BIG JOANIE: REBEL GIRL MAGIC
Big Joanie is a UK-based punk trio made up of Stephanie Phillips on guitar and vocals, Estella Adeyeri on bass guitar and vocals, and Chardine Taylor-Stone on drums and vocals. The band formed in 2013, and after a few self-released Eps and singles, the trio released their first studio album with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Library. Since then, they have become very well known in the British punk scene and have caught the unbridled attention of a large following.
Today, Big Joanie is one of the most widely talked about bands on the British Live scene. The trio refers to itself as a Black Feminist Punk band and believes its mission is to create a musical space where black women can be inspired to be themselves. While their 2018 debut studio album, Sistahs, was released to wide critical acclaim, the trio had worked hard within the heart of the DIY London punk scene to establish themselves well before this.
Big Joanie was founded by vocalist and guitar player Stephanie Phillips. Finding herself frustrated with the lack of intersectionality and black female representation in the British punk scene, she posted online in 2013 calling for potential bandmates. The first to respond was Chardine Taylor-Stone and the band’s first bassist before Adeyeri, Kiera Coward-Deyell. In 2014, the trio released several singles and their debut EP titled Sistah Punk on Tuff Enuff Records.
The band continued to release music under this lineup until 2017 when Coward-Deyell had to move to Scotland and was replaced as the band’s bassist by Estella Adeyeri. This year, the band received a chance to show the world what they were truly about. In 2017, a collective started by Phillips and other London Musicians called DIY Diaspora Punx put on the first Decolonise Fest, which was the UK’s first music festival created by and for people of color. Since then, the festival has run three years in a row, with Big Joanie gaining the opportunity to perform there in the third run in 2019.
In early 2018, the trio supported other famous punk acts on tour and recorded their debut studio album at Hermitage Works Studio with producer Margo Broom. Later the same year, in November, they released Sistahs, the first album to be released by a publishing company known as Ecstatic Peace Library. The company, run by musician Thurston Moore and visual book editor Eva Prinz released the album as part of their Daydream Library Series. The album was released to positive reviews by The Guardian and Rolling Stone Magazine.
The next year, Big Joanie went on their first American tour and joined the band Bikini Kill as the main supporting act on their two European tours in 2019. In August 2020, the trio released their cover of Solange’s 2017 Cranes in the Sky, which received several positive reviews. Later the same year, the band announced that they had signed to an American label, the Oregon-based Kill Rock Stars.
As Big Joanie consolidates and expands on its international presence in the modern punk scene, keep an eye out for what this revolutionary band has in store for its fans next.
