In this interview spotlight, I chat with Pilot Run about their latest project, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create?
We all grew up around Colchester, Essex, in the UK, but I guess you could say that London is our base. We’re essentially a three-piece rock band but as to defining our music past that, all I can confidently say is that our songs are a release of pent-up dismay that you can sing along to. We like our music to be driving, with big drums and guitars, and we like to tell a story through the lyrics.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Matt, Craig and I all met at high school, where we spent our lunch times in the music block playing your typical Nirvana covers, before joining forces with a rival three-piece to form what would become our first band, Street Light Youth. We all grew into similar music tastes, citing key influences as At the Drive-In, Million Dead and Refused, to name a few. We released several demos and EPs, played a lot of live shows locally around Essex and London, and were lucky enough to land a slot at Donnington Download Festival at the age of 16, which was an awesome experience. Eventually we parted ways when we went to university.
None of us wanted to stop playing, so we started a new band called Fervours, which in many ways was a continuation of the sound we’d grown into, but geography continued to pull us a part and after a couple of releases we lost momentum.
For a long time, we didn’t play at all or at least didn’t play together. For my part, I was largely confined to writing songs in my bedroom that I assumed would never see the light of day. But a couple of years ago I realised how much I missed being in a band, so I booked in a recording session despite having no complete songs, just to put pressure on myself to pull everything together.
Being in a band was such an intrinsic part of our formative years that I, for one, feel a little lost without it being part of my life. Motivation comes naturally when you’re having fun and love writing music together.
You’re set to release your first EP this year. How is this new release different than your previous one? Are you trying to accomplish anything specific?
We’re really excited to get moving on the new EP. It holds great significance for us, as in writing it we’re having to define our own sound.
Our first two tracks, ‘Ghost of Me’ and ‘To a Spark’ were songs I’d been working on alone. When I decided to record them, I essentially asked Matt and Craig to do me a favour by playing bass and drums on the tracks, so there was no real collective input.
The dynamic of the band has changed dramatically since we’ve been working on the new material, as we’re very much working together on each track. We’ve each made significant contributions and each had a voice in what we write, which means as a group we’re all invested in the songs.
It’s taking us a while to pin down the final tracks we’re going to use, as we’re still having conversations such as, ‘I like it, but is it really us?’, which was never a question when I first started writing. Of the three songs I initially intended, only one of them has made the cut as the others no longer fit our vision, but as a result of writing together, the new material is much stronger.
What I love about writing an EP is that there’s a real desire to make it a varied but balanced listening experience, which means that each track can explore a different side to our sound. There’s a different focus writing in this way rather than writing single after single, and I think it allows us to express ourselves more completely.
What we’re really looking to accomplish is to complete the record and be proud of it. We want to be able to play it to people and say, ‘This is us; this is Pilot Run.’ Music is one of the most potent forms of expression in my eyes as it has a permanence; like a set of photographs, each song is a sonic snapshot of a certain period in our lives. I guess I’m a bit sentimental but I want to be able to look back and recognise the EP as a true representation of us.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
I’m an optimist when it comes to technology and as a general rule I view the digital music age to be beneficial to indie musicians, though there are certainly challenges.
With digital distribution to streaming services, we now have the ability to reach audiences globally without what would have been the expense of touring—an impossible feat for us financially at this stage. Though we’re a UK band, our biggest listener base is actually in the US, which is exciting as ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to reach across the Atlantic.
One of the biggest challenges is getting heard. Achieving a placement on a high-profile playlist is essentially the Holy Grail for an indie artist, as you have the chance to gain hundreds or potentially thousands of new listeners, but it’s not easy to do so unless you have the time to put groundwork into building individual relationships with playlist co-ordinators, who are no doubt being hounded by thousands of like-minded artists hoping for the same exposure.
Another challenge is the apparent shortening of listener’s attention spans. Music is so disposable for the average listener now that you need to capture a listener’s attention in the first minute of a song. As a band in its infancy, this inherently means that there needs to be a significant pay-off, usually a chorus, early on if you want a chance to find your way onto a playlist. This can lead to better, more concise song writing, but it can stunt the exploration of your own creativity too. We’re not shy about getting to the point as this tends to be how we instinctively write, but we would only do so if it’s right for the song.
One potential concern for me is Spotify’s recent addition that allows artists to submit songs directly to their editorial team for consideration. While this is a fantastic opportunity for new artists, you can only submit one track at a time and only do so for unreleased tracks. This in itself is not a problem, but it once again propagates the idea of the single and implicitly discourages unknown artists like us to release an album or EP.
In our case, we are planning to release a five-track EP later this year, which is counter-intuitive given the potential exposure we could achieve by releasing five singles. There becomes a trade-off between having a body of work, such as an EP, which represents a period of the time for the band and can be turned into a physical record, and releasing five distinct songs for the purpose of gaining exposure, so it depends on your priorities.
What was the last song you listened to?
Wasted Time by Carnival Kids. I love these guys and they’re not afraid to push their musical boundaries, as they have done with this song compared to their first album, While the World Keeps Ending, which is equally brilliant. I’m a big supporter of Carnival Kids, particularly as we played with their guitarist, Jethro, in Street Light Youth. It’s great to see he’s doing so well.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl, for sure. I grew up in the age of CDs and didn’t experience vinyl until about ten years ago, when I started wandering around charity shops, picking up seminal albums such as a 1967 copy Songs of Leonard Cohen and a 1977 release of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I definitely romanticise vinyl, but for me there’s a magic in knowing that you’re sharing the same listening experience as someone who picked it up when the album was released; I like imagining how they felt when they heard it for the first time.
No other medium compares to holding an LP in both hands, allowing the artwork to speak boldly as it was intended. The record itself feels precious, as it is something delicate in itself that you want to protect, so you immediately place more value on it as a possession. The sound, too, feels like it occupies more space than it does in MP3s; you get more of a sense that you’re in the room with the artist and can isolate each instrument as you listen. Perhaps most importantly, you come to appreciate an album in its full context, as you’re unable to skip or cherry pick the songs you prefer, which leads to a greater appreciation for the work as a whole. With older albums in particular, you can often hear the ebb and flow of side A to side B, as if each were deliberately made to tell its own story. This is something that is often lost in the age of singles and streaming services.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
My personal preference is Spotify, both from a listener and artist’s perspective.
As a listener, I’ve found Spotify’s personalised playlists like Discover Weekly to be invaluable. Music is so readily accessible and prolific now that it can be daunting to go out of your way to find your new favourite artist. We live in an age of convenience, which has its pros and cons, but having a set of new songs delivered to my ears every week has allowed me to discover some real gems that I would never have heard otherwise.
This is useful as an artist, too, as it encourages me to listen to new music rather than get stuck in the rut of listening to the same albums I’ve always kept close, which is undeniably important when it comes to developing your own song writing.
Spotify for Artists is also ahead of the majority of its competitors. The dashboard updates daily, showing you how many people have listened to your tracks, their age bracket and geography, as well as any playlists you’ve been added to. I look at this every day, as it excites me to see where in the world people are discovering us and it allows me to consider how to best engage with our audience.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
We really appreciate you following us on Spotify in particular, as the number of people that follow us determines the number of people we reach when we release new music, so that’s the best place to support us if you like what we’re doing. We’ve also put together our own playlist containing some of the songs that have influenced us over the years, so it’s a good place to potentially discover some other music that you may not have heard before.
Otherwise, we’ll be updating Facebook and Instagram (@pilotrunband) as we get closer to the release of our EP, so do get involved—we’re always pleased to hear from you!
Anything else before we sign off?
We’d like to say thanks to Joshua at MTM for giving us the opportunity to be interviewed, and thanks to your readers for taking an interest in us, we really appreciate it.
