordell decided to step away from music; to avoid the fate of so many bands who fall into the recording-touring treadmill and kill the passion that first opened their hearts along the way. There was no major split, no blazing rows presented to the world as musical differences, just an understanding that it was time to move on.

Milo Cordell concentrated on running his record label Merok, while Furze felt a strong urge to change the backdrop and start anew. “I fell into DJing in Los Angeles. London was on a bit of a downer at the time, especially if you were in a rock band, and there seemed to be a lot of English musicians moving to LA – it was the place to be. A friend of mine was opening a bar in Silverlake called Tenants of the Trees and it felt like the beginning of a movement. It had the beautiful models, the token celebs, the bands I love… There I was with Black Motorcycle Club and Queens of the Stone Age, and I was Robbie from the Big Pink, DJing on Tuesday nights. It was fun.” For a moment Furze considered a future as club owner, before realizing that he really should be getting back to making music of his own.

“And that’s when things started happening again because there are a lot of lost artists in LA; people who have gone out there with their talent and lost their way. LA’s great when you’re on the up but if you find yourself having fallen out of favor it can be hard to get back on the proverbial treadmill. But if you can get those people in the room for a moment, lovely things can emerge from the chaos.”

The Big Pink’s drummer Akiko Matsuura was back on board while Charlie Barker, a visual artist from Nottingham, joined on bass guitar. Furze bounced musical ideas off a network of friends either visiting or resident in Los Angeles including Jamie Hince from the Kills, Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jamie T and Joel Amey from Wolf Alice, the latter suggesting that Furze resurrect The Big Pink to do a US tour with Wolf Alice in 2018.

“That reinvigorated me because going on tour is like going to war: it’s so hard but you feel invigorated by the pain, especially if you are back on a support tour, shlepping your own amplifiers around. It gives you a tangible feeling on what it means to be a musician.”

Track list:

01 - How Far
02 - No Angels
03 - Love Spins
04 - Rage
05 - Outside In
06 - I’m not away to say away
07 - Safe and Sound
08 - Murder
09 - Back To My Arms
10 - Even If I Wanted To
11 - Lucky One