IdiotPilot.CO.UK

daniel Anderson interview 09/01/2007

You recently said it's more than likely there would be a drummer on your future tours, why is this?
We are always trying to push ourselves to be progressive and, as a band, be open to anything. In this case we simply thought it would be an exciting way to look at the music from a different angle, specifically, a more organic angle. This is partially because the new songs are somewhat more "organic" but we also planned for the organic metaphor to take over the inorganic metaphor from the beginning, it is more just a question of how long it would take. That doesn't mean that it will stay this way, but there is a story that we are writing and this is where it is supposed to go for now. I can assure you that there won't be any LESS programming, just additional live drums.

Do you have any ideas of drummers at the moment?
We have a couple of idea be I don't want to say anything until it is confirmed. It defiantly takes a special kind of person who can play the rhythms we need them to play, to a click track, every night without fail. You have toured the United States and United Kingdom extensively, are there any plans to branch out to Europe or even the East?
Absolutely, once we have the tour set up and ready to go, we are completely dedicated to spending the next long while out on the road. I really miss the UK actually, so I am excited to go back and play. You guys really know how to make bacon better than anywhere else in the world. We will probably tour the US first though, but you never know, sometimes tours just pop up and you can't say no.

Bacon, ay! Well what are two of your favorite things about touring the UK?
I will tell you what I don't like, the sandwiches. You guys will put pretty much anything on a sandwhich over there and call it good. I have never seen sandwich combinations that bizarre. Breakfast; on the other hand, I can't wait for a proper English breakfast. I don't even like breakfast in general, but you all really know how to pull it together. Food choices aside, I really love the fans over there because they are very very dedicated. I often find that, with fans in the UK, when they like a band they don't just think they are alright, they really love them and really support them, at least in out case. It's a really nice feeling to be so far from home and to be greeted with that kind of enthusiasm.

Who has been your main inspiration during the writing/recording of Wolves?
That question is kind of hard to answer because, like Strange, we have been recording for so long that the influences and the reasons for recording have changed over time, whether it is the circumstances we are in as a band or what we are listening to at the time. I think that the one thing that keeps this album totally consistent is that the writing is very directly personal to Mike, and most of it is directly about the recording industry and our experience with it. A lot of the songs are almost like diary entries, and at the time it was being written we were just completely swept up in what it is to be a couple of 19 to 20 year old kids with all of these opportunities and all of these interesting characters that we encounter, so these dairy entries really reflect that.

In an interview with MTV late last year, you were quoted 'fans can expect to hear a more seasoned, more progressive Idiot Pilot, one that experiments with various soundscapes but in a more mature manner.' - Personally I thought Strange We Should Meet here was extremely mature, both musically and lyrically. So can you elaborate on this at all?
I think that weather or not Wolves actually is more mature than Strange, and I personally think that it is, it will be perceived that way. I think that it is defiantly a case of perceptive, where it is easy to listen to something like Strange and think, "how can this possibly be improved upon? so I suppose the answer is really just to listen to Wolves and see for yourself. I think that as a whole, we are much better at having an idea in our head and getting it into auditory form, there is much less of a filter there based on the technical side of things.

I also think that with Wolves, all of the parts that are supposed to be really dissonant and crazy are much more so than Strange, and all the parts that are supposed to be beautiful and haunting are much more beautiful and haunting. Somehow we succeeded in taking our extremes farther apart yet putting them together in an album that flows in a much more mature kind of way.

What have you done to relax while not recording?
Well, we are waiting to mix right now, which is happening next week, so there isn't really a lot of productive stuff for us to be doing. I am a little bit of a workaholic so it is hard for me to find stuff to do that isn't somehow related to Idiot Pilot. We have been working on some songs here and there that we think are going to be b-sides for Wolves, and I have a couple of new song ideas that will probably just hang around until it is time to start working on the third album. Other than that I have been watching a lot of movies and reading a lot of books, going out to dinner with friends, the usual stuff that people do when they are not working, I guess.

I have been trying to catch some of the local bands around Bellingham too, which is weird because we have been touring for so long that it is kind of a totally different scene. All the bands that were here when we left have mostly gone the way of the dinosaur.

Do you have any art work for Wolves yet?
Not yet, we have been throwing around ideas for quite a while and still nothing seems to fit like it should.

You said that the album would be a lot 'darker and heart-wrenching'; does this mean more screaming on your part?
Actually not really. In fact, the screaming is, if anything, more selective. There are probably just as many heavy dissonant parts, but we defiantly found several different and interesting ways to present them. When I say darker, that applies to everything, not just one aspect of the music. The whole album is very "night time", if that makes any sense. There is just this overwhelming dark beauty to it, not nessiceraly dark as in negative, in fact I think the message is sometimes uncharacteristically positive, but dark as in moody and, I suppose, more mature.

will Michael be rapping on wolves? If not, how comes?
Not this time, although there are some very "Neptunes"eque beats on this one. A reoccurence of something similar to the rapping on Miltence Prom will probably never happen again, because I don't think either of us feels that that kind of vocal applies to our music very well. That is speically why we used it in that instance, lyrically that song Militance Prom is actually about writing songs, and how there is this trend for people to try and break a formula but setting out to specifically do that, and not actually writing from there heart.

Trying to be experimental for the sake of being experimental. We just put ourselves in the shoes of someone like that and said, if we could do the most ridiculously out of place thing right now, what would it be. This line "These are the words to our song, (So where's it going now?)" and "I know hip hop's played out" (So where's it going now?)" specifically illustrate what I am talking

That song is very literal, and the best part it that it almost references itself in a circle. I like the way it kind of breaks down the fourth wall.

Will there be new merchandise on up coming tours? Also will you be designing it again?
We actually haven't really gotten that far yet. I am sure that there will be some, but I don't really know who is going to be involved at this point.

Will you be releasing any samples/snippets of new songs before the official release of Wolves?
We don't really know yet, but I would say it is more likely than not. I mean, we are obviously going to do a single before the album comes out, so I guess that is a yes.

Are you concerned at all that you may get perhaps too famous on hype, partly because of who you're working with? Teenage Riot, UK
Not in the least, the idea of getting "too famous" due to hype or anything else has never really been a concern for Mike and I. We don't care if we get played on the radio all the time or on get huge rotation on MTV, in fact, we would defiantly prefer it as long as that meant getting our music out there to more people who needed it. When we are writing songs that is probably literally the last thing that would ever cross our minds. All we want to do is make the best music that we can and have a lot of people hear it that is all.

I very much believe that if you like an artist it should be because they sound good to you, and that means that if the number one band on TRL sounds great to you then you should support them, but it ALSO means that if you like the band that practices down the street from you, they should be giving exactly the same respect. Art should be seen for what it is, no matter how it is presented... Unless, of course, it is one of those instances where the art is in the presentation itself.

I'd just like to thank Daniel for taking the time for answering these questions.

Navigation
- About - Bowling - Discography - Competition - Downloads - Ghost	- Interviews - Links - Lyrics - Myspace - Nav - Videography

CBox

Heart is Long EP
Buy now on iTunes