Big Mess

Message from Big Mess themselves:

Report Card is a concept album exploring the universal experience of high school through its many personalities, social hierarchies, awkward encounters, and unforgettable moments.

From overachievers and underachievers to bullies, outcasts, class clowns, and hopeless romantics, the album examines the roles we play during adolescence. Some identities are assigned to us, others we choose, and a few we spend adulthood trying to outgrow.

Rooted in American high schools at the turn of the millennium, Report Card reaches beyond any particular graduating class. Music, fashion, and cultural references may change, but the desire to belong, the fear of embarrassment, first love, heartbreak, and uncertainty about the future remain remarkably familiar.

Through humor, irony, nostalgia, and the occasional uncomfortable truth, the album celebrates a time when insignificant moments felt monumental and important lessons often went unnoticed until years later.

Ultimately, Report Card is about more than looking back. It’s about recognizing how those formative experiences continue to shape who we become. The names and faces may change, but the characters and stories remain surprisingly familiar.

After all, we may graduate from high school, but some part of high school never quite graduates from us.

We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed making it.

Report Card is dedicated to Livonia Public Schools.

Thank you,

BM

The new albums “Report Card” (2026) & “…from Sheldon Hall to Wonderland Mall” (2024) by Big Mess are now everywhere through Underflow Records

Big Mess is a project born from the enduring friendship of musicians who have been playing together on and off since 2008. The band is composed of high school friends Scott Allen, Rob Carden, Pat Carden, and Mike Carden, with Scott’s dad Brad joining on in 2024, making Big Mess a tight-knit group that thrives on their shared history and musical chemistry. Known for their seamless collaboration, the band handles every aspect of their music themselves, from recording to engineering, creating a truly self-contained musical experience.

While Scott Robert Allen is best known for his work in Thunderbirds Are Now!, a band that brought Detroit’s experimental rock scene to the world stage, Big Mess showcases a different side of his musical evolution. Moving beyond the genre-defying sounds of his solo project Scoffs, where he honed intricate arrangements and sincere vocals, Big Mess blends all these influences into a cohesive sound. Their music echoes the experimental folk rock pop traditions of Buffalo Springfield, the Beach Boys, Wilco, and Damon Albarn, with songs that range from the bombastic to the intimately stripped-down.

Their third album, “...From Sheldon Hall to Wonderland Mall,” released worldwide on September 3rd, 2024, through Underflow Records, is a tongue-in-cheek homage to their hometown of Livonia, Michigan. The album’s nine tracks explore themes of art, music, love, and loss, all with a distinctive flair that balances humor with heartfelt emotion. Big Mess invites listeners to journey through urban decay, nostalgic suburbs, and quirky adventures, offering a sound that is both hilariously humble and deeply sincere, reminiscent of the spirit of Harry Nilsson.

Their fourth full-length album “Report Card” finds Big Mess diving deeper into their influences, past, and history while forever moving forward through the push and pull of life. Full of reflections, humor, and lessons from lived experience, “Report Card” offers some of the strongest and most vulnerable songwriting while also unifying the band tighter than they’ve ever sounded by digging deeper into the circus of life, together.