Big Big Train

English electric

Big Big Train were founded in Bournemouth in 1990 by Gregory Spawton on guitar and Andy Poole on bass, after their earlier group Archshine ended. Ian Cooper, Steve Hughes and Martin Read joined in 1991, a demo tape appeared in October 1991 and the demo album From the River to the Sea in May 1992. The name echoes a 1981 new wave band from Sutton Coldfield that included Spawton's older brother on drums, a separate group. They signed to Giant Electric Pea in 1993 and recorded Goodbye to the Age of Steam over two weeks in July 1993, listed as 1994. English Boy Wonders (1997) was released incomplete after funding ran out, and a completed director's cut followed in 2008; Hughes left for The Enid in 1998 and the label dropped the band.

A fresh start came in 2009 with the drummer Nick D'Virgilio and the singer David Longdon, and The Underfall Yard appeared on December 15, 2009. English Electric Part One (September 3, 2012), Part Two (March 2013) and the combined Full Power (September 23, 2013) won the Breakthrough act award at the 2013 Progressive Music Awards. Three sold-out shows at Kings Place in London in August 2015 were their first live shows in seventeen years. Folklore was released on May 27, 2016, followed by Grimspound and The Second Brightest Star in 2017, and The Grand Tour (2019), their first UK top 40. Dave Gregory of XTC played guitar from 2009 or 2011 until 2020.

Poole left in January 2018, and in 2020 Gregory, the violinist Rachel Hall and the keyboardist Danny Manners left. Common Ground reached 31 in the UK in July 2021. David Longdon died on November 20, 2021, aged 56, and Welcome to the Planet was released as planned on January 28, 2022. The band held a memorial evening at Kings Place in March 2022 and recruited Alberto Bravin on April 27, 2022. The Likes of Us followed in 2024 and a first US tour in March 2024, and Woodcut on InsideOutMusic on February 6, 2026. Longdon had auditioned for Genesis in 1996 to 1997.