Laurie Vincent launches Big Truck: “In Soft Play it feels like I’m cosplaying my 18-year-old self – this sounds like the person I know”

Laurie Vincent has spoken to NME about stepping out of the shadow of Soft Play with a newfound confidence to launch new band Big Truck .

As one half of the Tunbridge Wells punk duo, Vincent helped set the course for the UK rock scene with Soft Play (formerly Slaves), culminating in 2024’s ‘Heavy Jelly’ being their most acclaimed and highest charting album of their career .

When a heavy tour schedule was complete, his bandmate Isaac Holman busied himself with making a new record as solo project Baby Dave .

With the creative itch, he took his huge bank of demos to drummer Sam Coppin (formerly of Lady Bird ) who saw promise in the songs and offered to form a new band.

Together with guitarist Asa Thallon and keyboardist Justin Myles, Big Truck was born – taking in their influences of indie, punk, jazz, soul, metal and R&B to create the album ‘Midday At The Middleway’.

Released last week (Friday August 28), it’s a fully-formed and considered debut that’s contains flourishes of The Cure , The Smiths , Pixies and The War On Drugs .

“This is a melting point of influences, different backgrounds and styles,” Vincent told NME .

“It shouldn’t work, but it does.

That’s the beauty of being in a band.” The sense of purpose behind the album was also driven by Vincent stepping up in his duties for Soft Play’s last record.

“‘Heavy Jelly’ gave me this real sense of confidence because I had such a part to play with the development of song structure,” Vincent continued.

“With old Soft Play albums it would just be ‘verse, chorus, verse, chorus, done’, whereas I really doubled down on the pre-production and working through issues.

“With all the confidence that I found, I thought, ‘How far can I take this?’ I always wanted to have a go at being a frontman.

I realised that I had to take that opportunity because it wasn’t going to be given to me.” Check out the rest of our interview with Vincent before, where he talked to us about creativity, Buddhism, sobriety, and the beauty of new bands doing it the old school way.

NME : Hello Laurie.