October 2, 2025 • 11 mins
U.K.-based rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up returned this year after a lengthy absence to remind us that contemporary rock music can deal with serious topics and be fun at the same time.
DPU singer-guitarist Matt Bigland re-evaluated much of his life and his choices during a hospital stay in 2021. Once healthy again, Matt recommitted himself to his music and his band. This past August, Dinosaur Pile-Up returned with its first new album in six years, I've Felt Better.
On this episode, we dive into the album's first single and lead track, "'Bout to Lose It."
Tell us about your first listen @AtFirstListenpodcast on Instagram!
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen!
DPU singer-guitarist Matt Bigland re-evaluated much of his life and his choices during a hospital stay in 2021. Once healthy again, Matt recommitted himself to his music and his band. This past August, Dinosaur Pile-Up returned with its first new album in six years, I've Felt Better.
On this episode, we dive into the album's first single and lead track, "'Bout to Lose It."
Tell us about your first listen @AtFirstListenpodcast on Instagram!
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And today we're getting the hype around Dinosaur Pile Up
and their latest album I Felt Better, And we're going
to talk specifically, not about the whole album, because I
don't think either of us have listened to the full
thing yet, but we're going to talk about the single
about to Lose It, which is actually not very new,
but since the album did come out relatively recently, and
(00:48):
I like the band a lot, so we're going to
talk about them.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm down, I'm down for this.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This is a band from Leeds, England. They have a
near perfect song on their previous album called Backfoot, which
got a lot of radio play five six years ago.
That song made me a fan of them. We used
to do this thing called the Rock Summit here at iHeart,
(01:16):
where a bunch of rock radio programmers and people around
the rock radio industry would all gather. I think it
was usually in New York, but I think they do
it in LA as well, and labels come down and
they play all the records are going to be promoting
that you give kind of people advanced taste of some
(01:42):
of the new music, and it's like a very long,
like a whole work day kind of event. You break
for lunch, but otherwise you're sitting in for us. It
was an auditorium and you're just seeing these presentations and
listening to either entirely new songs, songs that have not
(02:04):
yet been released, and through the whole day. The one
artist that I highlighted and circled in my notes was
Dinosaur Pile Up. The band name itself really amused me,
and the song Backfoot. I was like, I'm hooked. This
song is a near perfect hard rock song. It's like
(02:27):
equal parts Foo Fighters and the Beastie Boys, the rock
Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, I'm hearing I When you say all of those
three bands at the same time. There there's a silliness
to all of the names that I enjoy, Like Dinosaur
Pile Up, Beasty Boys. What was the middle one you said?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I think I just said two bands.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You said one.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I said the Rock Beastie Boys, because the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Are said the Foo Fighters. Well, those names are all
very silly and I like that.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, So let's play a little bit of About to
Lose It, which is the first track on the new album, I.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Guess I'm back on the edge. Maybe I never.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I always loved an album starting with something's album starty,
like I Guess I'm back.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Oh yeah, he does say I'm back, And it was.
It was a long layoff for these guys. I think
their last at least US tour was twenty nineteen. They
had to take a break sometime after that because the singer,
uh wait does it matter Matt big Land came down
with a serious illness and was in the hospital. He
(03:44):
was afraid he was on death's door as like a
pretty young man, so that that knocked him out for
a while, and a few years later he reformed the
band and they were able to put a new album together.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I mean, you have to be in hop physical form
to tour basically or else well, because it's just so
hard on your body. So if you had it's not
like another job where you could just take time off.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, you don't get sick time as a touring musician.
You get maybe insurance if you're a big touring band,
and that basically just makes your next tour more expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
If I imagine.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I think they also changed record labels during this time,
so it was a really big overhaul to the band
and to Matt's life. There's some references on the record,
like the title itself, I've Felt Better, Yeah, to this
very life changing, life altering experience. But the other thing
(04:51):
that I think is actually very refreshing about what I
have heard of this album is that it has the
tone where it's like a humorous, sort of punky view
on life and of music, where it hasn't really changed.
(05:12):
Dinosaur Pile Up is not all of a sudden the
super serious band. This this experience didn't turn them into
tool or or Metallica, like they're still about having fun
at a rock show.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It reminded me of some of the tone of Morrissey,
like that sort of it's like a witty a witty existentialism.
It's not. It's a lot more. I think it's a
lot more like optimistic vibes than Morrissey, but those like
(05:46):
super relatable kind of terms like I felt better. There's
some there's that phrase, such a British thing to say,
like instead of saying I'm good or I'm not good,
you say I felt better.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it's like, Okay, I'm just coasting.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I'm coasting. I'm generally bad, but I also am
bad today.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
This song I'm about to Lose It, I think, is
a great example also of the band's songwriting, where it
has really good riffs in it the lyrics. If you
do listen for the lyrics and you do dive into it,
there are a lot of cheeky, funny little turns.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
In the words. But then musically the song kind of.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Goes places where you don't expect it based on how
it begins. So here's we're just going to play some
of the chorus for you, I think. So it just
(07:00):
gets really sing song you really anthemy. Whereas it started
as a punk song, it doesn't come as a as
like a jarring change. He has a way of blending
these rifts together, and this is true of their previous
records and EPs, where he has these big riffs that
sort of roll into each other before you kind of
(07:23):
realize that you're in a new part.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
This fully, this really sounds like something I would have
listened to or heard on the radio in like two
thousand and four or something, and I love that it
like it reminds me of Good Charlotte or like some
forty one like that part of it back to Lose
it like that. It just I was like, is this
a recession indicator? It sounds like like Jimmy Eat World
(07:49):
or something like.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That, like a power pop song.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, yes, yes, power darkness even totally it's very pop,
I think is why it's very pop. And you don't
hear a lot of pop rock these days that's.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
All like this, yeah, or you hear pop rock that
is so overtly pop exactly that it it almost doesn't
have any rock credibility. And this seems like it's seems
like it's expertly done, but not like too expertly, like
it was not really a band doing it.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The lyrics, I think, and the way the repetition of them,
you know, are good for a pop song in that way.
But like I think it's like all the parts together
are very all the parts separately are very inspired. Yeah,
and it it's kind of like, oh, it feels like
(08:43):
something that it's like, oh, if I made this, this
might be a hit actually if we, like, if we
play it right, because it is it feels like a
fun song to play to me. I don't know. I'm
I think like all of the kind of like big,
the big swells and then the like quieter parts. It
(09:04):
seems it's dynamic.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
It is dynamic, and it's like a verse chorusy way
of writing a song. But again, it's not like here's
the chorus, let's all go to the chorus. It's like, oh,
this is a new part. And I also like this, Park,
I want to play the this is I guess the
first part of the bridge of the song. To give
you even more of a picture of this record. Yeah, yeah,
(09:44):
So those chording versions they use at the beginning of
that chorus make it sound so big. And in this video,
the music video, they're just a three piece I believe
when I saw them there were four. They had an
additional guitar player. Great live band. Unfortunately, Matt, if you're
(10:05):
listening the venue you played last time you were in
New Jersey, the Saint is no longer with us. I
think it's going to be luxury condos.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well, I mean, what would we do without those? We
need more so they can be empty and we can
have more Airbnbs that are empty. Yeah, I hope they
come back. This is definitely a single that is making
me want to hit play on the whole album. It's
a very it's fun. I want to dance to it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, fun rock music. We could use a little bit
of that. So I think that's our episode. That's our
first listen.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Tell us about yours at at first, Listen to podcast
on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
And we'll be back next time with a new episode.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thank you, thank you, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
R
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And today we're getting the hype around Dinosaur Pile Up
and their latest album I Felt Better, And we're going
to talk specifically, not about the whole album, because I
don't think either of us have listened to the full
thing yet, but we're going to talk about the single
about to Lose It, which is actually not very new,
but since the album did come out relatively recently, and
(00:48):
I like the band a lot, so we're going to
talk about them.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm down, I'm down for this.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This is a band from Leeds, England. They have a
near perfect song on their previous album called Backfoot, which
got a lot of radio play five six years ago.
That song made me a fan of them. We used
to do this thing called the Rock Summit here at iHeart,
(01:16):
where a bunch of rock radio programmers and people around
the rock radio industry would all gather. I think it
was usually in New York, but I think they do
it in LA as well, and labels come down and
they play all the records are going to be promoting
that you give kind of people advanced taste of some
(01:42):
of the new music, and it's like a very long,
like a whole work day kind of event. You break
for lunch, but otherwise you're sitting in for us. It
was an auditorium and you're just seeing these presentations and
listening to either entirely new songs, songs that have not
(02:04):
yet been released, and through the whole day. The one
artist that I highlighted and circled in my notes was
Dinosaur Pile Up. The band name itself really amused me,
and the song Backfoot. I was like, I'm hooked. This
song is a near perfect hard rock song. It's like
(02:27):
equal parts Foo Fighters and the Beastie Boys, the rock
Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, I'm hearing I When you say all of those
three bands at the same time. There there's a silliness
to all of the names that I enjoy, Like Dinosaur
Pile Up, Beasty Boys. What was the middle one you said?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I think I just said two bands.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You said one.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I said the Rock Beastie Boys, because the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Are said the Foo Fighters. Well, those names are all
very silly and I like that.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, So let's play a little bit of About to
Lose It, which is the first track on the new album, I.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Guess I'm back on the edge. Maybe I never.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I always loved an album starting with something's album starty,
like I Guess I'm back.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Oh yeah, he does say I'm back, And it was.
It was a long layoff for these guys. I think
their last at least US tour was twenty nineteen. They
had to take a break sometime after that because the singer,
uh wait does it matter Matt big Land came down
with a serious illness and was in the hospital. He
(03:44):
was afraid he was on death's door as like a
pretty young man, so that that knocked him out for
a while, and a few years later he reformed the
band and they were able to put a new album together.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I mean, you have to be in hop physical form
to tour basically or else well, because it's just so
hard on your body. So if you had it's not
like another job where you could just take time off.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, you don't get sick time as a touring musician.
You get maybe insurance if you're a big touring band,
and that basically just makes your next tour more expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
If I imagine.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I think they also changed record labels during this time,
so it was a really big overhaul to the band
and to Matt's life. There's some references on the record,
like the title itself, I've Felt Better, Yeah, to this
very life changing, life altering experience. But the other thing
(04:51):
that I think is actually very refreshing about what I
have heard of this album is that it has the
tone where it's like a humorous, sort of punky view
on life and of music, where it hasn't really changed.
(05:12):
Dinosaur Pile Up is not all of a sudden the
super serious band. This this experience didn't turn them into
tool or or Metallica, like they're still about having fun
at a rock show.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It reminded me of some of the tone of Morrissey,
like that sort of it's like a witty a witty existentialism.
It's not. It's a lot more. I think it's a
lot more like optimistic vibes than Morrissey, but those like
(05:46):
super relatable kind of terms like I felt better. There's
some there's that phrase, such a British thing to say,
like instead of saying I'm good or I'm not good,
you say I felt better.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it's like, Okay, I'm just coasting.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I'm coasting. I'm generally bad, but I also am
bad today.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
This song I'm about to Lose It, I think, is
a great example also of the band's songwriting, where it
has really good riffs in it the lyrics. If you
do listen for the lyrics and you do dive into it,
there are a lot of cheeky, funny little turns.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
In the words. But then musically the song kind of.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Goes places where you don't expect it based on how
it begins. So here's we're just going to play some
of the chorus for you, I think. So it just
(07:00):
gets really sing song you really anthemy. Whereas it started
as a punk song, it doesn't come as a as
like a jarring change. He has a way of blending
these rifts together, and this is true of their previous
records and EPs, where he has these big riffs that
sort of roll into each other before you kind of
(07:23):
realize that you're in a new part.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
This fully, this really sounds like something I would have
listened to or heard on the radio in like two
thousand and four or something, and I love that it
like it reminds me of Good Charlotte or like some
forty one like that part of it back to Lose
it like that. It just I was like, is this
a recession indicator? It sounds like like Jimmy Eat World
(07:49):
or something like.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That, like a power pop song.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, yes, yes, power darkness even totally it's very pop,
I think is why it's very pop. And you don't
hear a lot of pop rock these days that's.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
All like this, yeah, or you hear pop rock that
is so overtly pop exactly that it it almost doesn't
have any rock credibility. And this seems like it's seems
like it's expertly done, but not like too expertly, like
it was not really a band doing it.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The lyrics, I think, and the way the repetition of them,
you know, are good for a pop song in that way.
But like I think it's like all the parts together
are very all the parts separately are very inspired. Yeah,
and it it's kind of like, oh, it feels like
(08:43):
something that it's like, oh, if I made this, this
might be a hit actually if we, like, if we
play it right, because it is it feels like a
fun song to play to me. I don't know. I'm
I think like all of the kind of like big,
the big swells and then the like quieter parts. It
(09:04):
seems it's dynamic.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
It is dynamic, and it's like a verse chorusy way
of writing a song. But again, it's not like here's
the chorus, let's all go to the chorus. It's like, oh,
this is a new part. And I also like this, Park,
I want to play the this is I guess the
first part of the bridge of the song. To give
you even more of a picture of this record. Yeah, yeah,
(09:44):
So those chording versions they use at the beginning of
that chorus make it sound so big. And in this video,
the music video, they're just a three piece I believe
when I saw them there were four. They had an
additional guitar player. Great live band. Unfortunately, Matt, if you're
(10:05):
listening the venue you played last time you were in
New Jersey, the Saint is no longer with us. I
think it's going to be luxury condos.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well, I mean, what would we do without those? We
need more so they can be empty and we can
have more Airbnbs that are empty. Yeah, I hope they
come back. This is definitely a single that is making
me want to hit play on the whole album. It's
a very it's fun. I want to dance to it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, fun rock music. We could use a little bit
of that. So I think that's our episode. That's our
first listen.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Tell us about yours at at first, Listen to podcast
on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
And we'll be back next time with a new episode.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thank you, thank you, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
R
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