Big Joanie

Big Joanie was formed by Stephanie Phillips in 2013, who posted online asking for bandmates with whom to start a black feminist punk band after becoming frustrated with the lack of intersectionality in the scene. Chardine Taylor-Stone, and the band's original bassist Kiera Coward-Deyell responded. They played their first set at the inaugural First Timers, an event where all the bands had to be new, most of the members had to be playing a new instrument and they had to include someone from a marginalised group.[4][2]

The name of the band is partly a tribute to Phillips’ mother, Joan, and partly based on a Caribbean figure of speech. ‘When we say a child is “acting big”, they’re acting bigger than themselves. I just thought that would be a great phrase for a strong, confident woman.’[6]

In 2014 the band released their first EP Sistah Punk on Tuff Enuff Records, and in 2016 they self released a 7" three song single entitled Crooked Room on their own Sistah Punk Records. The title track is inspired by a lecture by the writer Melissa Harris-Perry, who compared life as a black woman in a white patriarchy to trying to find a true vertical in a room where everything is crooked.[4] Another song on the release is a punk cover of No Scrubs by TLC.[5]

Estella Adeyeri (also of Witching Waves) joined in 2017 to replace Coward-Deyell after she moved to Scotland. Later that year the band supported American bands Sad13 and Downtown Boys on UK tours.[2] In early 2018 they recorded their debut album with producer Margo Broom at Hermitage Works Studios.[4]

Over the weekend of 2–4 June 2017, DIY Diaspora Punx (a collective started by Phillips and also containing other London musicians such as Rachel Aggs) put on the first Decolonise Fest at DIY Space For London. Decolonise Fest is the UK's first music festival created by and for people of colour.[7] The second edition of the festival, again mostly held at DIY Space, occurred from 22 to 24 June 2018. The festival was held for a third time over 29 to 30 June 2019, at which Big Joanie performed.

In March 2017 Stephanie Phillips contributed a chapter to 'Under My Thumb' – a book published by Repeater Books, edited by Rhian E. Jones and Eli Davies.[8] Phillips' chapter praised/critiqued the work Phil Spector. The book was launched with a concert hosted by feminist punk promoter Loud Women on 9 March 2017 at The Fiddler's Elbow in London, where bands including Big Joanie and I, Doris played songs by politically-problematic male musicians.

On 5 September 2018 Big Joanie announced their debut album Sistahs would be released in late November the same year with a music video for lead single "Fall Asleep". It is the first album to be released by Ecstatic Peace Library, a publishing company ran by visual book editor Eva Prinz and musician Thurston Moore, in their Daydream Library Series.[3][9]

Sistahs was released on 30 November to positive reviews, including in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and The Quietus.[10][11][12]

In November 2018 they supported American band Parquet Courts on a UK and European tour.[13] They played their first American shows in March 2019 at South by Southwest, debuting via BBC Music Introducing, and were announced in April as Bikini Kill's main support for their two European shows of the year at Brixton Academy in June.[14]

On 26th February 2020, Big Joanie supported Sleater-Kinney alongside Harkin at the Brixton Academy[15]. Phillips cites Sleater-Kinney as having "really influenced the way I thought about writing emotional songs, and my approach to punk music".[16]

• Gal Dem interview, 2016