Originally formed back in 1996, Big Day Out reached their final 3-piece line up as recently as October '99. The founder member of the band, singer/songwriter David Ephgrave initially formed the band as a 4-piece, but has turned out to be the only remaining member of the original line-up! The songs are now written by both David Ephgrave and Mark Smith, who both site an extremely varied number of artists as influences, including (but to name a few) The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Motown, Soul, Randy Newman, Beach Boys, Sinatra, Beck, Musicals, Classical… etc. Says Dave… 'We aren't fans of one particular style. Our one rule concerning the music we listen to and write is 'any music as long as its good music!' Our only other aim as songwriters is to never write the same song twice.' Both Dave and Mark are surprisingly prolific songwriters, and would love to follow The Beatles example of releasing two albums a year, plus singles that weren't on the albums themselves. ('We're pretty sure we could do it too…' Says Mark) Drummer Chris Hollis completes the line-up. He has always endeavoured to be as original as possible when creating a new drum part, and his both manic and energetic style on stage has alluded to many comparisons to the likes of Keith Moon. The band have so far made two demo CD's, both self-produced - 'Get Happy' (3-Track EP, 1998), and 'Pop Nonsense?' (7-Track EP, 2000) - and are busily preparing their next follow up release, another 7-Track EP, provisionally named 'Banjo Spectacular'(!) Big Day Out are all talented multi-instrumentalists, who between then can play (amongst others) guitar, bass, drums, double bass, blues harmonica, piano, trumpet, and the recorder (!)