Fort Wayne, IN — Sweetwater has announced that an album, “Grimspound,” by British progressive rock band Big Big Train, which was partially recorded at Sweetwater Studios, and which features Sweetwater employee, session player, and video specialist Nick D’Virgilio, has been nominated for album of the year by Prog Magazine’s Progressive Music Awards. The winner will be announced September 14 in London.
“Grimspound” debuted at #1 on the UK rock charts in May 2017. This is the second Big Big Train album Nick D’Virgilio has recorded his drums and vocals for at Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, IN, produced by Mark Hornsby.
Last year’s critically acclaimed album “Folklore” brought home two awards for the band at The 2016 Progressive Music Awards. The band also won four awards at the 2017 Classic Rock Society Awards, including Best Album for “Folklore” and Best Drummer for Nick D’Virgilio.
Big Big Train is unique in today’s music industry considering they are selling records and winning awards, yet they’ve only played three live shows over one weekend in 2016, which sold out immediately when the shows were announced the previous year.
Nick D’Virgilio, from Los Angeles, is one of the most respected drummers in the music business, having spent many years as a founding member of the highly successful progressive rock band Spock’s Beard. He has also recorded and performed with Genesis, Tears for Fears, Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Mike Keneally, Fates Warning, as well as Big Big Train, and has countless studio session credits. He joined Sweetwater in 2014 and for the previous five years was on the road as the principal drummer, lead singer, and assistant bandleader for Cirque du Soleil. A multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist, he has also released two solo albums.
D’Virgilio remarked, “From the song writing, to the hard work that goes into crafting the right arrangements, to the quality of the recordings, Big Big Train is focusing on the things that others have left behind. This band is a family in which everyone supports and respects each other’s ideas – a total team effort. Whether we’re recording here at Sweetwater in Fort Wayne, IN, or at Real World in the UK, the songs always come first and the technology is the icing on the cake.”
Band co-founder Gregory Spawton, who plays bass, guitars, and keyboards, said, “”For me, it’s primarily about quality control throughout everything we do. We start with carefully crafted songs. We record them with care and attention at great studios. We choose talented recording and mixing engineers to work with. We spend a great deal of time on artwork and presentation to ensure our vinyl releases and CD’s look and feel beautiful so that people will want to own them. We make sure our download music is available at high resolution alongside the standard streaming and download options. And when we play live, we choose select venues to make the shows we play feel like special occasions.”
