Localized

by Andrew Glassett [andrew@slugmag.com]

Issue 236 / August 2008    More from this Issue


Matt Wigham – Drums
Jason Weidhauer – Bass
Sean Miller – Guitar/Vocals
Chris Clement – Guitar/Vocals

It seems like bands always have that one short and/or squatty and/or ugly member that just seems to hold everyone back – usually the bass player or the drummer. Not so for Pilot This Plane Down, they are all tall, slim and clean cut. They have jobs and families and are one of the older functioning bands in Salt Lake. There is something special about a band that can keep its original members for more than five years. Coty Creighton was an original member, but now drifts in and out as he sees fit. He even helped record their latest album Glory of the World, which will be released on the night of Localized.

SLUG: How has the band dynamic changed over the years?
PTPD: It started out with Chris and me making noise around one a.m. every now and then. It was literally noise – nothing but feedback, breaking things, drums and yelling for an hour straight. It was pretty nutty stuff, but we would record it onto cassette tapes and go home and listen to it over and over again thinking how great it would be to make a band out of it. We asked Matt and Coty, who were playing in another band at the time, and later Jason to come check out what we were doing and see if they wanted to be a part of it. At first, it was totally disorganized and improvisational; Ideas flew around all over the place. We talked about recording soundtracks for independent film and incorporating film or other visual media into our live performances. We really tried to blend as many mediums into what we were doing as we could. At one point we even tried to play our improv mess in real time instead of in musical measures. We all played to a giant digital timer and made changes based on different time intervals. It was a great idea on paper, and utter crap in practice.Slowly we organized the mess into something more coherent that we could reproduce live and the result was the material we put together when we recorded Airs with Andy Patterson. It was much more listenable than what we were doing before, but a lot of the improv/noise elements survived in transitioning to that first record. After Airs, the music dynamic became much more conventional. We wrote actual, individual songs instead of the 21-minute jam fest featured on Airs.

SLUG: Talk a little about the conceptual aspect to your music.
PTPD: I suppose the main theme of the new record is that life is impermanent, and whether for good or bad, it’s always changing. The theme revolves around the story of a civilization that comes to power, spreads itself too thin and eventually collapses. Dan Christofferson did an amazing job with the artwork, referencing different civilizations that have fallen over the years. There are various other themes and ideas strewn through the album, but there really isn’t any message or agenda to it at all. It was intended to be pretty broad so you can walk away from it with whatever you find.

SLUG: What about the themes of decorating or lining objects with bodies and flesh. What would be a good translation of that symbol?
PTPD: I’m not sure that it means anything in particular. I intentionally tried to be as brutal as I could with most of the lyrics, but it was only meant as part of the story, notfor the sake of being all gore-metal like Chris said. I actually just referenced different historical figures bent on changing the world in their own image. The imagery of flesh and bodies wasn’t really as much symbolic as it was historic. The lyrics aren’t meant to be as gore-metal as this question makes it appear.

SLUG: Why have you chosen to be a musician? Why not express yourself in some other way?
PTPD: I don’t know if any of us consciously choose to be musicians. I don’t even know if we actually are musicians. I think we all just fell into something we enjoyed. Pilot has been nice since we’ve been able to incorporate other art forms into the music. The new record, for example, will be an enhanced CD that includes video footage that we used to project behind our live performances. There are also some remixes that Coty did of Airs, and video clips that go along with those as well.

SLUG: Tell me about Coty’s influence on the band. How does his coming and going affect how the band works together?
PTPD: Coty affected us in ways that could not be duplicated. It seems like half of our arrangements are fueled by what Coty does with them. He filled in a lot of the blanks generally found in a 4 piece band. Fortunately, we have been able to keep it together without him and our performance has faced minimal damage. We have a blast.

SLUG: Briefly talk about your relationship with Exigent Records.
PTPD: Without Exigent this album would not be. We don’t have the money to put into this. Colby Houghton, owner/operator of Exigent, has been a long-time friend of Sean’s and mine. He was interested in Pilot This Plane Down before we split the first time, when he was just gathering bands for the label. We were honored that after all this time, now that he has some really good music going, he was still interested in us. He’s not putting this out for the opportunity to make money. He’s into the art of it – which is good, because that’s all we’ll bring.