Written by music journalist Grant Moon, Big Big Train – Between The Lines: The Story Of A Rock Band was originally published on 16th June 2022.
Big Big Train – Between The Lines documents the career of Big Big Train from inception until early 2022. From the band’s humble beginnings in Bournemouth on the UK’s south coast and its slow progress through the 1990s, Classic Rock and Prog magazine writer Grant Moon then covers Big Big Train’s endurance through the 2000s before charting the arrival into the band of drummer Nick D’Virgilio in 2007 and their breakthrough with 2009 album The Underfall Yard, their first with vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David Longdon.
The book goes on to explore the band’s steady rise to greater commercial and critical success during the 2010s, including their return to live performance in 2015 and triumphant headline show at the Night Of The Prog festival at Loreley, Germany in July 2018.
Big Big Train – Between The Lines concludes by detailing the band’s story up to early 2022, detailing 2021’s Common Ground and 2022’s Welcome To The Planet albums and how the band persisted despite numerous challenges including the turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The book was written primarily in 2020 and 2021 and completed early in 2022 to take account of David Longdon’s tragic death in November 2021. Moon interviewed over 30 musicians and other individuals connected with Big Big Train and their story. These included Tony Banks of Genesis, who provides significant insight into David Longdon’s audition to replace Phil Collins in Genesis.
Big Big Train – Between The Lines was originally published as a 270-page, coffee table-style hardback book, with over 180 photographs and illustrations documenting the band’s career and the early lives of band members, many of which have never been previously published. It was made available as a digital book in late 2025.
