Biig Piig is at home on her journey

“Fucking hell,” she says, thinking back to her early twenties and what her reaction would have been if someone had told her that she’d be at this point in time. “I’d be like, ‘You’re actually taking the piss!’ I wouldn’t have been able to believe them, to be honest, but I’m glad they were right.”

For a lot of artists, music is something they’ve wanted to be involved in from the age they learned to walk and talk, but that hasn’t been the case for Smyth. Born in Cork in the south of Ireland, she spent much of her formative childhood years in Spain before moving to West London as a teenager. It was the capital where she says she “found music” for the first time. “The thing is, I thought there was, like, Jessie J, Gabrielle, Leonard Cohen – I didn’t know there was anyone else. It sounds crazy, but that’s really what it was when I was in Ireland,” she admits. “People you see on TV and hear on the radio, and then, like, your man who plays in the pub. That’s it.”

Coming to London was a real eye-opener in that sense, introducing her to another world of open mics, more genres, and more styles of writing music – it left such an impression that she’s still based here in the capital. But music was never something Smyth considered would be possible as a full-time career.

Enter NiNE8, the collective of young artists founded by Lava La Rue and including the likes of Mac Wetha, Bone Slim, and NIGE. She met La Rue at a music technology class, became part of the collective, and met Wetha. She describes him as “the reason I released music in the first place – he was the first person who was like ‘Jess, what the fuck are you doing? You need to release this.’”

NiNE8 is still going strong as a unit for years even with the members moving further from their teens into their twenties, with an EP out last year. “Obviously people are busy now, there’s a lot going on, so you don't see each other as much because of that, you know?” says Smyth. “We've been friends for so long – you just pick up where you left off, and it's easy.”

They got together for New Year’s Eve at London’s Somerset House, with tickets available for fans. There was an exhibition with all manner of photos and memories of the group from the past few years, and Smyth describes walking through it as “crazy – what’s happened from when we first met in college to where we are now. We're adults now, like, proper adults. It was really beautiful. Yeah, I love them.”

Since 2017, Smyth has released a series of EPs – including a trilogy – and standalone singles, with tracks like “Sunny”, “Oh No”, and “Feels Right” racking up millions of streams. Her biggest project to date was the 2023 mixtape Bubblegum – but a debut album is one step beyond. “Whenever I’ve made projects, I kind of get to the point where it’s always just been a shorter story; I get shorter ways of saying what I want to say,” she explains. The difference with 11:11 is that, when she started to make it, she knew she wanted a longer story: “From ‘4AM’, for example, even the lyric coming in, ‘You could have hit me with the bad news first,’ I know how much there is in that line and I wanted to just do it as a full album.”

So, having an actual debut album on the horizon? “It’s crazy,” she says, “I never thought I’d get to this point. I've always admired other people's albums; like, a whole body of work that really tells a story. It's taken so long for me to get to a point that I feel ready to do that myself. It feels like a real next stage in my journey with music.”

Wetha’s involved (“I really wanted to have him on the record”), as are Maverick Sabre, Zach Nahome and Andrew Wells, among others. Wetha, Sabre and La Rue featured in Smyth’s Gaza Aid benefit concert with the humanitarian organisation Choose Love last February, too, alongside Kojaque and Yuné Pinku. Would she be up for doing something similar again? “What's going on is fucked, and it's just there's no mercy; it's just horrible,” she says. “So I'd love to do something again. I've no plans to right now but maybe I will do at some point.”

Over time, the way she and her collaborators have approached making music has evolved. In the past, she wanted an idea to grab her within five minutes, but now she’s more patient in her approach: “I’m like, ‘Cool, I’ve got a chorus idea or a melody that I love. Maybe I don’t have the lyrics right now or something in production might need to change.’ So, we’ll leave and come back a week later.”

“It’s a scary thing to do,” she muses, “Because you're like, ‘Well, shit, if I leave the studio, are we gonna lose the essence of it?’ But it hasn't been like that. It's just good to get perspective.”

In terms of the album, there are a mix of influences, and she describes her playlist as “a mess,” going from Italian hard techno DJ PISAPIA to alternative rock staple Nick Cave. “I don't know if I'd find direct influences from any of the stuff I listen to in this album,” she explains. “I guess it's just the energy of a song and if it makes you feel a way…”

Of her own tracks, “Stay Home” is a favourite. “It’s not a dance song or anything, but, for me, it’s really special,” she says. “It’s one I recorded family and friends on. It’s a point in the album that means a lot to me, because we go through so many shifts in relationships through the album. But true love, actually, is your family, your friends and, obviously, partners. I guess that one, for me and for people that I'm close to. I love what it represents.”

Indeed, 11:11 is – at its essence – about relationships. She ums and ahhs over whether it’s about letting go, too, before deciding it’s about understanding and “holding hope” through more difficult times. “Celebrating the good and the bad when it comes to the twists and turns of life,” she summarises.

Something Smyth has often incorporated into her music is a Spanish influence, borne from her time living in the Iberian nation. But the only track on 11:11 with Spanish lyrics is the single “Decimal”, released last October. “Parts of me wish there was more, because of how big a part of my life it is, but I can’t force it, you know? I don't ever want to make music being like, ‘this needs to be Spanish,’ – no. If it comes naturally then great, but I never want to push it too hard.”

Given her time in Spain from the ages of four to 12 – her family were told the climate would be better for her brother’s asthma – Smyth is a third-culture kid of sorts. “I think of several homes in my heart,” she explains, “Obviously, Ireland is home to me. Spain feels like home to me in a different way as well. And London is home to me too. I feel like there are parts of me in all those three places.”

On Smyth’s post-album release tour, there’s a homecoming show in Dublin, marking the first time she’ll have played Ireland in more than a year. Loved ones are going to be there to celebrate with her, and she speaks warmly of the crowds in Dublin, who “love just letting go and being free,” and are always supportive.

In terms of the tour more generally, it’s a bit nerve-wracking but exciting at the same time. “Coming into bigger venues, I'm like, how do I make the show more immersive? How do I take it away from where it is right now and just strip it back, make it a whole different show?" she tells me. “When you're so used to doing something the way you do it, and you know how it goes, and you love it, it's good to get uncomfortable. Otherwise, you stick with what you know.”