BIG SPECIAL have announced their headline tour for this coming winter, hot off the band of their new EP, O’JOY!, out via SO Recordings, alongside a new video for closing track “HOTEL”.
Before their headline tour, BIG SPECIAL play a run of festivals and live dates throughout the summer, including TRNSMT, Boomtown, Beautiful Days and Moseley Folk Festival, with more shows to be announced soon.
The band will hit Cafe INDIE in Scunthorpe on 30th November 2026.
The ten-track collection arrives following the singles “ONLY FREE WHEN SLEEPING”, “PLAINTIVE NATIVE”, “SLUGLIFE”, and “DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)”, completing a project the Black Country duo have described as “the fallen parts” of their first two records – reworked, reshaped and given a life of their own.
Comprised of vocalist Joe Hicklin and drummer Callum Moloney, BIG SPECIAL have spent the last few years building a reputation as one of the UK’s most vital new bands; channeling working-class frustration, dark humour, tenderness and fury into songs that feel both deeply personal and painfully communal. O’JOY! continues that trajectory while pushing further into the shadows, gathering together songs that didn’t previously fit within the emotional architecture of their albums but still demanded their own space.
Speaking about the EP, the band say:
Released alongside the EP is the animated video for “HOTEL”, a bruised and bleary-eyed closer that captures BIG SPECIAL at their most reflective and emotionally exposed. Equal parts resignation and release, the track drifts through exhaustion, isolation and the strange intimacy of temporary places, ending O’JOY! not with resolution, but with acceptance.
Speaking on the track, the band said:
“We’ve moved real fast these last few years. Our first album was a long, drawn-out process of contextualising 30 years of experience into a piece of work that represents us, the time we occupy, and the history that led us here.
Our second album was a spur-of-the-moment reflection on how our lives were changing, written performed and put together in a moment between all the other moments of great change, a piece of work like a fence post in a time of our lives and this time in life where we stand as individuals and in a history of working class stock.
This new record is made of all the fallen parts of our first two albums. We picked them up and took them back to the studio to rework and play with them to make them into their own piece of work that reflects upon what we have done so far. The songs that didn’t fit in the right place at the right time. Including songs that, at the time, might’ve made the albums too long and lean too far into a darker tone, where we wanted to keep the balance of an emotional journey, like watching a movie with your eyes closed.
So we made O’JOY!
A smirking eye roll to dread and discomfort. It all seems like such a downer, but it’s a positive thing to write songs like this, it’s important to remember that songs aren’t pamphlets. They are emotional reactions to how you feel at a certain time, and you need to let yourself feel and express. It’s probably the only reason to write at all, so that you can be who you are when you aren’t writing. Picking up the pen in the first place is an act of hope. Shit out the demons, turn them into music, then get everyone together for a big old bash. Then crack on. As you were.
We wanted to give these songs their own place and leave nothing behind. We want to empty our clip and then go off to write our next thing. We like to move on creatively so we’re choosing not to hold on to a bank of work that can be repackaged when we need a bit of money or something, or to pressure us to lean in any sort of creative direction. When this is out, our board is clean, and we best get cracking with the next thing. We want to play good honest shows and make good honest records, and we want to do that for as long as we can; so here is all we’ve got.
This record is dedicated to the memory of our good friend, Handsome James Borrer.”
““HOTEL” is an old song that was written a good few years back. It was good to get it in the studio and bring it into our current time. It seems like a song about us touring and how that can be a double edged sword. And it sounds like that’s the meaning to us now too, but the reality is that it was written way before we started touring. It was written about changing states of mind and a hope for help through medication whilst still holding worry for the possible personal changes ahead. It’s been interesting for us to see how songs we’ve written can even change meaning to us over time. It makes us think more about the importance of being honest and open in our music. That’s the main way to relate, just don’t think about it relating to anyone at all, because it will always be about what it means to them.
O’JOY! is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl via SO Recordings. Stream it HERE
Watch the video for “HOTEL” here.
They will also be touring North America this Autumn with headline shows as well as dates as special guests of Lambrini Girls. Tickets are available here.
June 12th: Bradninch Music Festival, Devon, UK
June 20th: TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
July 13th: James Borrer Tribute Concert, O2 Indigo, London, UK
July 31st: Valley Fest, Chew Magna, Bristol, UK
August 14th: Boomtown Festival, Hampshire, UK
August 22nd: Beautiful Days Festival, Devon, UK
August 30th: Dreamland, Margate, UK (w/ Babyshambles)
September 4th: Moseley Folk Festival, Birmingham, UK
WINTER HEADLINE TOUR
November 24th Stoke Sugarmill
November 25th Cardiff Tramshed
November 26th Liverpool Arts Club
November 27th Hull Polar Bear
November 29th Edinburgh Liquid Rooms
November 30th Scunthorpe Cafe Indie
December 1st Blackpool Bootleg Special
December 2nd Hebden Bridge Trades Club
December 3rd Sheffield Crookes Social Club
December 5th Coventry Kasbah
December 6th Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms
December 8th Oxford Bullingdon
December 9th Brighton Chalk
December 10th Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
December 11th Exeter Cavern Club
Scunthorpe Nights 